Anyone who has started a campfire without an accelerate knows that it can be surprisingly difficult to get a good strong self-sustaining flame going, even with the aid of matches or a lighter.   For early man, it was much more difficult still.  Simply being able to consistently create a fire and contain it for use demonstrates a high degree of intelligence and the ability to learn.

Now scientists have discovered evidence that it may have happened earlier than we had previously believed.

Via CBS News:

Humans used fire 1 million years ago, says study
(AP) NEW YORK – When did our ancestors first use fire? That’s been a long-running debate, and now a new study concludes the earliest firm evidence comes from about 1 million years ago in a South African cave.

The ash and burnt bone samples found there suggest fires frequently burned in that spot, researchers said Monday.

Over the years, some experts have cited evidence of fire from as long as 1.5 million years ago, and some have argued it was used even earlier, a key step toward evolution of a larger brain. It’s a tricky issue. Even if you find evidence of an ancient blaze, how do you know it wasn’t just a wildfire?

The new research makes “a pretty strong case” for the site in South Africa’s Wonderwerk Cave, said Francesco Berna of Boston University, who presents the work with colleagues in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

One expert said the new finding should be considered together with a previous discovery nearby, of about the same age. Burnt bones also have been found in the Swartkrans cave, not far from the new site, and the combination makes a stronger case than either one alone, said Anne Skinner of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., who was not involved in the new study.

Another expert unconnected with the work, Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in The Netherlands, said by email that while the new research does not provide “rock solid” evidence, it suggests our ancestors probably did use fire there at that time.

One thing I have always wondered about, and of course, we will never know, is how many ancients may have learned of fire only to abandon it out of fear. Certainly not all of early man’s encounters with fire were pleasant. It may first have been experienced in the wildfires started by spontaneous combustion of overheated turf or from a lightning strike. Such an experience would be terrifying, and once man began to experiment with fire, it’s all but certain that some mishaps and burns occurred.

Yet some groups stuck with it. Perhaps it was because it was recognized as useful or maybe because it frightened others. Maybe it was just curiosity. Whatever the case, at some point, someone began to create fires and, despite perhaps suffering a few burns or coughing on smoke and enduring the frustration of seeing the tiny smoldering embers go out, they learned how to tame and use fire.

Might there have been some tribes that had mastered fire and others that did not? If so, it’s almost certain that this advantage would have lead to those with fire succeeding and those who didn’t falling by the wayside. This could have even been a factor in early human evolution.

But what i early mankind looked at fire the way we look at new forms of energy today? Would they have used fire at all?  It’s a sobering thought to consider that if our ancestors had the same attitude we have today, we might still be eating raw meat, huddled in mud huts at the mercy of the cold darkness of night…

There is something very striking about this image even at first glance.  Notice that the no-entry zone has absolutely no correspondence whatsoever to radiation levels.  It’s simply a circle drawn around the nuclear plant.   Much of the area has quite low radiation levels and some of the area outside the exclusion zone has higher radiation levels than the area within it.  Since there’s now no real danger of the reactors being further damaged or experiencing uncontrolled discharges, there’s absolutely no reason to enforce a no-entry zone based on such a blind method of drawing the map.   If a no-entry zone is to exist at all (which it really, at this point, does not need to)

Actual Doses experienced:

Few areas exceed 20 uSv per hour by very much.  The red area signifies areas with higher than this level, but most of this area is only slightly above 20 uSv/hr.  Areas with 20 uSv/hr or more exist in a relatively narrow strip running northwest from the area of the nuclear plant.

A person lives in an area where the external radiation dose rate is 20 uSv/hr.    Of course, this is really only outdoors and inside there will be less contamination, but for the sake of argument, lets assume the worst:  They get 20 uSv/hr and they stay in that are all the time.  There are 8760 hours in a year, so if they spend all their time outdoors in the 20 uSv/hr area, they receive 175,200 uSv per year or about 175 mSv per year.

This is still a bit unreasonable for what a person would actually be exposed to because it assumes they are always outdoors and standing over ground that has not been in any way cleaned of contamination.  Indoors, the level will be a lot lower.  If they travel outside the area of highest radiation, their dose is also reduced.   As time goes on, both radioactive decay and natural weathering and erosion will reduce levels further.   Therefore, after a year in such an area, it’s more reasonable to expect a total exposure of something like 100-150 mSv and maybe quite a bit less.

Most of the no-entry zone is far bellow this.  The yellow areas would produce only about half the dose of the highest regions and the areas shaded green would result in an annual dose of only about 10-30 mSv her year.  That’s hardly a lot of radiation.

How much radiation a person is exposed to in a year from background sources varies greatly depending on things like location, diet, travel and things like whether they happen to cook with natural gas, live in a granite structure or have radon seeping into their home’s foundation.   About 3 mSv is a normal average for those living at sea level in much of the world.   Of course, it’s quite common for it to be much higher than this.   Areas with background radiation in excess of 10 mSv per year are quite common.  A few areas have much higher.   In the Guarpari region of Brazil, background levels can exceed 175 mSv per year due to local deposits of uranium and thorium.  Residents of Kerala India experience doses of over 70 mSv per year.   Ramsir Iran is famous for having some of the highest levels in the world at over 260 mSv per year.  Locations across Africa and Australia may produce levels above 40 mSv per year.

Studies have been done of the populations of these areas and no ill effects have been documented as a result of the high radiation exposure.   Of course, the expected radiation exposure from living in such an area for an extended period of time would be much higher than for those in the Fukushima area.   Since the radioactivity in the Fukushima region is mostly limited to the surface and includes many relatively short-lived radioisotopes, it will diminish significantly in the years to come.   Natural sources, on the other hand, are constantly replenished.  So a person who lives in an area with increased radiation levels as a result of the Fukushima incident will not experience the same dose next year as they will this year.  It will be less.

And no, there have been no calls that high background areas of the world be evacuated and declared off limits.

Visitation:

Living in the vast majority of the area around Fukushima would result in a radiation dose lower than living in many areas of the world and which could reasonably be considered acceptable.   Visiting these areas, even for extended periods of time, in order to recover property, secure damaged structures and begin the cleanup would result in even lower levels of exposure.  If a person were allowed to travel to the area and spent a cumulative few days in one of the highest areas of radiation, they would receive less exposure than from a dental x-ray.  A person could spend a month in the regions of highest radiation and experience a total increase in annual dose that would be less than that millions of people around the world live with for their entire lives.   Traveling through the area would result in even lower radiation exposure.

A More Reasonable Proposal:

I’d like to propose a more science-based and less restrictive zoning for the area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant.   Under this proposal, the evacuation and no-entry order would be immediately lifted and the vast majority of the area would be available for immediate resettlement, property recovery and rebuilding.

Two zones would remain for the immediate future, the exclusion zone and the limited access zone.

The Exclusion Zone:

The area immediately around the plant boundary.  This area would be accessible to plant workers, recovery teams and others involved in the cleanup, survey and general maintenance. The reason for keeping members of the public out is not only to reduce radiation exposure but also because this area is the primary area of remediation activity and is being used as a staging area for equipment and personnel.  Those working in the area would need to follow standard procedure for dosimeter.

Limited, escorted visits by those who may live just outside the plant perimeter would be allowed for the purposes of recovering property, surveying damage and securing structures that may remain intact.

Limited Access Zone:

This area is defined not by simple distance from the plant but rather follows the approximate area of the highest radiation levels.  Visitation to this area and travel through it would not be subject to major restrictions.   The only restriction to access would be that the area would not be zoned for full time resettlement.   While those living in that area would be allowed to visit their homes without supervision, they would continue to be offered shelter elsewhere and it would be requested that they not permanently settle into the area or remain there for several consecutive days, although such restrictions would be more of a request than a strongly enforced rule.

