Radioactive Blade/Silverware???

J

James Y

Joined
Feb 18, 1999
Messages
6,504
I just heard on the news that (I believe) in Tennessee the government is allowing metal from radioactive waste to be re-used into steel to make various items like silverware, zippers, bicycles, knives, etc. Supposedly, the radioactive metal is made "less radioactive" before being made into products.

The government sees no wrong in this, and the purpose for doing it at all is it will cost less money to remake this waste metal into eating utensils that to dispose of it.

It was mentioned that steel companies do not like this, obviously because when people hear about it, they'll be hesitant to buy any steel products that might contain this re-used material. I think they said this material is due sometime next fall.

It seems some people in certain places are willing to play games with people's health for the bottom dollar.
Jim
 
James,

According to my local news its the US government that is initiating a plan to recycle some of the radioactive metal rather than spend $200M on burial and containment. The level of radiation is supposedly low (safe??!), and the metal will be recycled into all sorts of metal products.

Well anyway, at least it will be easier to find your silverware during those romantic candle lit dinners. It will be the glowing stuff right next to your glowing hand across from your glowing other half (just can't wait to see what they come up with next
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).



[This message has been edited by not2sharp (edited 01-04-2000).]
 
It will be safer than some of the stuff you eat!

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Later,
John

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The King of Sweden was out hunting in the woods with one of his assistants. As they looked around suddenly there appeared in the clearing another man. The King raised his rifle. The man shouted "I'm not a moose!" The King fired a shot and killed the man. Stunned, the assistant said, "Sire, he said, 'I'm not a moose.'" "Oh" said the King, "I thought he said, 'I am a moose.'"
 
Let's say that I've just decommissioned a nuclear plant and I have a couple hundred pounds of rather radioactive steel -- hot stuff. I could pay millions of dollars to securely store it in an appropriate facility for a thousand years, and it would still pose an environmental risk. But, what if I also owned a steel mill that was producing 100 tons of steel a day to be made into consumer products. What if I was to cut my two hundred pounds of radioactive steel up into one-pound chunks and, every day, drop one chunk into the big crucible where 100 tons of new steel is being made? The result is that the new steel will contain 1 part in 200,000 radioactive steel. The radioactivity will be reduced to an almost undetectible level. It's a much less expensive and much safer way to dispose of my radioactive steel. Sounds good to me.

It's very similar to what is done with paper. You can take used paper, grind it up, add water, and make pulp. That recycled pulp can be added to the mix as you make new pulp to make new paper.

So, why is the steel industry opposed to it? Well, why did the paper industry oppose recycled pulp initially? Quality control. When you're using a recycled product, you can't control what's in it as well.



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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.4cs.net/~gollnick
 
Then you can have kids with a few extra limbs and even a second head. Ooohh. Please tell me more about this as it goes on. Too critical to our health. Thanks

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Yeah, the sweet part for the Gvt is that they can dispose of the stuff, put it into guns or knives, and then years later sue somebody over it. Instead of "Let them eat cake" We have "Hell with the people, we have their cake to eat so we can save ours". Neat trick huh? Course us common folk would spend the next half life in the pokey for it, while the Gvt gets all fat and happy.
 
I work (half of my work) is measuring radioactive waste or contamination in NPPs. Here in Finland it is not 'allowed' to dilute waste and thus get the activity below radioactive waste limit ( probably this ban is valid everywhere ). Organizations that use radioactive isotopes like my workplace (we have a small reactor and I actually sometimes operate it) have total discharge limit per year per nuclide and total comparision activity wich includes all nuclides multiplied by radioactive harm factors (this activity is considerable less than sum for all individual activities). That is ONLY for liquids or solutions and gaseous wastes that have short halflife like activated Argon(Ar), Nitrogen(N) and Sodium(Na).

Even if you are letting out waste in small concentration the calculated dosage for whole populatin (manSievert) is not allowed to get too high. From the total manSv dose can excepted cancerdeaths be estimated.(this is not fully exact of course: estimate from estimate can't be accurate)

In our border to Russia there are detectors to find radioactive metaljunk that some try to slip to EU with other metal that is bought from russia.

This all is sometimes quite futile as our bedrock contains so much uranium that radon (from uraium decay chain) activities are in some areas quite high (Ra causes a big fraction of lung cancers).

If government has allowed to use junkmetal that contains activity that should be safe. Amount of dose just from your own bones (K-40) is probably bigger than what that metal junk will cause. Dose for population should (probably was) still be taken in consideration (I do not belive in conspiratin theories about evil governments
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)

Have a shining day with shining silverwares
smile.gif
I'll definitely will have one and without any silver
biggrin.gif
!



[This message has been edited by Tommi (edited 01-05-2000).]
 
Wow! Things are different here. In one NPP that the cafeteria is not able to send food waste to local dump as local politicians in that area are afraid of everyhing that comes from NPP. The cafeteria has to use final disposal cave for food waste. Thas ain't wise either. Problem in USA and in all nuclear weapon countries is that in the beginning of weapon production they accumulated HUGE amounts of waste.
Total amount of waste from of our 4 NPPs and one research reactor generated during 40 years use is 20000 tons of radioactivewaste.

