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Revision as of 22:05, 5 July 2016 editTimeshifter (talk \| contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers50,348 edits →Paid health claims concerning depleted uranium at Wah Chang facility in Oregon: new section← Previous edit		Revision as of 22:06, 5 July 2016 edit undoTimeshifter (talk \| contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers50,348 edits →Paid health claims concerning depleted uranium at Wah Chang facility in Oregon: formatNext edit →
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	*. By Bennett Hall. ''].'' June 22, 2016. Article quote ('''emphasis''' added):		*. By Bennett Hall. ''].'' June 22, 2016. Article quote ('''emphasis''' added):
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	While Wah Chang workers were eligible to apply for EEOICPA benefits from the time the law went into effect in 2001, few seem to have been aware of it before the creation of the special exposure cohort and designation of a residual exposure period in 2011.		While Wah Chang workers were eligible to apply for EEOICPA benefits from the time the law went into effect in 2001, few seem to have been aware of it before the creation of the special exposure cohort and designation of a residual exposure period in 2011.

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Sanity check

There is loads of talk here about uranium causing radiation related effects. For a quick sanity check Uranium-238 has a half life of 4.5 billion years - this is so long that the radioactivity is minute, certainly being exposed to U238 dust is radiologically irrelevant . It is a heavy metal and that causes chemical issues but anyone claiming radiological issues with U238 is either ill informed or a scaremonger. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mtpaley (talk • contribs) 00:54, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

If you're talking about depleted uranium, you have yet to explain the fact that all kinds of birth defects and cancer swept through Falluja after depleted uranium bombs fell there. Coincidence? I think no — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.124.143.83 (talk • contribs) 21:14, 1 February 2015‎

Mtpaley, you say "certainly being exposed to U238 dust is radiologically irrelevant ". Ok, you're on. Let's see the math. It would be a good addition to the article. GangofOne (talk) 09:24, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Let's try this analysis on for size. Herein I use e notation: 3e-2 is the scientific 3x10, or 0.03.

Typical fallout dust particles (http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/particle-sizes-d_934.html) range a factor of ten on each side of a micron in size. Uranium metal density is about 20 gm/cm^3, so the average mass of a 100% uranium particle is 20 / (e-6)^3 = 2e-17 grams. 238 grams of U-238 contains 6.02e23 uranium atoms (Avogadro's law). So a typical fallout particle contains about 5 million uranium atoms, assuming the particle is 100% uranium, plus or minus a factor of 10.

Now, the half-life of U-238 is, as stated, about the age of the Earth, about 4.5e9 years. Roughly stated then, it takes about 4.5e9/5e6, or about a thousand years on average for a single uranium atom in that particle to decay, throwing off an alpha particle and an atom of Th-234. It is well known that thermal alpha particles (typical of decay alphas) pose little threat to humans externally; they are absorbed by dead exterior skin cells with zero detrimental effect. Internally, they may impinge on live cells, and in sufficient concentration, "burn" close cells. One alpha per 1000 years means that over an average human lifetime, uranium particles, unless present in truly huge numbers, are inert.

Why do people worry about fallout, then? Because it holds many substances which have much shorter half-lives than U-238. Iodine-131, for example, with a half-life of 8 days. In DU penetrators, uranium-238 is the only radioactive material present. This is a totally new concept for many anti-nuke people, that the isotopes to worry over are those with the short half-lives, not those with the long ones. Well water in Finland, for comparison, shows 220 becquerels of radioactivity per liter from dissolved radon, and is considered safe (a becquerel is one decay event per second; the hypothetical U-238 particle gives off 3e-11 Bq).

