Thought I would post this for what it's worth:

Name: Mason Wheeler Email: macmaster@arl.com Location: Washington State Occupation: webpage designer My uncle works in nuclear plants, and he's told me that it's all going down. He's currently working right in the middle of the Y2K bugfix problem, and he says he knows there's no way they'll have it fixed in time. Everyone knows what magnets do to computers. Gamma rays are far, far worse. So the systems in nuke plants are sealed behind concrete. Since some of the problems are in hardware, the "standard Y2K bugfix kit" for nuke plants includes a jackhammer. I'm not kidding. Since most of the east coast runs off nuclear power, they'll have extended blackouts. That means blackouts in big cities. And that means major rioting. Also, since this will go down in January, that means no electric heating in Winter. This will also be a perfect oportunity for terrorists of all types to take over down plants, since they will then literally control the power over our highly-electrical society. I doubt that meltdowns will take place, but power failures are a far worse posibility. I'm so glad ZDNet put up an article about this, because I've been arguing the exact same points for months, and now I have something to point to for those who accuse me of alarmism. http://www.zdnet.com/talkback/22_21143_87123.html

-- James Chancellor (publicworks1@bluebonnet.net), November 24, 1998

Answers

Thank you James for the information. Like I said before, scarey stuff but we still need to be informed! Blondie

-- Blondie Marie (Blondie@future.net), November 24, 1998.

Wondered why PG&E recently sold their nuclear power plants.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 24, 1998.

I disagree with his assessment, but that's okay.

If anybody is worried - you can get a "good enough" radiac (Geiger counter) from Edmunds Electronics - they make them for high school physics and advanced chemistry classes.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 24, 1998.

Robert, please explain what you disagreed with. Thanks much.

-- areseejay (areseejay@aol.com), November 24, 1998.

Bob--

If anybody is worried - you can get a "good enough" radiac (Geiger counter) from Edmunds Electronics.

I'm not sure I get the reasoning here. No matter how sensitive a radiation meter you have, if any particulate alpha, beta or gamma emitters settle down on your neighborhood, everyone will be affected, whether or not they're holding a meter.

Some years ago I bought a very sensitive counter, (reading in micro-roentgens). I let it run for several days to establish the local background where I live. And I repeat this every couple of months or so. The background has been pretty stable, running at 11 to 12 micro-r (not milli-r !) per minute. I live on the top floor of an apartment bldg. with a wood and shingle roof.

In 1996 the Ukrainian government let residents of the closed area around Chernobyl go back in for a day, I suppose for old times' sake. Mostly old people went, the young ones didn't want to take the risk. Somebody goofed, and started a grass fire which spread over a large area. Nothing has been mowed or trimmed, everything was dry, and it was quite a fire. (This incident is mentioned here)

This was reported on CNN. I knew this fire would kick up a lot of radioactive dust so I set up my monitor the next day and just let it run, fiiguring that if the jet stream brought any of that dust over here it might show up. Sure enough, 3 days after the grass fire the background here went up to 16-18 micro-r/minute. It stayed there for a couple of days, then we had a good rain and the count went back to where it was before. I figure the roof got washed off, and we're far enough from the ground that it didn't make that much difference.

This particular event didn't deliver enough to matter. But in any case there was nothing I could DO about it, except leave town -- but where to go?

The rule of thumb in the 1950's was that you needed at least three feet of earth over you for protection against fallout from nuclear weapons. Trouble with that idea was that the ground outside would still be contaminated for quite some time. When you left the bunker you'd be back in the soup. When you went back in you'd carry some of the dust with you. And some of that stuff is not only radioactive but physiologically toxic.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), November 25, 1998.

Your comments are exactly what (and why) I mentioned it -

1) background radiation is everywhere, and is a normal part of life for the last 100,000+ years of human developement. Give or take a volcano or two, its about average what you found - maybe more downwind of a coal fired power plant or open pit quarry where the bare rock is exposed. More higher up from cosmic rays - an airline pilot flying regularly got more than I did working (living) within feet of the reactor because he wasn't shielded.

2) You can't "see" smell or taste contamination - you don't know when it comes, goes, or is washed away.

Quick health phyics lesson here - radiation is either gamma rays (stopped by earth, steel, and concrete), or beta rays (electrons - stopped by 4-6 inches of air or a magazine thickness of paper) or alpha rays (He nuclei - stopped by air or a single sheet of paper or your skin - they won't penetrate.) But if alpha-emitting particles are ingested (not in your stomach - then they go away in 30 hours) they can emit all their energy in a single small place in your lungs - this can cause problems, maybe cancer if you get enough. (So don't breathe in a lot of contamination if it has alpha emitters in it.)

Notice I said emitters - the radiation (what part "you" are worried about as a civilian outsidew the plant or from a bomb burst) is coming from minnute particles of dust. So if you isolate yourself from the dust - you will not be exposed to the radiation. If the dust - the contamination that is emitting radiation - is washed away - you are safe. Downstream - its a different story - they are receiving the wash from the whole state/county - and so the contamination levels are increasing as the area increases.

Radiation goes away becuase once a particle decays (under many cases) it won't decay again.

So, if a person is greatly concerned about radiation post (or prior) to Y2K, thay must get a radiac now and found out what is the normal background, and whay it fluctuates, and when, and why they should not worry so much about low levels. If they "begin" after year 2000, on top of everything else, to monitor radiation, they will quickly go "nuts" with paranoia.

On the other hand - you were measuring microrem. Okay, that represents a measure of radiation 1/1000 of a mrem (millirem). Remember that you can be exposed for working conditions (without danger) to over 200 mrem's per year - many thousand times that level you measured on the radiac you had.

