antiNarcism

No particles of any mass are lost. Energy of any human nuclear technology (except isolated particle/antiparticle Annihilation in advanced accelerators) exploits the higher nuclear binding energy at either end of the periodic table. You are doing science a disservice by polluting this forum with your ignorance. The hypothisis that you are a nuclear industry spindoctor whether you are aware of it or not, is far from disproved

1.5 x 10^-10J is the energy you'd get if you converted just one nuclear particle (p,n) entirely to energy.

E=mc^2 sir 5 MeV = 8 x 10 –13J (energy of 1 u238 alpha emission) do your math From refined.

Mature U238 that has reached its final equilibrium will have 6 beta decays and 7 alpha decays in the period of time it takes for one 238 alpha decay.

DV8 can you take one of your radiation sensors and give me a reading at, say, 20mm from a block of DU a couple mths old plus. It would be even more helpful if you could break this into gamma and beta components. Large block radiation should be relatively constant per surface area. Can't figure why its so hard to find.

Oh dear. Look DV8 this is very simple decay physics and Tom has got it right. You can build a simple model to clarify the picture in your head. 1.)take half a dozen buckets, each is going to represent an element in the decay series, label them as such. 2.) put a hole in each bucket, hole size relative to the inverse of the half life. The flow rate will represent our decay events at each stage. 3.) Stack the buckets on top of each other and fill only the top one (U238) with water. 4.) observe how the total of the flows thru all of the holes increases over time.

Yeah dv8 I can't see how it could get hot enuff fast enuff. my airliner engineer mates reckon its in them all aiirbuses incl. I have some union people ready to raise hs considering theres no mention in training for our guys here. my reputation internationale is in high performance engineering but is of no consequence here. I enjoyed escargot very much when my team was racing in france and switzerland, like a gene splice of Paua (nz black abalone) and grandpapas prime charolais steak fat. Can you tell me if escagot from my regions intense volcanic and geothermal soils will have a uranium count that will damage my health? (Its a silicious ryolite volcanisim, recycled seasludge if you will)

Um, jdurd, are you some kind of cyborg that plans to be here billions of years to take advantage of this arguement?

durn! I just watched footage of the Toronto Airbus burning on the News. The entire tail section melted into a liquid pool in about 5 seconds flat! I'm desperately clinging to the hope that it wasn't the 1000lb DU tailplane counterweight providing the heat but its a slim straw. The LD50 for Sarin nerve gas is 2mg per kg of bodyweight eg/ around 0.18g for 200lb human. Isn't this pretty durn close to ceramicised UO aerosol?

yeah tom, it falls to a slower rate of increase several times until megayears . Haven't found the graph I saw a year back but I think it maxes at 100x or so

Please look at the figures DV8 I can't argue with the half lives in days and hours of 238 daughters, can u? It was you who "handles uranium with their bare hands" wasn't it. Some may consider that gives you an agenda.

So really when you just talk about the alpha from an ingested dose like I did before, you're understating the dose and hazard by some 5 times. The two betas and 3 gammas from each decay of 238 are a considerable external risk too. Can anyone pin down the penetration in Umetal of gamma and Beta so I can approximate the output of airliner sized blocks. Great all those airbus passengers/crew survived in Toronto, have you heard if the ballast blocks burnt DV?

This is one site: http://www.idust.net/Tutorial/DURadiation01.htm eg: all of the uranium isotopes, as they give off alpha particles, produce radioactive decay products that immediately begin contaminating the pure uranium sample and undergoing radioactive decay themselves, giving off their own radioactive emissions. After a sample of NU or DU is six months old, the above figures are no longer correct. The decay products, called daughter isotopes, are giving off beta particles and gamma rays. These must be added to the alpha radiation calculated above, and this will result in a different percentage figure for the amount of radiation given off by DU as compared to NU. The relevant daughter isotopes for each of the uranium isotopes listed above are shown in the following radioactive decay series. Th represents thorium; Pa represent protactinium. Read the "»»" symbol as "producing" or "yielding". U-238 which emits alpha »» Th-234 (half-life = 24.1 days) which emits beta + gamma »» Pa-234 (half-life = 6.75 hours) which emits beta + gamma »» U-234 (half-life = 247,000 years). U-236 which emits alpha »» Th-232 (half-life = 14 billion years) U-235 which emits alpha + gamma »» Th-231 (half-life = 25.5 hours) which emits beta + gamma »» Pa-231 (half-life = 32,500 years) U-234 which emits alpha + gamma »» Th-230 (half-life = 80,000 years) The complete radioactive decay series for each of these is much longer, but for practical purposes once the chain has hit an isotope with a very long half-life, any additional decay becomes insignificant (at least for the duration of our life times). Don't worry DV8, our mon ami george tells me Jesus is far too busy getting ready to scorch the earth for a 1000y to weep.

If this Thread is closed, Hows about a new thread debating the following proposition: "There would be no justification for Nuclear power if it were not for Nuclear weapons" theres just, soooo many cheaper, clean and inexaustable power sources!

Hmmmm... Whats the validity of Nuclear industry websites stuff? It generally looks more like advertising than info. Also the peer review system has many flaws, eg./ ability of powerful vested interests to overwhelm discussion with mistruths pushed by hired sci's.