Recovery efforts, repair of infrastructure traversing the area and recovery efforts would begin immediately with little or no restriction.  As the area would be considered to be free to visit but not designated for resettlement, schools, post offices and other facilities catering to residents would remain closed, but would be repaired and secured.   Basic services like fire and ambulances would be restored as soon as possible.

Those wishing to resettle sooner in the area could begin remediation work, such as power washing surfaces and removing top soil and could have their property surveyed for safety and radiation levels.   If a government-approved surveyor confirms that the total radiation levels for a structure and surrounding area are within certain standards and that the structure has been repaired to meet building codes, that property could be issued a certificate for residency.

The limited access zone would be the only area subject to government sponsored cleanup and radiation remediation measures.  Areas outside this region would only receive such attention if an exceptionally high reading was found on a “hot spot.”  Other than that, it’s just not worth the amount it would cost to reduce already low levels.

Eventually all resettlement limits would be lifted and the exclusion zone around the plant would also be eventually withdrawn, pending how the future of the recovery plays out.

To the health physicists, radiation safety officers, radiologists, reactor operators and other radiation safety professionals of the world:

In most circumstances professionalism and a desire to remain impartial to political matters dictates that those who art part of highly scientific professions exercise a great deal of restraint while addressing pressing policy concerns.   Research scientists especially tend to be very tight lipped about policy matters and are not prone to engaging the media directly.   In many circumstances, there is no direct response from professionals, or if there is, it comes in the form of highly moderated and subdued official statements from organizations.

There is certainly good reason for this.  Science professionals must remain impartial and not risk having their loyalties called into question.   Strong statements about pressing issues of policy can result in criticism which degenerates to mudslinging.  Some experts would simply rather not have to engage non-professionals who are likely to respond with a frustrating lack of understanding of their fields and believe their talents are better utilized in the world of scholarly journals and professional research.  There is, of course, some risk to ones reputation and to the integrity of ones work that can come from becoming heavily involved in issues of advocacy and direct engagement of the government, media and public.

That said, there exists a humanitarian crisis that is only getting worse due to a combination of unjustified fear of ionizing radiation and pressure to exploit this fear to advance a political or social agenda.   The result has been a enormous unnecessary human suffering.  Those with professional credentials and credibility in the field of radiation safety are in a unique position to help bring this crisis to an end, and, as such, have an ethical duty to do so.

Since the tragic earthquake and tsunami struck Japan almost a year ago, hundreds of thousands of Japanese remain in limbo due to unnecessary evacuations and continued restrictions on habitation or even visitation to the area around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.   The earthquake and tsunami killed tens of thousands and left whole communities devastated.   In such circumstances, the survivors want nothing more than to recover what property they can and begin to rebuild their lives.  Yet this has not been allowed to happen.  Despite the fact that the radiation exposure in the exclusion zone is well within any reasonable safety limits, many have been bared from even visiting their homes.   In the time after the disaster, domestic animals needlessly starved, property that could have been recovered was lost and serious chemical and biological hazards were allowed to fester.   This continues to happen even as the reactors have been stabilized and the most worrisome isotopes have long decayed away.

In addition to this tragedy, the Japanese government continues to spend enormous amounts of money in the cleanup of areas where radiation “hot spots” would result in only the most minimal of exposure and in a policy of idling most of the country’s nuclear power plants, resulting in huge economic losses.   What the people of Japan sorely need is to have the damaged regions of their nation rebuilt.  Every Yen spent on the unnecessary removal of soil is one more Yen that cannot be spent on the necessary rehabilitation of the areas effected by the quake and tsunami.  The message being given to citizens is that they are in grave danger, especially their children.  Inconsistent information, panic and confusion have resulted in enormous psychological stresses to those who have already suffered from the terrible natural disaster.

I therefore ask all radiation safety professionals of the world to stop biting your tongues and speak out loudly and in no uncertain terms, engaging the public, the media and the Japanese government as directly and candidly as possible.  The Japanese people need to be told the truth, without the fear-based spin that politicians often use to try to scare their way into office or special interest groups try to exploit.   The Japanese government must be urged to begin a far more measured and scientifically consistent approach to resettlement and repair that is based on the anual exposure from living in a region as compared with normal background in locations around the world.   Resources should not be wasted in the removal of small “hot spots” which are no more radioactive than clusters of uranium-bearing rock.   All areas should be made accessible to visitation and most to resettlement.    Repairs to local infrastructure and economic assets must take precedent over concerns of radioactivity that have little or no basis in science.

As experts in this field, you are the only ones who can challenge these policies and overrule them by virtue of the authority you have gained through education and experience.   Doing so may well open you to the mud-slinging of certain groups, who would rather not face the truth.   Yet in the face of such suffering, caving to the fear of being attacked by dishonorable interests is the height of cowardice.

In conclusion, I once again ask that all professionals in this field take individual initiative to take a stand against these harmful policies and messages and that groups like the Health Physics Society and others step up to the plate and pull no punches in defense of the well being of the people of Japan.  Your field stands for the furtherance of human understanding and for improved human safety and health.  These ideals demand that you step up to the plate and fight for the refugees of fear who continue to suffer in Japan.

Respectfully,

Stephen M. Packard
depletedcranium.com

• It is highly radioactive.  Because it is a very high energy alpha emitter, it is very radiotoxic.  It also produces a long decay chain of daughters that emit high energy gamma and beta particles.
• It has a half-life of over one thousand years, making it difficult to dispose of and requiring long term storage considerations.   Despite the relatively long half-life, it is still short enough to make it highly radiotoxic, especially because of the nature of the radiation it emits directly and through its daughters.
• It emits enough gamma radiation that a pure sample of the material can kill tissue on contact, after only exposure of a few minutes.
• The gamma radiation emitted by the material and its daughters is sufficient that if you sat next to a few dozen grams of the material, you could easily end up with acute radiation sickness in a matter of hours.   In less than a day it could kill you.
• A pure sample emits enough radiation to create significant amounts of heat.  The total decay heat is more than 100 watts per gram.
• It is chemically reactive, it forms compounds which readily dissolve in fresh and salt water.  It may be mobile in the environment, but it also may cling to materials, making decontamination of areas difficult.
• It has a high biological uptake in most of its chemical forms.
• It may be persistent in the body and has a tendency to be incorporated into bones, replacing calcium.  In such cases, it will not clear the body and has been associated with leukemia and bone cancer.

Such a substance does, in fact, exist:  radium-226.   Gram per gram it’s more toxic than plutonium-239, the isotope most common in spent fuel.   It’s a highly energetic particle emitter that does not decay to a stable isotope but rather to a long chain of other radioactive substances.   First it decays to radon-222, then to polonium-218, astatine-218, radon-218, lead-214, bismuth-214, polonium-214, thallium-210, lead-210, polonium-210 and finally lead-206, which is stable.   For this reason, a chemically pure sample will actually increase in radioactivity until it reached equilibrium with its daughter products.   Despite the relatively long half-life, it produces a great deal of radiation because for every decay of radium-226, there are decays of all the other daughters all the way down the line.  Some of these emit high energy gamma rays.   Radon poses some additional challenges.  Because it is a gas, it may not remain in place and can result in the area around a radium-226 sample accumulating potentially dangerous concentrations of radon.  The radon gas can also disperse, contaminating the area with further decay products.

Despite these dangers, radium-226 was once far more valuable than gold.  For the first half of the 20th century, radium and its decay products were the most widely used radioisotope source for any purpose that required radioactive materials.   It was used for cancer treatment, in the form of radium needles, external sources and devices that collected radon for use in irradiating tissue.  Radium was commonly used in any circumstance where calibration sources were required, with many earth geiger counters coming with a radium-based test source.   It was used in ion and moisture gauges, cold cathode vacuum tubes and combined with beryllium to produce small neutron sources.  Radium was well known for its use in radiolumonescent paints.  The paint was commonly used for clock and watch faces, allowing them to glow brightly without first having to be exposed to light.   Larger concentrations were used for aircraft instrument dials, illuminated markers and cords.  It was realized that the heat from radium could be used as a means of powering boilers or other thermal engines, but was far too expensive to ever be used in this capacity.   It also was experimented with in early “nuclear battery” designs.

