It generally stays in those places for decades, subjecting surrounding organs and tissues to a continual bombardment of alpha radiation and greatly increasing the risk of cancer, especially lung cancer, liver cancer and bone sarcoma. There are documented cases of workers at nuclear weapons facilities dying within days of experiencing brief accidental exposure to plutonium, according to the Hazardous Substances Data Bank. Furthermore, among all the bad things coming out of Fukushima, plutonium will stay in the environment the longest.
One isotope of plutonium, Pu, has a half-life of 24, years; that's the time it will take for half of the stuff to radioactively decay. Radioactive contaminants are dangerous for 10 to 20 times the length of their half-lives, meaning that dangerous plutonium released to the environment today will stick around for the next half a million years.
However, the immediate dangers posed by plutonium exposure are often exaggerated. According to a report from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, you would have to ingest about.
External exposure carries almost no risk. Inhaling 0. What about plutonium in the drinking water? It, too, is a relatively minor threat: Plutonium is a heavy element that does not dissolve easily in water. If 10 ounces of it were introduced into a reservoir, only about 3 milligrams one part in , would be dissolved; the rest would settle into sediment. If, somehow, the entire 3 milligrams were ingested by a population, it would, in theory, only cause about 0.
The steam intentionally vented from the plant contains iodine and cesium , both of which have a far shorter half-life than plutonium, but are being released in much higher amounts and, being airborne, can travel much farther.
Radioactive iodine has been detected off the coast of Fukushima at levels 1, times higher than normal. These elements may not be quite as radioactive as plutonium, but if ingested or inhaled, they also pose a risk of causing cancer. Thanks to John Lee, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan. Shusha was the key to the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Where does it come from? What form is it in? What does it look like?
How can it hurt me? To receive email updates about this page, enter your email address: Email Address. What's this. Related Pages. Contact Us Calendar Employment. Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website. Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link. CDC is not responsible for Section compliance accessibility on other federal or private website. Cancel Continue.
0コメント