I have to get authorisation to all my experimental works that I do with even small amounts of radionuclides from our Radiation safety Center.

Now I'm beliver of evil government theory

[This message has been edited by Tommi (edited 01-05-2000).]
 
Hi James...

Some pretty nasty stuff thats for sure!

If this is true,, someone needs a flogging!

This is the same reason I don't buy any Asian made cast iron cookware.
They use recycled iron, probably from old Toyotas. That stuff is loaded with Toxins,,, and to think you cook in it, releasing all that crap into your food!

It's all going to catch up to us one day!!!

ttyle Eric...

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Eric E. Noeldechen
On/Scene Tactical
http://www.mnsi.net/~nbtnoel
Custom made, High Quality
Concealex Sheaths and Tool Holsters
Canada's Only Custom Concealex Shop!

 
Radiation is natural, you get it from dirt, the air, the sky, and the sea. Any time you dig you churn up more radiation. You are more at risk from going outside into the sunlight than from the levels involved in these metals. Having a basement in your house instead of a ventilated crawl space is a much greater risk (due to radon exposure).

I bet we get more radioactive contamination from burning fossil fuels than from nuclear power plants. There are a lot of isotopes in this world with measureable disintegration rates. The only thing more dangerous than going outdoors is staying inside. Get a life.
 
As has been pointed out, radioactivity is everywhere all around us. Every bit of iron mined contains some amount of radioactivity, some batches more than others.

The idea of diluting radioactive metals by mixing small amounts into batches of metal for conventional use doesn't seem like a problem to me if you dilute it enough.

Chuck
 
Jeff,
you are right about natural radioactivity.
you are right about radiation release from burning fossil fuel.... You are right about it all.

I used to think that way about radiation a short while ago. Actually I almost think that way now.

BUT if I want to have my work in nuclear industry ( yes this is personal thing for me now ) I need a society where people trust the government. Government shouldn't be the one that dilutes radioactivity to ecosphere. It should be the one that monitors safety. Evil
wink.gif
companies should do this kind of business. This also happens too close the Toikaimuran accident.

I want to be the one that complains about too strict rules not the one that has to doubt what is the quality of radiation safety monitoring and moral.
 
Bureaucrats are perfectly happy setting impossible and nonsensical "polution" limits. Politicians build their careers by scaring people with bogus threats to public welfare. We have plutonium waste sitting in our cities because the politicians block all reasonable avenues to relocate and/or mediate the problem.

I live in a region where waste from nuclear weapons production is sitting in idle facilities adjacent to the building of new housing developments. We have people who obstruct removal of the plutonium because no removal process or containment technique can meet their impossible standards. So the building of the Rock Creek housing development has overlapped the decomissioning of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant by many unnecessary years.

I want scientists and engineers to devise my remediation techniques, not politicians. The scientists will often work for the government, but they at least understand physical reality beyond political reality. If you force the remediation process to be adversarial, government experts can only criticize, and therefor can only prove their value by obstructing remediation. They will become only political. And we will keep having radioactive jack rabbits wandering the countryside.

[This message has been edited by Jeff Clark (edited 01-05-2000).]
 
Tommi and Jeff,good points
It seems in the U.S.everyone has a phobia about radition and most people know very little about it.For yrs.in Europe they have been radiating some foods(makes it last longer and makes the food safer).They were going to try it here and people-especially the Media went crazy.
I work in M.R.I. Years ago it was called N.M.R.I.(Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging).They dropped the word Nuclear because they thought it would frighten people and they would'nt take the test.
 
Here the radiation safety is monitored by scientist. Radiation safety centre has autonomy like courts. Industry uses radiation, RSC monitors and prepares codes and government enacts laws according to RSCs proposals. Sometimes politicians manage to bother
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.
 
Yes Nuclear is bad word.
I'll try to tell you a small joke if I manage to tell it right in english.

Here the first of May is a celebration day for students (and labour unions). In my univercity (technical one) students have habit to finance drinking by selling humorous magazines. This kind of fake ad was in that magazine but also in some local news papper (this happened one year after tsernobyl accident) Buy this small adaptor and filter the harmful nuclear-electricity from your home-electricity... There was a picture of a small adaptor like a travellers electricity transformer. There was of course some smaller text that told more.

What was the result. They got hundreds of calls from people aroud the country trying to get rid of nuclear electricity.

[This message has been edited by Tommi (edited 01-05-2000).]
 
So much crap in our air, food, and water, I doubt any extra body parts resulting from "glow-in-the-dark" forks can be attributed to radioactive recycled steel. Hell, everything will cause you harm these days. Did you know that carpet can actually contribute to lung cancer?
 
The cheapest solution for solid nuclear waste generated by reactors and even the reactors them selves is to abandon them in place. As for liquid radioactive waste, the government has built plants in Washington state and South Carolina that mix the waste into glass and there by solidify and stabilize it.

I know this is probably off topic.

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Roger Blake
 
The cheapest solution for solid nuclear waste generated by reactors and even the reactors them selves is to abandon them in place. As for liquid radioactive waste, the government has built plants in Washington state and South Carolina that mix the waste into glass and there by solidify and stabilize it.

I know this is probably off topic.

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Roger Blake
 
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