Radium-226 exists in small concentrations in uranium ore.  To recover a single gram of the material, several tons of uranium ore must be processed.   Still, because the material had so many uses and was so valuable, large operations existed all over the world to produce it.   In the 1920’s, a gram of radium could cost as much as $120,000, (about 1.3 million USD in modern terms)  though the price later fell to $75,000 due to more efficient production techniques.  Radium needles could contain up to .1 grams of radium, making them worth more than ten thousand dollars.    Because of this, radium was also used as an investment commodity.  Radium needles and other radium sources were kept in bank vaults in the same way gold, silver and platinum might be kept.

Of course, radium is also pretty dangerous for the reasons mentioned above.  Its chemical properties make it prone to contaminating areas and easily absorbed into the body, where it is distributed into bones and teeth, making it an especially persistent and damaging substance.   It produces a great deal of alpha, beta and gamma radiation, which is not desirable for most situations.  Its half life is inconveniently long for applications where disposal after a period of time is expected and the production of radon can be a danger and complicate its use.  For radiolumonescent items, gamma radiation is not desirable and the energy of the alpha particles emitted by radium has a tendency to degrade the phosphorescent compounds in the paint over time.  Radium was blamed for a number of deaths and illnesses, most notably in the “radium girls,” who worked in clock factories, painting the hands and numbers of clocks with radium paint.  Some were encouraged to lick their brushes to sharpen them, resulting in ingestion of large quantities of radium.

Because of this, radium-226 fell from favor as a radiation source for most applications as soon as synthetic, reactor-generated isotopes became available.   By the 1960’s, safer, more well suited isotopes had taken over.  Radiolumonescent items used soft beta emitting isotopes like prometium-147 and tritium.  External cancer treatment or the irradiation of products used cesium-137 or cobalt-60.  Cesium-137 became the most common isotope for testing and calibration of survey equipment, and for applications that required alpha radiation, synthetically produced polonium-210 or americium-241 became the isotopes of choice.  Such isotopes produce forms of radiation more suited to their end use, rather than a hodgepodge of alpha, beta and gamma emissions of multiple energy levels.  They tend to be shorter lived, allowing for small quantities to generate sufficient radiation and reducing the problems of long term disposal.   Many are easily made into forms that are chemically inert, physically stable and not prone to dissolving in water or accumulating in organisms.

Today, radium-226 is no longer intentionally produced for its own use.   It may occasionally be used in calibration source for spectrometry and a few other scientific applications, but only in relatively small quantities.  Radium clocks and other luminescent items are still common in antique shops and are not generally considered to be a major hazard.   However, some aircraft instruments and military items are radioactive enough to make them a concern for regulators (whether this is actually necessary is another matter.)   Radium needles and therapeutic sources are unquestionably very dangerous.  They still turn up from time to time, though most have been removed from the inventories of hospitals and other locations.  Today they are treated as high level waste and must be carefully removed, isolated and disposed of at licensed facilities.  The half-life and properties of radium can make it especially challenging.

Radium also contaminates numerous areas around the world due to past activities such as refining of radium, paint production, clock manufacturing and maintenance of aircraft with radium-painted instruments.   Radium tends to be very difficult to clean up.  It can contaminate local ground water, it may cling to soil or may become mobile in the local biosphere.   Often, the only solution is to remove huge quantities of soil and transport it to an area where it can be immobilized and monitored.

What this has to do with nuclear waste:

By almost any standard, radium-226 is more toxic, more dangerous and more problematic than almost any other type of radioactive material.  Like plutonium, it will persist for thousands of years, but it’s far more toxic and more reactive.   It’s more difficult to immobilize than most substances in spent fuel and is usually in a form that is less chemically stable and contained.  Gram per gram, it produces more heat than spent fuel or most transuric elements.  Highly concentrated radium-226 makes spent fuel appear very tame.   Even compared to more concentrated waste, such as the fission products generated by reprocessing, radium-226 is still  more difficult to dispose of safely.

By the time production of radium-226 began to come to an end, in the mid 1950’s, about 2.5 kilograms had been produced worldwide. Yet that’s only a tiny proportion of what exists on earth.  Since radium-226 is natural, a decay product of uranium, huge quantities already exist on earth and always have.  There are at least fourty trillion tonnes of uranium in earth’s crust and billions of tons more dissolved in seawater.  Many times more uranium exists in the earth’s interior.   For every one tonnes of raw uranium, there exists about .143 grams of radium-226. (note:  value converted from reference in short tons).   That means that there is already 5.72 million tonnes of radium-226 in earth’s crust.

By comparison, the total world inventory of spent fuel is only 188,000 metric tonnes, although additional spent fuel is reprocessed, largely being reused, but with some remaining fission products and contaminated material for disposal.  If the slightly radioactive uranium were removed from spent fuel, more than 90% of the mass would be gone, and the material, though more radioactive, would still be less toxic, less reactive and generally less hazardous than radium-226.

The bottom line is that there’s more radium-226 in the environment we live in than spent fuel and gram per gram it’s far more dangerous.

So why is this not a problem?   Mostly because it’s not heavily concentrated in any one place.   If it were, that small area could be dangerous, but because most of the uranium on earth is distributed across the crust in relatively low concentrations, so is the radium.  This one natural isotope has always been there and yet the sky is not falling.   We all even have a fraction of a pictogram of it in our bodies.  And while I’m not suggesting spent fuel should just be dispersed across the globe or dissolved away in the world’s oceans, if it were, it would result in significantly less radioactivity than the radium-226 that is already there, which is only one of the many naturally occurring radioactive substances.

On a global scale, the hundreds of tonnes of spent fuel is just not a big deal.   We obsess about preventing it from entering the environment, but forget that the environment already has a material in it that is far more dangerous and present in much larger quantities.  If we can live in a world with that much radium-226, plutonium-239 and cesium-135 are really no big deal.

Via the Mail and Guardian:

Obama rescues the Grand Canyon

Barack Obama took a big step towards preserving one of the world’s natural wonders on Monday, banning uranium mining on 400 000 hectares of land around the Grand Canyon.

The move, announced by the interior secretary, Ken Salazar, at a film screening in Washington DC, bans new mining claims around the canyon for the next 20 years. The area is rich in uranium deposits.

“A withdrawal is the right approach for this priceless American landscape,” Salazar said. “People from all over the country and around the world come to visit the Grand Canyon. Numerous American Indian tribes regard this magnificent icon as a sacred place and millions of people in the Colorado river basin depend on the river.”

Environmental groups said the move, which was opposed by the mining industry and some Republicans, would secure the American president’s environmental legacy.

The measure does not affect about 3 200 existing mining claims around the canyon, however. The administration said there would be continued development of 11 uranium mines.

Conservation groups said Obama had shown political courage in going ahead with the ban in the face of opposition. “Despite significant pressure, the president did not settle for a halfway measure,” said Jane Danowitz of the Pew Environment Group. In the final years of the George Bush presidency, when uranium prices were rising worldwide, mining companies filed thousands of claims in northern Arizona on lands near the Grand Canyon.

They also proposed reopening old mines adjacent to the canyon.

Salazar ordered a temporary halt to claims in 2009 after Obama came to office. Government officials proposed the 20-year ban in October last year, after an environmental review calling for the preservation of an “iconic landscape”.

