Category: Nuclear Radiation 101

Why Do We Fear Radiation? 3

Pamela Jones

Nuclear Radiation 101 part 2 and last

How did you go with my question at the end of the last blog? I am about to hand you a kilogram of a radioactive substance. I have 2 choices. One has a very short half-life and one has an extremely long half-life. Which one is the safest?

The radioactive substance with the short half-life is very dangerous. It has a short half-life because it is decaying quickly and sending out a lot of energy and particles. The substance with a long half-life decays very slowly and may even be safe to hold with very little protection. As a teenager, I held a bar of uranium in my bare hands during a special visit to Lucas Heights. These days they would insist on gloves. In the fifties, Queen Elizabeth II was given a plastic bag containing a large amount of plutonium to hold during her visit to Sellafield.

What implications does this insight have when considering nuclear waste management?

Here is Dr Don Lincoln describing more about radiation.

When discussing the levels of radiation experienced on Earth except in exceptional circumstances, I find it easier to understand if the units are in millisieverts or a thousandth of a sievert.

Don’s Examples of Radiation Levels Expressed as mSv per Year

Woodchopper in woods USA 3
City Dweller with medical tests USA 6
Just from your own body 0.4
Plane trip across the Atlantic 0.025
Whole body CT Scan 10
Nuclear worker maximum allowed 50
Cancer risk starts 100
Radiation sickness 400
Severe radiation poisoning 2000
Usually kills but may survive with medical care 4000
Death certain 8000

The first 6 items in the table are all examples from the USA. Background radiation levels around the world vary enormously as my next blog illustrates.

Why Do We Fear Radiation? 2 Blog by Pamela Jones

Nuclear Radiation 101

How much do you know about nuclear radiation? Here is an opportunity to learn about it in an easy manner. Many of you will know far more about radiation than shown here. However, you too can enjoy these great video segments.

Yes, Earth is a radioactive planet. But just how radioactive is the zone in which we live? Is it dangerous and harmful? And if it is, when is it harmful? In order to really examine these questions, it is important to understand the basics.

There are lots of units used in the nuclear radiation field and it is important to understand what these units mean. Scientists have become very clever at measuring extremely low levels of everything from chemicals to radiation . Just because something can be measured does not tell us whether something is harmful to life or critical for its existence .

In order to illustrate some basic concepts and the language used, I am showing some parts of a few video presentations which describe these concepts in a clear manner in this blog and the next. Each video segment is about 6 minutes long. The full videos are available on YouTube

What is Radiation by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Types of Radiation by Dr Don Lincoln of Fermilab 2017

Is Radiation Dangerous by Dr Don Lincoln of Fermilab 2017

Enough for today! Each new blog will provide more information such as the variability of background radiation on our planet.

But before you go, I would like you to consider the following question. I am about to hand you a kilogram of a radioactive substance. I have 2 choices. One has a very short half-life and one has an extremely long half-life. Which one is the safest?