There is no such thing as a “safe dose” of plutonium. While it was common to think that uranium was the most dangerous element on the periodic table a few decades ago, scientists have now discovered a more lethal element. Plutonium, Pu, element 94 on the periodic table is a transuranic radioactive chemical element; meaning it emits excess energy when it decays.
Many previous studies on transuranic elements discovered uranium as the most deadly. Plutonium, recently reviewed by scientists, has also been found to emit alpha radiation, a highly hazardous type which is also emitted by Uranium. It has been concluded that plutonium has a higher radioactivity, hence a faster half-life.
What is Radiation?
Radiation is excess energy, which travels through space in the form of heat, light, sound, microwaves, radio waves and x-rays. Low radioactive substances can be found everywhere.
When much more sophisticated elements are subject to decay, they release many types of radiation; the most common are alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays.
Beta particles are negatively charged and small, allowing them to move fast and penetrate up to 2 centimetres of human skin.
Gamma rays are high-energy waves, and can travel long distances and penetrate human skin. However, they can be blocked by concrete, led, metal or even water.
Both beta and gamma rays are often found in most radioactive materials, while alpha particles appear in much more hazardous elements such as uranium and plutonium.
Alpha Particles
An alpha particle is a type an ionizing radiation, which emits particles, composed of two protons and two neutrons, without elections; giving it a net positive charge. The radiation is only effective if these alpha particles are e...
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... used in fuels and nuclear power plants would not cause such a life-changing event, for those who live adjacent to neighbouring power plants. Only time will tell what the future will hold, but let’s all hope there’s a bright one ahead.
Works Cited
http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/1222-plutonium-more-dangerous-uranium.html
http://www.dhss.delaware.gov/dhss/dph/files/raduranmed.txt
http://www.arpansa.gov.au/radiationprotection/basics/alpha.cfm
http://orise.orau.gov/reacts/guide/alpha.htm
http://www.uraniumsa.org/about/radiation.htm
http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2011/04/03/impact-of-mox-fuel-at-fukushima/
http://www.imagesco.com/articles/geiger/fig1.jpg
http://gothamist.com/attachments/nyc_arts_john/041211fukushima.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ejgKzSsMG48/TYrbIi-O5GI/AAAAAAAAA_s/2sN9lJTEa2c/s1600/reactor_smoke_G_20110323232127.jpg
Before we can analyze the ethical use of DU ammunition, it is important to first establish the technology behind DU and DU weapons. Uranium is one of the heaviest elements found in nature and is emits alpha, beta, and gamma particles. It is 1.7 times denser than lead.12 The half-life of U238 (DU is 99% U238) is 4.5 billion years!13 Uranium byproducts(such as Thorium (Th232)) have even longer half-lives, making uranium an element that gets more radioactive during its own decay process.5 Natural uranium is 99.274% U238, 0.720% U235, and 0.0055% U234.14a Uranium is enriched when its contents of U235 reaches 3.2-3.6% (since U235 is fissible). Weapon-grade uranium is +90% U235.14a What is depleted uranium? We start out with natural uranium and extract enriched uranium for nuclear fuel and weaponry. The leftover from the extraction process is something very similar to natural uranium, known as “depleted uranium”. The only difference is that DU has 0.202% of U235 and 0.0008% of U234.14a How much DU do we currently have? As of June 1998, we have around 57,800 huge steel cylinders of DU or 496,000 metric tons. 14b Storage of DU is very complicated and problematic since corrosion of DU storage cylinders often occurs over relatively short periods of time.15
From its time of discovery in 1941 Plutonium has been both beneficial and detrimental to the human race. The isotope most detrimental is Plutonium-239 which has been used to create nuclear weapons. Plutonium-239 was used in the atomic bomb codenamed “Fat Man” that was dropped on Nagasaki during World War II. Normally a nuclear bomb uses 10 kilograms of Plutonium, but “Fat Man” used even less and still caused a lot of destruction. To put it in perspective again just 1 kilogram of Plutonium-239 causes an explosion equal to that of 20,000 tons of TNT. The way Plutonium-239 works in an atomic bomb is it is controlled by explosives until it goes critical and cause a fission chain reaction. When this happens all the energy is released causing a nuclear
Plutonium, which is a byproduct of the fission process, can also be used for manufacturing weapons and only requires 2-10kg to develop weapons. The atom bomb that landed in Nagasaki contained plutonium fuel. Depleted uranium, which is the left over from the enrichment process, is used to make military grade armor piercing bullets. These DU penetrators have been used in wars throughout history, the most recent being the Gulf wars. This is a disadvantage because the depleted uranium is toxic and has been scientifically proven to cause birth defects, cancer, and death where it was used.
