{"id":6797,"date":"2016-04-28T09:49:20","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T08:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6797"},"modified":"2016-04-28T09:49:20","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T08:49:20","slug":"chernobyl-30-years-radiation-dangerous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6797","title":{"rendered":"Chernobyl 30 years on – is radiation all that dangerous?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster is exactly 30 years ago this week.\u00a0 There have been 3 major nuclear disasters (and countless near misses arguably).\u00a0 The first was Three Mile Island in 1979.\u00a0 This put some people off but the alternatives weren’t great.\u00a0 The second was Chernobyl which changed my mind about nuclear power.\u00a0 The third was of course at Fukishima which has confirmed many of our fears.\u00a0 Now of course there are many and an increasing number of alternatives (which are also cheaper).\u00a0 In all three disasters a total core meltdown was narrowly avoided.\u00a0 Chernobyl was the worst since of the three since there was no proper containment.\u00a0 The fear many of have is that the nuclear industry have little idea once a core meltdown is underway how to stop it and so far doing so has relied on a degree of luck.<\/p>\n

Each disaster has cranked up Nuclear costs as more safety features are built in by regulators.\u00a0 In the Western world this has led to a mere handful of reactors being started since Chernobyl and now an increasing number of pro-nuclear academics are questioning the existing safety regime in a bid to lower these costs.\u00a0 Part of their argument is that radiation is not as dangerous as all that, so if there was another disaster things would not be that bad.\u00a0 (I’ve actually heard this said on the radio over the last few months.) \u00a0 Just what is radiation and just how dangerous is it?<\/p>\n

First a bit of physics.\u00a0 An atom is composed of a nucleus with elections orbiting around it (in simple terms).\u00a0 The nucleus consists of protons (positively charged) and neutrons (as the name implies no charge).\u00a0\u00a0 These are added together and called the atomic mass (electrons being smaller are ignored).\u00a0 The atomic mass is shown as a superscript in front of the element symbol (see below).\u00a0 The atomic number (the number of protons is shown as a subscript).\u00a0 The atomic number tells us which element it is.\u00a0 The neutrons have no effect on the chemistry of the atom (slight exaggeration) and their number can vary for the same element.\u00a0 Its the ratio of neutrons to protons that decides whether the element is stable.\u00a0 A high number of extra neutrons (generally in heavier elements) makes it less likely.\u00a0 Atoms that are not stable (and most are stable) undergo radioactive decay and produce sub-atomic bits we call radiation. There are four main types of radiation all of whose sources are a bit weird on the face of it and a full understanding probably depends on a deep knowledge of sub-atomic physics.\u00a0 In releasing radiation the element changes into another.\u00a0 As a final point these elements can be present in chemical compounds and that makes no difference to their decay.<\/p>\n

The first type of radiation is when a neutron converts to proton and in doing so emits an electron (told you its weird).\u00a0 This form of radiation is not too dangerous unless you ingest the source.\u00a0 Electrons travel only very short distances through any matter including air.\u00a0 In this example radioactive carbon 14 decays to nitrogen 14 (the normal form not radioactive).<\/p>\n

\"beta<\/a>The next form produces anti-matter (yes it does exist) when a proton converts to a neutron.\u00a0 This produces a positive electron.\u00a0 When is this meets a normal electron its annihilated producing gamma rays (see below).\u00a0 Little danger here unless the source is inside you are very close contact. In this example sodium decays to neon, beta is positively charged.<\/p>\n

\"positron<\/a>The third form is alpha particle radiation.\u00a0 This is a helium nuclei and is made up of protons and neutrons.\u00a0 Again air and materials stop it, but if swallowed this is much more of a danger since the particles are bigger.\u00a0 Here in this example the element radon decays to the radioactive gas radon.<\/p>\n

\"alpha<\/a>The last form is gamma rays these are formed of electromagnetic radiation like light (except a much shorter wavelength).\u00a0 These will travel large distances in air and through matter.\u00a0 They are formed from the decay of alpha and beta emitters.\u00a0 These can do great damage.<\/p>\n

When a particular individual atom decays is a random unpredictable event.\u00a0 How fast a group of atoms decays is predictable and the rate depends on the starting radioactive element.\u00a0 These rates we call half lives.\u00a0 This is simply the time that its takes mass x to decay to half its radioactivity.\u00a0 The half life can vary from microseconds to 1019<\/sup> years with everything in between.\u00a0 Atoms that decay will end up as a stable non-radioactive elements.\u00a0 Many atoms decay through a series of radioactive steps, the decay of radium shown above is part of the decay of uranium which ends up as lead.\u00a0 In the next post I will look at the biological effects and the controversy.<\/p>\n

The<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster is exactly 30 years ago this week.\u00a0 There have been 3 major nuclear disasters (and countless near misses arguably).\u00a0 The first was Three Mile Island in 1979.\u00a0 This put some people off but the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[187,49],"class_list":["post-6797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuclear","tag-chernobyl","tag-nuclear-power"],"yoast_head":"\nChernobyl 30 years on - is radiation all that dangerous? - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6797\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6797\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6797\",\"name\":\"Chernobyl 30 years on - is radiation all that dangerous? 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