The reality is that the Grand Canyon was never actually in any danger of being torn up for mining. That’s because the iconic expanse of canyon of eroded sandstone and river bed is located within the Grand Canyon National Park. It might depend a little on how you define the beginning and end of the canyon, but in general, the expansive “grand” part is all within the national park. Because it is within a national park, there can be no mining claims. The area is permanently and unquestionably protected and the only development and construction allowed is limited infrastructure for the park itself. (things like visitors centers, hiking trails and such.)

The park is enormous. It’s 1,902 sq mi or 4,927 sq km. It includes the canyon itself and much of the surrounding area. It was established as a National Monument in 1906 and has enjoyed the protection from commercial development of a US national park since 1919. There is absolutely no way that any part of that massive area will be mined for uranium or anything else.

The park is in Arizona, in a relatively sparsely inhabited region. Much of the area around the national park is federally administered land. As such, claims can be staked for mineral recovery. It’s not actually in the park and it’s certainly not in the canyon. It’s many miles away, but in the general region of the Grand Canyon. More than two thousand potential mining sites have been staked, many for uranium, as uranium can be found in the sandstone of the area. This is normal. Mining companies can, depending on the circumstances, claim or lease federal land for mineral recovery.

In 2009, it was proposed that a massive area that is only remotely close to the Grand Canyon be closed to mining. Now that decision has been extended, at least for the next twenty years. Vague environmental concerns are cited as the reason. There are already some long standing hard rock mines in the area, which apparently will still be allowed to operate.

I have to admit that I don’t actually have any expertise on this area or the eco-systems or whether it’s so unique or amazing as to make it worthy of complete protection from mining and development.   However, it should be made clear that regardless of the validity of this decision, this is not the Grand Canyon and the Grand Canyon was never in danger of being destroyed by mines.

Remote areas of Alaska are off the wider electrical grid and are far from natural gas pipelines or railways to deliver coal.   Heat may be provided, at least in part, by wood burning stoves that can use local fuel, although wood supplies may also be limited.   However, by far the most important source of energy is oil.   Diesel oil is the only way for these communities to generate electricity and provides most of the heat.   Petroleum also powers local transportation and powers the vital systems of the communities, either directly or by generating electricity.   Communications, drinking water wells, sanitary systems, heat and lighting all require energy provided by oil.

These communities use a lot of oil, and although they may have large storage tanks, the energy density of petroleum means that they can’t go very long without replenishment.   Getting the supplies to these communities is never a sure thing.   When it does arrive it’s expensive and it’s rapidly becoming more expensive as petroleum prices go up.  Due to both the costs of oil as a commodity and the difficulty in delivering it, the final cost can be upwards of ten US dollars a gallon when it is delivered.

Via NPR:

Ultra-Harsh Alaska Winter Prompts Fuel Shortages

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Living in Alaska’s outer reaches is challenging enough, given the isolation and weather extremes, but at least three remote communities also have experienced weather-related late deliveries of fuel so crucial to their survival during an especially bitter winter.

The iced-in town of Nome and the northwest Inupiat Eskimo villages of Noatak and Kobuk faced fuel shortages that illustrate the vulnerability of relying solely on deliveries by sea or air, potentially subjecting communities to the mercy of the elements. The villages, which just received their fuel, are especially vulnerable, unable to afford more additional storage tanks for gasoline and heating oil, which can run as high as $10 a gallon.

Compounding a problem with no easy answers, temperatures dipping as low as minus 60 over the past few weeks means air deliveries are delayed at the same time people are consuming more fuel more quickly. Some people in both villages also use wood-burning stoves for supplemental heat, but diesel is the critical commodity.

“It’s been pretty tough,” Noatak resident Robbie Kirk said of life in the community of 500, which finally received a fuel delivery on Tuesday, three days after the village store ran out of heating oil. “We usually have a nice reserve of fuel. Now we’re just playing catch-up.”

Nome missed its pre-winter delivery of fuel by barge when a huge storm swept western Alaska. In a high-profile journey, a Coast Guard icebreaker is cutting path in thick sea ice for a Russian tanker delivering 1.3 million gallons of fuel to the community of 3,500.

Without a fuel delivery, Nome would likely run out of certain petroleum products before the end of winter and a barge delivery becomes possible in late spring.

Until recently, the situation was much more dire for the smaller communities of Noatak and Kobuk, located farther north above the Arctic Circle, where relentless extreme cold prevented fuel deliveries by plane until this week, residents say.

Before the new supply of fuel arrived in Noatak, the village store borrowed some heating oil from the village water and sewer plant, said store manager Connie Walton. But filling the store’s two 23,000-gallon tanks has diverted any potential crisis.

“We’re good for another month and a half,” Walton said.

Residents in Kobuk also were highly relieved by an air shipment of heating oil that arrived Wednesday in the village of 150 people about 175 miles to the east. It’s been too cold for people to use their snowmobiles much, so gasoline isn’t as much of a concern, said City Clerk Sophia Ward. Running low on the diesel used to warm homes was another matter.

“I’m glad that it came in today,” Ward said Wednesday. “It’ll keep our elders warm.”

In Noatak, residents once had fuel shipped by barge on the Noatak River, but that has long been impossible since the river shifted and became shallow there.

Two years ago, residents began tapping into another source of fuel, thanks to the Red Dog zinc mine 40 miles to the northeast. The mine in 2009 began a program to sell gasoline and diesel to Noatak and another close neighbor, the village of Kivalina. The fuel is sold at cost, said mine spokesman Wayne Hall.

“This is strictly for what we can do to help out our closest community members,” he said. “Energy and heating costs are one of the biggest costs to families in this region.”

The program lets individuals buy fuel on Saturdays every three weeks at a staging area about 23 miles from the village. This winter, they can buy gas in 55-gallon drums calculated at $4.89 a gallon. Villagers also bring their own drums to fill with diesel fuel at $4.35 a gallon.

The latest Red Dog fuel day for Noatak took place on the day the village store ran out of diesel. So villagers formed a convoy of about 30 snowmobiles and freight sleds, and headed out in weather marked by temperatures of 47 below and, for the first 10 miles, dense fog, said Kirk, who regularly takes advantage of the sales.

“It basically cuts my heating fuel in half,” he said. “It’s pretty critical for me.”

The state also helps lower the soaring cost of electricity in Alaska’s rural areas, spending almost $32 million in fiscal year 2011 through its Power Cost Equalization program, which subsidizes residential electric rates and the power bills of community buildings. Power in most villages is diesel-generated.

With so many scattered settlements of a few hundred or less, the logistics of keeping them all supplied is daunting. The very fact that oil would be brought in by air should drive home just how difficult and expensive an operation this is. Even when the system works and fuel and electricity are available, it’s always extremely expensive. The cost may be offset by subsidies, but that only shifts the burden to the government and tax payers. Ultimately, there’s no getting around the fact that getting hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel to remote settlements is a costly undertaking.

There is, however, another option, which could provide these isolated communities with highly reliable and economical electricity and heat regardless of the weather they are experiencing. In recent years, a number of small modular nuclear reactor designs have been proposed. These are sometimes described as “nuclear batteries,” although the name is deceptive. They’re not batteries in the traditional sense, but rather are encapsulated fission reactors, designed to provide power for extended periods of time with minimal maintenance and upkeep. Refueling intervals may be years or decades. The idea that the reactor is a kind of “black box” that simply sits on site and provides energy.

