Chernobyl

[Slick]

A great and sad article. Here's a few of my thoughts:

The author does not distinguish between radiation and contamination. Contamination are unwanted radioactive deposits. Contamination is what is in/on the ground and areas. Contamination gives off radiation of various kinds.

Alpha radiation (basically a helium nucleus) is both the safest and one of the worst. It is the safest because it can't even penetrate a piece of paper or your outer layer of skin. It is the worst because if you injest it by breathing dust or eating alpha contaminated food, it does the worst damage to your internal tissues.

Beta radiation are basically free electrons and positrons. They also are easily shielded. Clothing will stop Beta radiation. Beta is also very bad for internal contamination.

Gamma radiation are just high energy photons. The levels shown in this article on the road trip are thousands of times lower than what you have received during an x-ray. Although any unnecessary exposure should be avoided. The higher levels mentioned can indeed be fatal as discussed. Gamma radiation is highly penetrating - a good thumbrule is that 2 inches of lead will stop 90% of the gammas. Therefore there is no practical "suit" you could wear to protect from gammas. Gamma radiation is the most common from nuclear byproducts and the production of the other kinds of radiation also is usually accompanied by a gamma. It is the gamma radiation that the woman is reading on her detector and it is the gamma that gives you the "general area" radiation levels. Gammas can pass right thru your body or damage tissues along the way.

Neutron radiation, which is very rare from fallout, normally is only detected around actual fission (operating reactor). There are probably no measurable neutron radiation sources outside the sarchophagus and the undergound burial sites. If found, neutron sources are the absolute worst. Neutrons, like gammas, are highly penetrating and do significant tissue damage. Lead does not shield gammas very well. There are certain substances that have good nuclear properties for absorbing neutrons. The article mentions dumping boron into the reactor, that's the reason.

Those are the major types of radiation of concern for nuclear reactors.

Intimidator: as far as iodine goes, Iodine is given to people exposed to fallout. It is normally in the form of a KI (potassium-iodide) pill. What fallout means is a massive spread of the nuclear products of fission. These are generally highly radioactive isotopes of just about everything on the periodic table. Basically there is nothing that can be done if you breathe or otherwise injest radioactive isotopes. Your body will get zapped from the inside out. A *small* protective measure, and one of the only things you can really do is take a KI pill. Your body uses iodine in small quantities. One of the places it concentrates is in/near the thyroid gland. Therefore the thought process is that if you flood your body with KI, any radioactive iodine that your body injests will not be absorbed. As far as all the other isotopes you might have injested, there are no real other ways to prevent your body from absorbing them. So the bottom line is that taking a KI tablet unfortunately does not allow you to withstand any more radiation than the next guy. It does seem to have a calming effect on the general population, though, which is why there were mass rushes to get these pills.

Slick.

edit: corrected typos.

[ April 22, 2004, 02:23: Message edited by: Slick ]