Nuclear workers used to be allowed as part of their jobs to get 5000 mrems per year - and they if needed, they can get permission to exceed that.

(Everybody tries to keep it WAY below these - but its an example) You start getting bad doses at 25 Rem in a single exposure, and at 150 Rem half may die (as what happended to the fire fighters and helicopter pilots at Chernobyl. The Soviets basically ordered those guys to their deaths.)

Remember too, many thousand survived direct exposure exceeding these levels at Hirshima and Nagasaki - and other tests with Army troops covered only by trenches to shield theimmediate blast. respect radiation, but don't fear it.

That help?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 25, 1998.

Areseejay: Please don't ask Robert to explain why he disagrees. The original email was written by a child then copied by Mr. Chancellor to a forum the child probably doesn't know exists... If you don't understand why he disagrees, please do a little self - study of basic physics.

-- PNG (png@gol.com), November 25, 1998.

Bob-- "That help?"

Didn't think I was asking for help here. I'm thoroughly familiar with all the facts you present about ionizing radiation. I worked at the Nevada Test Site before, during and after the "Teapot" test series in 1955. One of my duties was mapping the fallout from each of the shots and merging that into the cumulative map of fallout for all tests to date. These maps were made to show infinite isodose contours, i.e., the amount of radiation a person would receive if he stood in a particular spot forever. An arbitrary measure, but it gave a representative picture of what was coming down out of the clouds. Some of the shots spread measurable radioactivity on the ground well east of the Mississippi river. I wasn't involved in the monitoring, either ground or air, only in converting the monitor's reports into maps.

My point, apparently missed, was that any release of radioactive nuclides from reactors anywhere in the world can reach a long way. We don't know if Y2K will generate such accidents or not. Some precautions can be taken, like staying indoors and washing produce, sufficient to deal with relatively light dose rates, but only a meter will tell you you're at risk. I'd rather know than not, myself.

As for "respect radiation, but don't fear it" -- what exactly does this mean? It make sense for some things-- guns, cars, salmonella -- but it seems irrelevant in the case of radiation. One doesn't "fear" a gun pointed at your head -- you "fear" the guy holding it will pull the trigger. One doesn't "fear" salmonella -- you just cook your food thoroughly so it won't bite. But with ionizing radiation, as from Chernobyl-type accidents, the trigger has been pulled, the bacilli are in your system, without technological goodies you won't even know anything has happened till you see the petechiae and start vomiting.

Every pilot on the monitoring flights through the fallout clouds from the Nevada tests died of cancer, well before they got old. Many of the troops who were out in the desert near GZ for one shot in the Teapot series were seriously affected, long term. The incidence of cancer and infant deformities in the areas of Utah and Nevada where the fallout was concentrated has been much higher than the norm for communities elsewhere.

Any good library will have a copy of Carole Gallagher's American Ground Zero. She documents the effects of the fallout from the Nevada tests on the people downwind. And the guys running the program were well aware of the effects of radiation.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), November 25, 1998.

I used to work in the office of a highway department. The office air always smelled musty, moldy and mousy. When I complained I was called Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, paranoid, etc. One day all the air registers in the ceiling puffed out clouds of dust and everyone evacuated the building, including the gutsy "psychologists."

No one investigated what happened. I searched for the air filters in the HVAC sytem and found them in the equipment on the roof. The air filters had blown out because they were so dirty that the air could no longer pass through.

There were three big air handling units of the roof and I inspected them all. All of the motors that controlled the fresh air intake louvers were burned out and the louvers were stuck shut.

I voluteered to change the filters myself for the rest of my employ since there'n no cure for stupidity; even college-bred artificial stupidity. I asked where the new filters were stored and was led to a room that was locked and had the black yellow nuke sign on it. Inside were boxes of new air filters stored next to several nulcear radiation densometers which are used to test road pavement.

My question is:

DID I GET NUKED FOR MORE THAN 10 YEARS?

Did I breathe irradiated air because these filters were thoughtfully pretreated with alpha, beta or gamma during long term storage? The man who was in charge of tracking these densometers wore a rad. tag and was not to store them near his desk.

To further enhance our office environment the janitor NEVER dusted. My bosses thought that was neat and remodeled, tearing out a concrete block wall and had new commercial carpet glued over perfectly good vinyl asbestos tile. Probably to cover them up to hide them from lawyers. But 3 or 4 years later this carpet was ripped up again and new one glued down again.

All the windows had been srewed shut during the man-made energy crises of the seventies. Hammers were not provided. Our computer video terminals attracted a lot of dust. I could get one handful with one sweep across my desk. I pissed, moaned and groaned. Coughed, spit and slobbered.

-- Nuked Soul (rad@bad.sad), November 25, 1998.

Tom, Robert was answering Areseejay.

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), November 25, 1998.

Point taken, Tom, thank you. Retorically at that point, I wasn't addressing "you" individually, but rather those who have in earlier posts been very worried about nuclear explosions/releases. Sorry about the confusion there.

Radiation does get around - but the amount that can be detected is much less than that which will be harmful, as you found. When open-air tests were more common, several plants got radiation monitoring alarms from the contamination from the Ukraine. Glad they're exploding them underground now - wish tests weren't needed.

Also, the best steel for shielding high energy/high sensitivity nuclear physics survey equipment is that from battleships built before WWII - because contamination since then raises the rad level detectably in the recycled steel regularly available. But the battleship/bridge steel was mined before anything could contaminate it.

But again, based on my own judgement, radiation/nuclear releases are not a factor in my Y2K worries.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 25, 1998.