While none of these reactors have been built, all are entirely possible with current technology. The biggest problem is not technical or safety issues but regulatory problems. In the US, all nuclear power reactors, regardless of size, face the same regulatory framework. A ten megawatt reactor must go through the same level of licensing, site studies and inspections as a 1700 megawatt reactor. It must carry the same level of insurance and have the same safety systems and evacuation plans. These regulatory requirements alone can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Some examples of small modular nuclear reactors:

• The Toshiba 4S – A small nuclear reactor capable of producing ten megawatts of electricity and also capable of being used for district heating.   The 4S is intended to be built underground a 30 meter deep shaft.   The reactor is sodium-cooled, although a version with lead coolant has also been considered.  It would provide maintenance-free energy for about thirty years, after which the core would be allowed to cool for a year and then be replaced.   A pilot plant has been proposed for construction in Galena, Alaska and has generally been well received by the local population.  With a population of only 612, the 4S would provide ample power to keep Gelena warm and electrified during the worst winters.   Construction remains delayed because of regulatory issues.   If the Gelena plant ever does get built, it is hoped it would provide a prototype for more reactors of this type in the near future.
• SSTAR – The SSTAR is a lead cooled nuclear reactor which would be constructed off site and delivered as a fully self-contained unit and used until in place until the end of the units lifespan, at which point it would be replaced.   It’s currently under development by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  Initial plans were to have a prototype operating by 2015, but there have been few recent updates on the progress of the program.  The SSTAR is expected to be capable of generating ten to one hundred megawatts of electricity, depending on the size of the unit.   The unit would have a thirty year lifespan.
• Hyperon Power Systems Reactor – Hyperon is a privately held company which has been working to develop and market a small, self-contained prefabricated nuclear power reactor for several years.  The initial proposal was to use a self-regulating uranium hydrate reactor.  Hyperon had claimed that this would be rapidly deployed as the technology had already been proven in numerous TRIGA reactors.  In 2009, the company announced that they were shelving the uranium hydrate design in favor of a lead-cooled fast reactor, citing difficulties in getting approval for the uranium hydrate reactor and delays in development.  However, the company has also indicated it may continue to move forward with the earlier reactor design as well.  The company indicated that it would begin shipments in 2013, but it’s not entirely clear whether this will actually happen.  The proposed reactors, if they are ever built, are expected to produce about 25 megawatts of electricity and have a lifespan of up to a few decades.
• Adams Atomic Engine – A design pioneered by our good friend and fellow nuclear energy supporter, Rod Adams.  The Adams Atomic Engine is a gas cooled pebble-bed reactor.  It would be created as a self-contained unit and available in a number of sizes and configurations, depending on the end use.   The Adams Engine would use nitrogen as the coolant and a closed-cycle gas turbine to generate mechanical power for electrical generation or marine propulsion.   A similar reactor, the ML-1, was designed and constructed by the US Army in 1963, but the design never made it past the prototype phase.  The Adams Engine would have a number of differences from the ML-1 thus avoiding most of the problems experienced by the ML-1 prototype.

There are only a few of the types of small, self-contained reactors intended for sights like the remote villages in Alaska.  There are others.  Many are liquid metal cooled and others are gas cooled and pebble bed type reactors.  a few small self-contained light water reactors exist too, such as the mPower reactor being developed by Babcock and Wilcox.   In general, the light water variety tend to be larger and, due to the lower burn up of light water reactors, they do not have as long a core lifespan and therefore do not allow for the reactor to be left in place for many years without refueling or maintenance.  

Molten salt reactors are also an excellent choice for small reactors with limited maintenance and extended refueling lifespans.   Because molten salt reactors can achieve very high burnup, they do not need frequent refueling and do not require large on sight spent fuel storage.   The passive safety of molten salt reactors is another important advantage as well as the fact that they can operate at very high temperatures, allowing for small modular gas turbine power conversion systems.   Flibe Energy is a venture aimed at marketing such reactors.

Assuming the regulatory hurdles could be cleared, these types of reactors offer vast benefits that could liberate areas of the world from reliance on expensive oil, transported long distances and requiring continuous resupply.

Some areas with constant energy supply issues that could benefit from a nuclear reactor (to name a few):

• Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station
• McMurdo Station (had one briefly)
• Scott Base
• Palmer Station
• Bellingshausen Station
• Thule Air Force Base
• Diego Garcia
• Guam
• Ascension Island
• Saint Helena
• Guantánamo Bay
• Kwajalein Atoll
• Wake Island
• Yellowknife
• Red Dog Mine
• Nome
• Prudhoe Bay
• Eareckson Air Station
• Numerous Islands in the Caribbean

But uh oh… it seems nuclear plant operators may have surfed the net

Via CNN:

NRC: Nuclear technicians surfed web on the job

Nine technicians responsible for monitoring operations at a Louisiana nuclear power plant spent on-duty time surfing the Internet — visiting websites that included news, sports, fishing and retirement information — jeopardizing the safety of the plant, federal regulators say.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission disclosed the web-surfing activities Monday in a letter that proposes a $140,000 fine against the River Bend nuclear power station, 24 miles northwest of Baton Rouge.

No pornography sites were accessed, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. And importantly, the NRC said, the computer use did not present an avenue for hackers to gain access to reactor control systems, a modern-day fear at industrial plants.

But the NRC said the web-surfing control room operators were directly responsible for monitoring the reactor and other plant systems, and that their actions violated plant procedures requiring operators to remain attentive and focused on their work.

According to an NRC investigation, nine operators “deliberately violated” the safety procedures by surfing the web between January and April of 2010. Three of the nine did so with such frequency and duration that they are being issued “severity level three enforcement violations.” (Severity level one represents the greatest significant violation and severity level four is the lowest.) The remaining six operators will receive severity level four violations.

The operators were not named by the NRC.

An NRC spokesman said the proposed fine for web surfing is the only such action for web surfing in memory, and may be the only such action in the history of the agency.

In a notice to Entergy Operations Inc., operators of the River Bend Station, the NRC said that it appears that operators “remained attentive to reactor operations, indications, and alarms” while surfing the Internet.

“However, because most of the operators involved knew and understood” the prohibitions on Internet access, they exhibited “deliberate misconduct” and engaged in “hundreds of instances” of accessing the Internet from the “at-the-controls” area of the control room.

Score one for ridiculously reporting.

No, there was never a safety risk. While I don’t know exactly what the operators were assigned to do or how the systems operated here, all indications are that they were simply passing some time by surfing the net when they didn’t have any need to directly interact with the controls. Nuclear reactors certainly do not require continuous second by second human input nor do they need to have a reactor operator spending hours blankly staring at the dials that usually don’t change. Granted, all indicators are checked frequently, as they should be, but that was never interrupted.

It seems that in this case the operators were doing something many of us have: using company computers with internet access for personal surfing. Companies don’t like this, of course, because it tends to encourage employees to spend their time non-productively. If not for the internet, the operators might be more prone to doing something more useful for the company during the time they spend babysitting the control room. It’s like anything else, where the operator is primarily there for contingencies or if problems arise.

Still, this really just isn’t a news story. The workers never left their posts and they were ready to respond to any incident. That’s the important thing. I guess in the future they’ll have to go back to old fashioned paper crossword puzzles and magazines.

The solution to this problem has been the radioisotope thermal generator.   An RTG is a simple device, consisting of a strong particle-emitting isotope that produces heat and a thermoelectric generator which converts that heat into electricity.   The heat can also be used to keep vital components of the probe warm.  Unlike nuclear reactors, radioisotope thermal generators are extremely simple, have no minimum critical mass, produce little gamma and almost no neutron emissions, which could blind scientific instruments, and therefore require little or no shielding.  Modern RTG’s can provide hundreds of watts of reliable electrical power for years on end in a small, durable package.

The choice of isotope for space missions has always been, and continues to be plutonium-238. Plutonium-238 is a powerful alpha emitter which produces enormous amounts of heat energy.  Plutonium-238 produces only a small amount of low energy gamma emissions, making it easy to shield.  It’s easily prepared into ceramic oxide pellets that are chemically stable and have good thermal transfer.   With an 88 year half-life, plutonium-238 is short lived enough to be a good energy producer yet long lived enough to allow for missions of many decades.

