BIOPHILE 16 — JUNE/JULY 2007 R25 - Biophile Magazine

Accuratescience is notused enough toback our causesubscribe to Biophile because I amI very concerned about our worldand the wanton destruction of nature,greed, pollution, global warming etc.I am concerned that far too often,science is not used to back our cause.Instead, Biophile often uses inaccurateor questionable “science” or “nonscience”in articles which is detrimentalto the “environmental movement” ingeneral and causes Biophile to losecredibility.For example, in the April/May2007 article “Smelter at Pelindaba”it is stated that “... this region willreceive an absolute minimum of140,000,000,000,000 [1.4 x 1014]minute, breathable, radioactive particles,delivered into the atmosphere ....”Shock and horror !This statement is completely meaninglessunless you also state what typeof particles and over what time periodthe figure refers.Rather than being shocked I amrelieved! 1.4 x 1014 is an almost insignificantamount of atomic or sub-atomicparticles!Recall that it requires an inconceivablylarge number, one Avogadronumber (6.02 x 1023 [602 000 000 000000 000 000 000.] of atoms or moleculesto make up one gram atom orgram molecule of the substance – eg1 g of Hydrogen, 18 g of Water, 238 gof Uranium etc.) so 1.4 x 1014 particlesrepresents only 2.33 x 10-10 gram atomor gram molecules of the unnamed substance.eg. only 0.000000000233 g ofHydrogen particles, 0.0000000042 g ofWater or 0.000000055 grams of Uraniumetc! Even if the time period referredto is only a second this is still insignificant!(Even then it would only amountto 0.007 g of Hydrogen or 1.75 g per yearof Uranium over a 1 year period).I have other concerns and queriesabout this article but the numbers mentionedabove are most significant.I suggest that you contact physicistsor engineers (but please not politiciansor lawyers…) who know aboutthe Pebble Bed Reactor, the Fuel Plantat Pelindaba and Nuclear Physics ingeneral to present the (scientific) facts.You may consider contacting Dr KevinINBox: our readers writeKemm (stratek@pixie.co.za) or Dr RobAdam Chief Executive of NECSA.Unfortunately you are trying to combineconservation and environmentalissues with mysticism, new age religion,astrology, spirit guides etc.Why not have two publications, onefor people interested in the environmentand science (health and foodissues could easily be included) and onefor those interested in new age or oldage religion, mysticism, superstitionetc. They actually don’t mix.But keep up the great environmentalwork. The magazine’s heart is in theright place!Ron SmytheLeaving aside for a moment the “extreme”mathematics, that most of us do not evenwish to understand, let’s begin with thefundamental problem we all face.The emissions from the proposed Pelindabasmelter will be minute, invisible,odourless, highly radioactive in substanceand poses extremely dangerous healththreats to all living beings. These minuteparticles are small enough to bypass theHepa filters and escape through the highstacks at Pelindaba, from where theyenter our collective atmosphere and aredispersed into the region spreading aswind borne seeds of cancer. In the formthat they are emitted by the smelter theseuranium radioactive particles can be easilyingested and will remain dangerouslyradioactive for several hundred thousandyears – whilst they decay (inside oroutside your body) they change into other,even more deadly compounds of uraniumderivates.Contrary to soothing statements frequentlyuttered by Nuclear proponents thatAlpha particles can’t penetrate clothes andskin (inferring they are safe), The UraniumMedical Research Centre USA stateunequivocally “this statement ignoresthe most prevalent and dangerouspathway for uranium to get into thehuman body. Inhaled uranium canremain in the lungs and bones foryears where it continues to emitalpha, beta and gamma radiation.Each alpha particle can traverse upto several hundred cells causing somaticand genetic alterations.”The Canadian Coalition for NuclearResponsibility concurs: “Uranium isnot harmful outside the body -- butneither is E-coli. The “alpha rays”given off by uranium are stoppedcompletely by a sheet of paper or bya person’s clothing or skin, so thereis no external exposure hazard.”“Inside the body, however, alpharadiation is the most potent carcinogenicagent known to science --twenty times more damaging than x-rays or gamma rays. Large numbersof miners and radium workers havebeen killed by internal exposure tominute quantities of alpha-emittingradioactive materials, causing lungcancer, bone cancer and a variety ofblood diseases including leukemia.”So health threats from the PelindabaSmelter are very clear – the precise numbersof particles that are released intothe atmosphere is academic, on NECSA’sversion they are guesstimates, on anyone’sversion there are too many to count.The critical issue is this; if you are one ofthose unfortunate people who will breathein a couple of these minute radioactiveparticles, this will be extremely damagingto your health - it is difficult to avoidbreathing – unless NECSA has anothersuggestion, so it is a risk we are forced totake. Every year the risks increase becauseevery year the cumulative amounts of radioactiveparticles increase – they are withus to stay for so long it is almost impossibleto imagine.We live with all sorts of threats on a dailybasis and deal with them as best we can,but the NECSA smelter is a totally unnecessaryhazard that is merely a moreconvenient and cheaper method of dealingwith waste for NECSA but could be dealtwith quite safely by encapsulation of radioactivewaste and regular monitoring.But why should NECSA pay more to safeguardour health – they will not – certainlynot while we continue to tolerate whatthey are doing to us and our children andtheir children for countless generations.Health and lives in the nuclear industryare commodities to be traded against theexpense in rands and cents – smeltersare cheaper and more convenient thanthe safe alternative; if we continue to becomplacent these smelters will happen, infact they were on site long before the EIAwas completed, let alone a decision made.That means WE all have to do somethingto make the EIA process meaningful,laws need to be changed and loop holestightened up, most of all we need to act asa community.Now the numbers! On NECSA’s documentedversion the estimated Uraniumemissions alone amount to 5 000 gramsof contaminated Uranium emissions and360 grams of pure uranium, that’s justfrom the existing 16 000 tons of radioactivewaste that has been lying aroundPelindaba for several decades – the rest isspeculation. That, in terms of Avogadronumbers, for Ron Smythe and who everwould like the math’s, equates to 5 360x 6.022 141 99 x 1023 “gram molecules”or, if you prefer plain numbers 30,110,706 Biophile Issue 16