Contamination from the depleted uranium weaponries and other pollution caused by war is alleged for the rise in congenital birth defects, cancer, and other illnesses (Jamail, 2013).
Technetium, as with other radioactive material there is the chance of cancer, and other health conditions from exposure to radioactivity.
Nuclear power has no place in having a safe, clean, sustainable future. Today, the manufacturing of nuclear power plants has become a critical topic throughout the world that many strongly believe should be stopped. Nuclear Power is not safe anywhere in the world nor is it environmentally friendly. Nuclear power plants are truly something that could cause mass destruction in the world and has the potential to wipe out a whole country with ease. Despite proponents’ that claim that nuclear power is safe, there is a history that proves otherwise and marks a number of disasters caused by nuclear power plants.
But not the kind used in a nuclear bomb. No, no. “This plutonium is way more dangerous” he says in pg 73. But every time he fixes one problem, another one we’re going to occur.
...ot weigh much, they can travel far, and through thin surfaces. This means that they are not very dangerous to be around. Many scientists already know what would happen if a plant was exposed to released alpha particles.
Uranium is a rare element and formed not just on Earth but also in space and other planets. It is formed in exploding supernovas, and since it has 92 electrons and 92 protons it is the heaviest naturally produced element. It is radioactive and very harmful and sometimes fatal to humans when contact is made. However it is a sustainable and long lasting source of energy and much better for the environment compared to the more traditional approach to energy, Fossil Fuels. Some scientists say it may be the solution to climate change.
Uranium, a radioactive element, was first mined in the western United States in 1871 by Dr. Richard Pierce, who shipped 200 pounds of pitchblende to London from the Central City Mining District. This element is sorta boring but I found something interesting, they used it to make an an atomic bomb in the Cold War. In 1898 Pierre and Marie Curie and G. Bemont isolated the "miracle element" radium from pitchblende. That same year, uranium, vanadium and radium were found to exist in carnotite, a mineral containing colorful red and yellow ores that had been used as body paint by early Navajo and Ute Indians on the Colorado Plateau. The discovery triggered a small prospecting boom in southeastern Utah, and radium mines in Grand and San Juan counties became a major source of ore for the Curies. It was not the Curies but a British team working in Canada which was the first to understand that the presence of polonium and radium in pitchblende was not due to simple geological and mineral reasons, but that these elements were directly linked to uranium by a process of natural radioactive transmutation. The theory of radioactive transformation of elements was brilliantly enlarge in1901 by the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford and the English chemist Frederick Soddy at McGill University in Montreal. At dusk on the evening of November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Rontgen, professor of physics at the University of Wurzburg in Germany, noticed a cathode tube that a sheet of paper come distance away. He put his hand between the tube and the paper, he saw the image of the bones in his hand on the paper.
Radiation is when the heat energy travels in actual waves. The suns energy gets to earth because of radiation. These three types of heat transfer can be easily found in the activities we have been doing the past couple of weeks having to do with a universal dwelling. They can mostly be seen when we are trying to test the heating and cooling capabilities of our universal home model.
Alpha radiation/emission - Alpha particles are the nuclei of a Helium atom 42He. Consisting of two protons and two neutrons, positively charged.
It is not uncommon to find a group of school aged children playing at a playground or neighborhood park. Now imagine that you are playing a friendly game of four-square with your classmates one minute and the next minute, everyone is gone. A massive explosion caused by a strange object falling from the sky. What could possible cause such an extreme disaster? A chemical reaction caused by the isotope of the element Uranium known as Uranium-235. The isotope Uranium-235, which only makes up a small fraction of natural uranium, changed the scope of nuclear disasters from a small scale to a global disaster (Uranium-235).
Cosmic rays originate from sources in outer space and strike every side of the Earth. Sources of cosmic rays include neutron stars, supernovae, quasars, black holes, and pulsars. Our sun is also capable of producing cosmic rays, but the cosmic rays which it produces contributes little when compared to the total amount of cosmic rays that reach the earth. In addition, the cosmic rays from our sun are typically much lower in energy compared to the cosmic rays that originate from the sources mentioned previously (“Primary Cosmic Rays”). These waves consist of high-energy charged particles, such as atoms’ nuclei, electrons, and positrons. Positrons are also known as antielectrons and they have the same mass as the electron (Phillips). The nuclei found in cosmic rays belong to a wide range of elements, but the majority of the nuclei belong to Hydrogen (i.e. a proton).