All radioisotope thermal generators used for deep space missions have used plutonium-238.   RTG’s were also used to power the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Packages left by astronauts on the moon.    The RTG used for the Mars Science Laboratory provides 110 watts of electricity and uses about 4.5 kilograms of plutonium-238.  Larger RTG’s have been built for deep space probes, which provide up to 300 watts of power and use 7.8 kilograms of plutonium-238.  Some spacecraft have used multiple RTG’s, for example, Cassini was equipped with three RTG’s which provided a total of 900 watts of power to the spacecraft.

There are other isotopes that can also be used to provide power for RTG’s, but none are as desirable as Pu-238.   Strontium-90, a high energy beta emitter, which can be extracted from spent fuel, also produced significant amounts of heat, but would require substantially more shielding and produces less power per gram of material.  Isotopes of Curium have been studied as well, but also provide much less power and require greater shielding.  Americium-241 has also been considered, but at least four times as much material would be needed to produce the same amount of power, and greater shielding would also be required. Still, Am-241 is regarded as being the second most well suited fuel for RTG use.

Worldwide production of Am-241 is only a few kilograms per year, with US production capacity standing at only 500 to 750 milligrams annually.   Most of this material is already used to fill demand for smoke detectors and moisture gauges.  In order for the US to have a viable chance of using Am-241 as an RTG fuel, production would have to be ramped up significantly.

At one time, plutonium-238 was relatively cheap and easily available.  The United States had large stocks of the material and used it for numerous space missions.  Yet since the early 1990’s, that has not been the case.  Since then, only Russia has had the capacity to produce plutonium-238 and the price has skyrocketed.   US missions have been entirely dependent on plutonium-238 purchased from Russia at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.  Yet now even this limited supply is threatened, as Russia has begun to signal that it will no longer be able to provide the quantities of Pu-238 that the US (or potentially other nations) would require for continued space exploration.

Production of Plutonium-238:

The plutonium that can be extracted from light water spent fuel contains significant amounts of plutonium-238, but it’s combined with other isotopes of plutonium, making it unusable.  Separating out the plutonium-238 would require a complex plutonium enrichment system, which is far less practical than simply preparing the plutonium-238 on its own.

To produce plutonium-238, the first thing that is required is neptunium-237.  Neptunium-237 is produced as a byproduct of the reprocessing of spent fuel.   When a nucleus of uranium-235 absorbs a neutron, it will usually fission.  However, in a thermal spectrum reactor, some of the uranium-235 (about 18%) will absorb a neutron and not fission.  Instead, the uranium-235 becomes uranium-236.  Uranium-236 has a low neutron cross-section, so most of the uranium-236 generated in a reactor will just remain uranium-236, but a small amount of it does absorb a neutron and become uranium-237.  Uranium-237 has a very short half-life of only six days, decaying to neptunium-237.  Another source of neptunium-237 in spent fuel is the alpha decay or americium-241.

Spent fuel contains about .7 grams of np-237 for every one hundred kilograms of fuel.  That might not seem like much, but fuel reprocessing operations routinely go through hundreds of tons of fuel.   Because Np-237 is the only isotope of neptunium present in spent fuel in any significant quantity, it does not require any enrichment.  Instead, simply chemically separating the neptunium out yields nearly 100% neptunium-237.

After removing the neptunium-237, it is fabricated into targets which are irradiated with neutrons in a high flux reactor.   The targets are then removed and processed to separate out the plutonium-238 that is produced.  The plutonium-238 is then fabricated into RTG fuel tablets.

The end of US production:

The United States ended the practice of spent fuel reprocessing in 1977 when it was banned by the Carter Administration because of “proliferation concerns.”  Since then, the ban has been lifted, but as all reprocessing operations were shut down in the 1970’s and little support can be found for restarting the practice, the US still has no capacity to reprocess spent fuel.  After 1977, some material from plutonium production reactors continued, which yielded some neptunium-237, but that also ended in 1992, with the end of the cold war.

Today, the United States reprocesses no fuel at all and therefore cannot produce any neptunium-237.  There may still be some of the material remaining, though it’s doubtful that very much is left.   It should still be possible to obtain Np-237, purchasing it from countries with major spent fuel reprocessing programs, such as Russia, France or Japan.   However, this depends entirely on the willingness of such nations to provide it and may be expensive, since additional steps beyond normal reprocessing are required to produce the highly concentrated neptunium necessary for plutonium-238 production.

Getting enough Np-237, however, is not the biggest problem that the United States faces in producing Pu-238, however.   The US has a shortage of suitable reactors where the neptunium could be irradiated to produce the final plutonium-238 product.  Irradiating the targets requires a reactor with a very high neutron flux and the ability to receive materials for irradiation.  During the Cold War, the United States operated reactors at the Hanford and Savannah River sites primarily for the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons.  These same reactors could be used to irradiate materials for the production of medical and industrial isotopes along with materials like plutonium-238.  Therefore, up until the late 1980’s, the US had ample capacity for plutonium-238 production.   In the early 1990’s, the United States shut down all such reactors over “proliferation concerns.”   Russia, on the other hand, converted theirs to the full time production of peaceful isotopes, which is why they have been the world source for plutonium-238.

There are other reactors in the United States that could potentially produce plutonium-238, but not many of them.   The US has seen an unfortunate reduction in the number of research and irradiation reactors available.  Many, such as the Fast Flux Test Facility were shut down due to “proliferation concerns.”  Others like the High Flux Beam Reactor were closed after celebrities lobbied heavily against them.  Many simply were closed due to age and have not been replaced, given the lack of construction of new research reactors in the US in recent years.

There are only two reactors in operation that might be usable for producing plutonium-238.  One is the High Flux Isotope Reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  However, the HFIR is already running at near full capacity for basic materials research and producing specialty isotopes.  It’s the only source of the vital isotope Cf-252 in the United States.  It also hosts a recently installed cold neutron source.   Because of this, the HFIR does not have enough available capacity to produce Pu-238.  That leaves one reactor: the Advanced Test Reactor.   The ATR is located at the Idaho National Laboratory.  It’s the only source in the US for production of cobalt-60, an isotope critical to medicine and industry.  It’s also one of only a few reactors that can be used to simulate extended fuel irradiation in a light water reactor, making it critical to fuel studies.  It’s not entirely clear to what extent producing Pu-238 at the Advanced Test Reactor might limit its capacity for other important functions.

The Advanced Test Reactor has been the focus of recent efforts to restart US Pu-238 production.   Several bills and proposals to begin production at the site have been floated, but funding has not been provided.  Most recently, a funding request for the relatively small amount of fifteen million dollars by the DOE was shot down by Congress.  No explanation was given, but it seems no US legislators are interested in restarting plutonoum-238 production, quite possibly because nobody’s spent any money lobbying for it and some have spent money lobbying against it.

Restarting production in the US may prove more difficult than simply finding a suitable reactor.   Producing the final Plutonium-238 tablets used for providing heat to RTG’s requires that the irradiated targets be dissolved, the plutionium-238 processed out and fabricated into the final RTG fuel.   The material is very hot, both in terms of radioactivity and literally.  Handling and processing it requires special facilities such as hot cells and plutonium chemical separation facilities.  The United States has limited capabilities in this area, with most of the facilities capable of fabricating special nuclear materials shut down over “proliferation concerns.”

That said, the US should have enough capacity for processing such materials to make at least a modest Pu-238 production program possible, if only funding is provided and the effort to do so is undertaken.   Ideally, enough would be made to allow for its use on spacecraft without extreme conservation measures taken, but that seems to be politically unlikely due to “proliferation concerns.”

