Talk:Plutonium in the environment

238Pu hazard from RTGs =

I wonder if something more could be said about the RTG 238Pu hazard. I am thinking in particular about the comparison between the Pu dispersed in bomb tests, which would be mostly 239Pu and 240Pu, in much larger (ton) quantities, but also with a much longer lifetime than the 88 years for 238Pu. I believe that a high inclination angle (ie, near the center of the planet instead of the edge) impact from a spacecraft on a high speed flyby that missed due to some serious navigation error (like the 1999 Mars orbiter failure) or spacecraft malfunction could result in dispersal of much or all of the 238Pu into the atmosphere, and then the lifetime ratio of (24,000 y)/(88 y) ~ 265 could result in a large total activity in the environment, even compared to the bomb-related material, during the years shortly after the accident. Is anything known about this? The timescale for Pu to be sequestered would be a major consideration I think. Wwheaton (talk) 22:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hanford

I'm missing a reference to "Hanford Site" in Hanford, WA. This is where most of the US weapon plutonium was processed. A place where hundreds of waste containers leak highly radioactive waste into the environment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonnyjones (talk • contribs) 02:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC) It should also be possible to add information from Rocky Flats; maybe from “Plutonium in Soil Around the Rocky Flats Plant,”,there is a map prepared by P. W. Krey and E. P. Hardy of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Health and Safety Laboratory, New York City.Another pdf:DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC HEALTH AT ROCKY FLATS: THE EXAMPLES OF EDWARD A. MARTELL AND CARL J. JOHNSON should not be ignored. The Savanah River site is fairly typical of these type of complexes and good info is avalible;FINAL REPORT Savannah River Site Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project RAC Report No. 1-CDC-SRS-1999-Final. For info on british pu discharges into the irish sea;pdf...The environmental impact of the Sellafield discharges Luis León Vintró*, Kilian J. Smith, Julie A. Lucey and Peter I. Mitchell please note that the pu in marine sediments in the english channel are from the cap de hague plant (the main french nuclear site) for information on mayak( the main russian weapons plant;pdf.. Review of the current status and operations at Mayak Production Association Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority Postboks 55 N-1332 Østerås NorwaySebastian barnes (talk) 09:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

A lot of mixed-up factual material dumped on plutonium TALK page

A great deal of semi-useable material on plutonium environmental contamination, including cites, has been dropped on the plutonium talk page, by an editor who cannot write. Most of it is formless and free of punctuation and even (sometimes) a train of logical presentation. However, there are cites and interesting links and anybody interested in this should probably go over and have a look at it, to see if anything is salvagable for THIS article. I'm not interested enough, but some here might be. SBHarris 18:54, 16 April 2012 (UTC) I'm new here and am having trouble with formatting my contribution ,there is now a concise and readable proposal for a edit of the occurence section on the plutonium article if anyone is interested ...09:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sebastian barnes (talk • contribs)

why is there a diagram of bomb construction here?

I cannot understand why this diagram is repeated here..there are sevral other reproductions of this diagram on other more relevent pages.Sebastian barnes (talk) 09:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Probably because it illustrates the plutonium pit in atomic bombs. Karmos (talk) 17:40, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

source of plutonium in the environment

it is widely stated that atmospheric bomb tests are the largest source of plutonium in the environment yet according to the pdf; Plutonium Wastes from the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complexby Robert Alvarez], Senior Scholar, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, D.C. July 7, 2010 over 12 tonnes was lost in the U.S through normal operating losses in weapons production and by early reactors,although figures are hard to find russian nuclear production is well known to have been dirtier ,add to this other countries nuclear programmes and we may well be looking at 25 to 30 tonnes released into the environment,2 to 3 times more than all atmospheric testing.Sebastian barnes (talk) 09:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

dumping of reactors and waste in sea

prior to its banning high level radioactive waste was dumped into the sea by the russians ;http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/24/science/soviet-nuclear-dumps-disclosed.html and by britain;http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/thousands-of-radioactive-waste-barrels-rusting-away-on-the-seabed im not sure if or how much of this may be pu but i feel its worth investigating..please note i have only intermittent connextion and think this topic deseves though reporting .so i appeal to the wiki community to spend some time assesing the truth thank youSebastian barnes (talk) 09:49, 4 May 2012 (UTC)heres a link to info on artic ocean contamination ;http://www1.american.edu/ted/arctic.htm.Sebastian barnes (talk) 10:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

underground testing

whilst ;Argonne National Laboratory, EVS Human Health Fact Sheet, August 2005(section "whats in the environment")provides a figure for pu released into the air underground testing is never admitted a a source of pu and other radioactivity in the enviroment,It has been assumed that this radiation source would remain "glued " to the rock in the test sites but there is increasing evidence thatit is leaking out (the nevada test site has recently been tested by ameteurs for surface radiation)Anyway surely a estimate might be arrived at by comparing the number of tests ,air burst and underground as even though these releases are out of site they contribute to pu in the enviroment.Sebastian barnes (talk) 09:58, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

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Plutonium production

In the section of Plutonium Production it was claimed 200 curies of plutonium was released into environment from each of the two plutonium plat facilities. When following the referenced web source #1 in paragraph 6, "Richland promised..." the source says "more than 200 curies", not 200 million curies. So I deleted the word million from the main wiki page. Silverbach (talk) 05:07, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Question remains whether the word "million" should be used or not. If some one has the actual Plutopia book by Prof. Kate Brown, please verify the quantity from the book itself. Silverbach (talk) 06:40, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

References

Gibberish Sentence in Intro

I tried making sense of the last sentence in the introductory section, but I cannot. Here is how it is worded currently:

"However, one paper on marine sediments for plutonium in marine sediments, atomic bomb fallout is responsible for 66% of the 239Pu and 59% 240Pu found in the English Channel, while nuclear reprocessing is responsible for the majority of the 238Pu and 241Pu present in the Earth's oceans (nuclear weapons testing is only responsible for 6.5 and 16.5% of these isotopes respectively)." Pooua (talk) 02:50, 6 June 2017 (UTC)