Reply #145: Nonsense

[jpak]

To repeat:

That 500 billion curies of 40K is distributed throughout the ocean and upper crust of the Earth.

The activity of 40K in natural materials (including human tissues) is vanishingly small - trillionths of a curie per kilogram (pCi . kg-1).

(FYI: A curie is a measure of radioactivity. It is defined as 37 billion disintegrations per second).

The human dose from naturally occurring 40K is also vanishingly small - ~140 micro-Grays.

(FYI: Gray is a measure of absorbed ionizing radiation. 1 Gray = 1 joule of absorbed energy per kg. A micro-Gray is a millionth of a Gray)

The statement that 18 billion Ci of 137Cs will have NO biological effect is pure lunacy.

~1 million curies of 137Cs were released during the Chernobyl disaster.

Did this amount of 137Cs have any adverse effect on any humans in the area?????

Has it magically disappeared from the surrounding environment?????

The amount of 137Cs released from Chernobyl was 15 orders of magnitude less than the inventory of 137Cs in US spent nuclear fuel.

The total explosive yield of the US strategic nuclear arsenal is ~2350 MT.

Thermonuclear weapons produce ~200 Ci of 137Cs per kiloton of yield.

The expenditure of the US strategic arsenal would produce 470 million curies of 137Cs fallout.

That amount of fallout is 2 orders of magnitude less than the inventory of 137Cs in US spent fuel.

And this would have no biological effects??????

The National Academy of Sciences estimated that the fallout produced by a "limited" nuclear attack would kill between 13 and 16 million Americans.

See: The Medical Implications of Nuclear War.

http://books.nap.edu/books/0309036925/html/228.html#pagetop

and we are to believe that the release 18 billion Ci of 137 Cs would have NO biological effects????????

This is beyond pseudoscience - it's just plain nuts.

18 billion Ci of 137Cs spread along a 50 mile-wide corridor from DC to Boston would kill everyone in that zone. It would render the land uninhabitable for decades or centuries. It would render the fish and shellfish in the adjacent coastal waters unfit for human consumption for decades or centuries.

It would be a hideous human and environmental disaster.

So please, no more fairy tales.

And eating bananas will significantly reduce uptake of 137Cs????

Bullshit.

Iodine tablets will saturate thyroid and prevent subsequent uptake of radio-iodine. The amount of iodine required, however, is extremely small, <2 mg per kg body mass.

Potassium, on the other hand, is found throughout human tissue - in every cell and body fluid and, compared to iodine, in relatively high concentrations.

The amount of potassium salts you would have to ingest to have a measurable effect on 137Cs uptake would kill you.

The notion that "eating bananas will prevent the uptake of 137Cs" is - well - bananas...

(and pseudoscience bullshit)