In the end, we are left with a few options for the US space program, not all of them very appealing:

1. Restart domestic production of plutonium-238
2. Continue to rely on the limited Russian capacity to produce the material and hope they do not cut production or sales, as they seem to be indicating will happen.  Perhaps this could be avoided by paying an even more exorbitant amount to Russia for the material.  Continue with only limited deep space flights due to this limited source.
3. Hope that some other country steps up to the plate and starts making plutonium-238.  There’s a good chance that a country like China might start domestic production in the coming years, as they become more ambitious in their space program.  Whether they’ll share with the US is another issue.
4. Rely on another isotope that will result in less energy per kilogram, require greater shielding and therefore dramatically reduce spacecraft capabilities and increase launch expense.
5. Rely exclusively on solar power for space exploration.  Space exploration will therefore be limited to the inner solar system, out to about the orbit of mars and a little bit further, even out to Jupiter, although this will require very large solar arrays and will be restricted in capability due to very limited power capacities.   Beyond Jupiter, exploration by space probes will be impossible and will have to cease entirely.  And while exploration of the inner solar system will still be possible, landers that require significant amounts of continuous power will not be possible, thus making the Mars Science Laboratory the last of its kind.

Personally, I vote for choice 1.

They’re really great little items and the perfect gift for just about any occasion.   For one thing, they’re an interesting conversation piece and a very good example of a practical application of radioactivity.   They demonstrate that you can indeed keep something radioactive in our pocket and be quite safe and they’re very eye-catching.

They also have quite a bit of practical value.  Finding your keys in the dark is very easy with one of these key chains.  In fact, it’s so easy that if you happen to misplace your keys, the easiest way to find them is to turn off the lights.  When entering your home or starting your car in complete darkness, the glowing key chain provides just enough light to easily select the correct key and use it without fumbling.   If you happen to drop the keys on the dark floor of your car, you can find them very quickly and without effort.   You can even see the glow of the keys if they are under a seat or somehow otherwise obscured from direct view.  You can get different colors and use them to mark different key chains, making it very easy to grab the correct one, even in complete darkness.

I’ve had these key chains before (and broken a couple by mistake).  I can attest to just how useful they are.   There’s also no other way of getting this same value without using radioactive material.  An electrically illuminated key chain could not provide such continuous periods of glow without the batteries quickly running out.   Standard phosphorescent glowing items are limited to a few hours of illumination and must be exposed to light first in order to glow, making them useless for something like a key chain, which is often kept in one’s pocket.

There’s only one problem with these amazing little glowing key chains:  nobody in the US sells them, at least not directly.   Technically, these are not approved for sale or ownership in the United States, although I’ve never heard of anyone getting in trouble for owning one.  Many people do own them and talk about them openly online and elsewhere.  It might just be one of those things that hasn’t shown up on the radar of a bureaucrat who was asinine enough to bother to do something about it.

Still, there are stories about their thugs stopping sales of these key chains on sites like eBay.  It seems that these days most of those sold on eBay are coming from sellers who are not located within the United States.  Exactly how much trouble you could potentially get in for these remains unclear, but it appears to be a case of selective enforcement.  (So if you have one, don’t ever leave the federal government looking for an excuse to call you a terrorist.)

Yet while the government may tolerate people owning them, you can’t buy them from any major retailer.   They can be purchased on the “grey market,” imported in relatively small batches or sold over the internet.  They can be bought from foreign retailers, like those in the UK, who will generally ship to the US without problem.   The best place to buy them, however, tends to be eBay, where numerous sellers will sell to US customers.

That, however, was not good enough for me.  I know a great product when I see one and these things are inexpensive, extremely useful and very easy to sell.  I had bought one and people were constantly asking me about it and where to get one.   I wanted to sell these, and not just by keeping it on the down-low, selling them on auction websites or to friends.  I wanted to really sell them, importing them wholesale and selling them openly and in quantity.

I also didn’t want even the slight potential to have the NRC knocking at my door, which does occasionally happen when someone tries to sell them in the US.   One would think that the government has better things to do, but of course, they don’t.

I thought it would be easy to do.  After all, these things are very readily available in other countries, and by “other countries,” I don’t mean just Russia, Zimbabwe and Cuba.  They can be bought in the UK.  They are brought into the US all the time.  They’re also perfectly safe.   Of course, I assumed wrong, but this was a few years ago, long before I had gained a full understanding of the bureaucracy that is the NRC.

I e-mailed, called and faxed the NRC several times about this matter.  I cannot even begin to explain how difficult they were.   First, nobody at the agency seemed to understand what I wanted to do or what the devices were for.  They told me that if I wanted to start the process of getting a consumer product containing radioactive material approved, I could get some paperwork to start the ball rolling, but it would be several thousand dollars just to begin and would take more than a year.  I told them I believed the items qualified as being license-exempt, since other items of comparable function and contents, such as illuminated watches are.   They didn’t seem to understand what I was getting at.

After bouncing around many times between different individuals and sub-departments, before I eventually got the answer:  No, I could not import the key chains and no I could not sell them and nobody was really supposed to have them at all.   They never would tell me why the answer was no.  I was not told what exact regulation or requirement they violated.  They never would give me a straight answer about whether I could appeal that decision, who had made it or on what grounds and whether there was any way of having it reevaluated.  The best they could give me was that I could try the expensive process of getting a new product approved, but they also warned me that to do that I first had to have some prototypes of the product to have inspected and it would be illegal for me to have those prototypes unless I first got yet another license, permitting me to possess otherwise illegal amounts of tritium.

So the next place I went was the Health Physics Society.   They managed to put me in touch with some radiation safety experts who had worked with the NRC and knew the right people to ask.   After several false starts, they did manage to track down an NRC official who would go on record and explain the policy.   This is the e-mail I eventually got:

In response to your electronic mail dated October 23, 2007, concerning
keyrings containing tritium, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has
determined that a license is required to distribute products similar to
the Traser “glowring” key chains.  Although the devices are allowed in
the United Kingdom, they are not licensed here.  NRC regulations [10 CFR
30.19(c) and 10 CFR 32.22(b)] and policy (Federal Register Notice of
March 16, 1965, 30 FR 3462) do not allow licensing toys, novelties,
adornments or any consumer product containing radioactive material
considered a frivolous use of radioactive material and where the end use
of the product cannot be reasonably foreseen.   Other consumer products
that are not frivolous use, but contain self-luminous radioactive
material, must go through a two step safety review process consisting
of:  (1) an engineering evaluation and registration for the device as
well as (2) a licensing review of the program involved in possession and
distribution of radioactive material.

In order for NRC to be sure consumer products containing radioactive
material are safe for distribution to the general public the product
must be below a certain activity and/or found to incorporate engineering
features making release of the radioactive material unlikely.  In
addition environmental studies must show that during the products life
from manufacture to disposal, no adverse impact will be caused on the
environment or on those who may come in contact with the radioactive
material.  Traser Glowrings contain about 400 millicuries of tritium as
indicated by the UK manufacturer.  In comparison, a tritium wristwatch
typically contains 5 millicuries of tritium.  Tritium produces beta
radiation that cannot penetrate the skin, however, tritium can be
absorbed through the skin.  Tritium can also be an internal hazard
through inhalation and ingestion, as well as being absorbed through the
skin.

Again, Traser glowrings, and similar products, are not legal to own or
possess in the U. S. without a Federal and/or State license.

So that’s the big problem?   It’s an adornment or a novelty and therefore frivolous?

My Response:

• The fact that an item may be used as a novelty, adornment or toy does not mean it is “frivolous.”  The definition of “frivolous” is “irresponsible, lacking due consideration, without due consideration, improper.”  I think I can see what they’re getting at.  They want any item that is considered radioactive to have a legitimate use and consider entertainment or novelty to not be legitimate.  I have to disagree on that.   It’s fine to use something for such purposes if there’s negligible risk involved.
• The end use of the product can be reasonably forseen: people will put it on their key chain and use it to help locate their keys.
• At least part of the appeal of glowing key chains may indeed be their novelty and fashion aspect, but the same can be said of a tritium-containing wristwatch.   Watches are absolutely and undeniably fashion accessories, in addition to being functional timepieces.  In the cases of watches, the fact that they have a tritium-illuminated dial is often a selling point because of the fact that it’s fashionable in and of itself.   It’s not the only way to illuminate a watch dial.  It can be done with an electroluminescent face or with long lasting phosphorescent material.
• Radiolumonescent key chains are not only fashionable or novel, but also are practical.  They are at least as functional as radiolumonescent watches.  It makes it very easy to find misplaced keys simply by turning off the lights in a room.  The glow of the keychain is obvious in the dark even at a distance.   The glow can even be seen if the keys are partially obscured, such as being under a desk or bed.  The glow of the keychain also provides just enough light to aid a person handling the keys in the complete darkness, making it easier to select the right key for insertion into a lock or automobile ignition.
• While the amount of tritium in a key chain may be greater than that found in most watches, it is still trivial and is less than that found in numerous other commonly available items that can be purchased by the general public.  These include radiolumonescent compasses, small self-powered flashlight-style illuminators, self-illuminating map readers and other luminous items.   These devices are perfectly safe and do not pose any hazard to public health or the environment.  The amount of tritium present is far too low to pose a significant radiation hazard to anyone, even in the wost case scenario, where it might all be released in a confined area.
• Key chains of this style are already available in numerous countries around the world.  They have been sold for years without incident.   They are so common that it’s impossible to keep them out of the United States and there’s no legitimate reason to try anyway.  They’re safe and proven safe and their existence in no way enables terrorists, compromises public safety or constitutes a hazard.

I am willing to acknowledge that there may be legitimate reason for the NRC to require that the product undergo some kind of review, as they state, an engineering evaluation of the product.   Hopefully that would not include an environmental study, because that would be pretty ridiculous to do a study from scratch when there are already products of a similar nature being sold and which would release an equal amount of tritium upon disposal.  I’m not sure why they can’t just use a general purpose tritium device disposal study.  Although knowing the agency, it’s entirely plausible that they will require a completely new study. They could simply apply the same standard for release into the environment as any number of products with the same amount of tritium.  The danger presented is zero, at least if they are evaluated fairly and reasonably.

There are many exit  signs sold in the US which have much more tritium in them than one of these and the tritium is stored in tubes of almost exactly the same type.  Tritium-containing self-luminous exit signs may contain upwards of 40 curies of tritium, one hundred times the amount of tritium in one of these key chains.   It should be noted that these exit signs are subject to some special restrictions.  Those who purchase them are technically also purchasing an individual license for the sign, which requires that they do not tamper with the sign or open it and that they dispose of it properly, usually by returning it to the manufacturer.   Yet this certainly does not always happen.  Despite the requirement, thousands of tritium-containing exit signs of various ages (and therefore with various amounts of tritium present) end up in landfills and incinerators every year.  Despite this, the sky has not yet begun to fall.

I would be more than willing to consider undertaking the necessary engineering review, although I’m sure it would be long and expensive.   The products would almost certainly pass it.  They’re very straight forward and the manufacturer can provide any data necessary.  If an environmental study were also necessary, it still might be worth perusing.

The problem is that even if the manufacturer and distributors were willing to go through that process, the NRC has already decided the key chains are “frivolous” and therefore won’t even entertain the notion of approving them.   So it is simply impossible and they seem to not have the slightest willingness to revisit the decision.  DAMN!

Via HealthCanal:

New Take on Impacts of Low Dose Radiation
Berkeley Lab Researchers Find Evidence Suggesting Risk May Not Be Proportional to Dose at Low Dose Levels

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), through a combination of time-lapse live imaging and mathematical modeling of a special line of human breast cells, have found evidence to suggest that for low dose levels of ionizing radiation, cancer risks may not be directly proportional to dose. This contradicts the standard model for predicting biological damage from ionizing radiation – the linear-no-threshold hypothesis or LNT – which holds that risk is directly proportional to dose at all levels of irradiation.

Imaging of a cell’s DNA damage response to radiation shows that 1.5 minutes after irradiation, the sizes and intensities of radiation induced foci (RIF) are small and weak, but 30 minutes later damage sites have clustered into larger and brighter RIF, probably reflecting DNA repair centers.

“Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses,” says Mina Bissell, a world-renowned breast cancer researcher with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division. “This non-linear DNA damage response casts doubt on the general assumption that any amount of ionizing radiation is harmful and additive.”

Bissell was part of a study led by Sylvain Costes, a biophysicist also with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division, in which DNA damage response to low dose radiation was characterized simultaneously across both time and dose levels. This was done by measuring the number of RIF, for “radiation induced foci,” which are aggregations of proteins that repair double strand breaks, meaning the DNA double helix is completely severed.

Berkeley Lab biophysicist Sylvain Costes is generating 3D time lapse of DNA repair centers in human cells to understand better how cancer may arise from DNA damage. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab)

“We hypothesize that contrary to what has long been thought, double strand breaks are not static entities but will rapidly cluster into preferred regions of the nucleus we call DNA repair centers as radiation exposure increases,” says Costes. “As a result of this clustering, a single RIF may reflect a center where multiple double strand breaks are rejoined. Such multiple repair activity increases the risks of broken DNA strands being incorrectly rejoined and that can lead to cancer.”

Costes and Bissell have published the results of their study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in a paper titled “Evidence for formation of DNA repair centers and dose-response nonlinearity in human cells.” Also co-authoring the paper were Teresa Neumaier, Joel Swenson, Christopher Pham, Aris Polyzos, Alvin Lo, PoAn Yang, Jane Dyball, Aroumougame Asaithamby, David Chen and Stefan Thalhammer.

The authors believe their study to be the first to report the clustering of DNA double strand breaks and the formation of DNA repair centers in human cells. The movement of the double strand breaks across relatively large distances of up to two microns led to more intensely active but fewer RIF. For example, 15 RIF per gray (Gy) were observed after exposure to two Gy of radiation, compared to approximately 64 RIF/Gy after exposure to 0.1Gy. One Gy equals one joule of ionizing radiation energy absorbed per kilogram of human tissue. A typical mammogram exposes a patient to about 0.01Gy.

Corresponding author Costes says the DNA repair centers may be a logical product of evolution.

“Humans evolved in an environment with very low levels of ionizing radiation, which makes it unlikely that a cell would suffer more than one double strand break at any given time,” he says. “A DNA repair center would seem to be an optimal way to deal with such sparse damage. It is like taking a broken car to a garage where all the equipment for repairs is available rather than to a random location with limited resources.”

However, when cells are exposed to ionizing radiation doses large enough to cause multiple double strand breaks at once, DNA repair centers become overwhelmed and the number of incorrect rejoinings of double strand breaks increases.

“It is the same as when dozens of broken cars are brought to the same garage at once, the quality of repair is likely to suffer,” Costes says.

You can read the rest of the article here. The level of the data available is new, but the conclusion is not. The available data that has been collected for decades on both a microscopic and macroscopic level clearly shows that radiation dose does not produce a linear level of dna damage until it reaches a relatively high exposure level.

Unfortunately, this has never seemed to unseat the suborn linear non-threshold model, which continues to be the standard for most radiation exposure policy. I also doubt that this new data will do much to change that, although when studies like this do come out, it is certainly worthwhile to try to raise as much publicity as possible for it.

From the standpoint of nuclear energy policy, this data almost seems moot. The actual radiation level that the public is exposed to from nuclear energy is so tiny that even if LNT is used as the standard for exposure limits, one comes to the inevitable conclusion that it is more important to tear down all the granite buildings than to stop using nuclear energy. Therefore, no scientific data is ever likely to unseat the radiation argument against nuclear energy, because it was never based on science to begin with.