I disagree that this analysis should be in the article - for one, it is original research (I've not seen this calculation anywhere else), which in wikipedia is forbidden. Second, it is very rough and there are lots of simplifying assumptions - the +/- 10x multiplier, for one, "cubic" particles, and what happens with the left-over thorium, for others. So I will leave it right here. Anyone is welcome to use it elsewhere with my full permission. SkoreKeep (talk) 04:26, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

The conclusions of mtpaley are consistent with what is stated (in Swedish) by the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority Finland. BP OMowe (talk) 19:00, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Oy, where to start. Good thing we don't do original research; this is a mess! First off, a 1e-6 m cube (1 micron cube) of U-238 would weigh 2e7 g/m^3 * (1e-6 m)^3 = 2e-11 g. You were off by six orders of magnitude due to your units error. Assuming the nonconservative activity in a 1 micron cube when dust likely to be retained in the lung (not, of course, fallout) tops out at 10 microns introduces another 3 orders of magnitude error. For a range of 1-10 micron cubes, we have 5e10 to 5e13 atoms, not 5e6 (you made a 2 order of magnitude calculation error in this step somehow, but it partially cancelled out your earlier errors). For the activity level you want to use mean lifetime; not half life. The mean lifetime of 238U is 2e17 seconds, so that is 4e6 to 4e3 seconds (1-1000 hours) per disintegration per particle. A person exposed to a uranium fire could inhale many thousands of the particles.

Subsequent decay of 234Th and 234Pa daughter and granddaughter products happens instantaneously relative to the 238U half life, so the activity of the Uranium is effectively tripled to by the beta emitters. Summing up, the resulting activity is on the order of 0.01-10 Bq (a third of which will be the more damaging alphas). Hardly Chernobyl, but not the "one disintegration per 1000 years" you came up with either. Our article is accurate in reporting that the radiological hazard is negligible compared with the heavy-metal toxicity. VQuakr (talk) 05:27, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

And you can multiply all of those numbers by the number of particles inhaled, which is very unlikely to be one isn't it. It could in fact be an ungodly large number. 178.15.151.163 (talk) 15:52, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

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Erroneous unreferenced sentence

@ In Intro: "It is only weakly radioactive because of its long radioactive half-life (4.468 billion years for uranium-238, 700 million years for uranium-235; or 1 part per million every 6446 and 1010 years, respectively)." The strength of radioactivity of a radioactive substance is in no way related to its radioactive half-life. I do not know what point the writer was shooting at here, but it's a clean miss. Marbux (talk) 05:28, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

@Marbux: half-life and decay energy are indeed related for alpha emitters; see the Geiger–Nuttall law. I agree a source should be added, though. VQuakr (talk) 07:52, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

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High cancer rates, and dust from abandoned open-pit uranium mines

Uranium in dust in desert areas in the Middle East, and on Native American lands.

The Dirty, Deadly Front End of Nuclear Power -- 15,000 Abandoned Uranium Mines. 11 March 2016. By Josh Cunnings and Emerson Urry, EnviroNews. From the article: "To our understanding there are about 15,000 abandoned uranium mines that have been left in complete ruin with very little cleanup or remediation at all, just in the western United States. This has happened, by-and-large, because of an antiquated mining bill -- the 1872 Mining Bill -- still affecting these situations today -- that kind of allowed miners to just walk away from these situations -- but yet, they remain in the open leaching off tailings -- blowing around radioactive dust. I think there's about 4,500 of these exposed mining sites just in Navajo country -- another 2,500 or so in Wyoming. ... The Northern Great Plains' levels are higher than Fukushima -- and these are not from nuclear power plants or from an atomic weapon, or atomic bomb being exploded. These are from 2,885 abandoned open-pit uranium mines and prospects, and we are subject to that radioactive pollution constantly. We, the people of the Great Sioux Nation, we are the miner's canary. We are the miner's canary for the rest of the United States. We have the highest cancer rates now. We never gave permission for uranium mining to occur in our treaty territory. It's not just the nuclear power plants that people have to be afraid. All of these abandoned open-pit uranium mines in the Northern Great Plains are affecting everyone, but they are genocide for the Great Sioux Nation -- for my people. This is genocide." --Timeshifter (talk) 21:40, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Regulation of DU at 15 military sites in the USA

US Army’s depleted uranium licencing saga highlights post-conflict contradictions. 23 March 2016. ICBUW. From the article: "The contrast with the strict US domestic regulatory framework for DU contaminated sites and the US military’s response to DU following its use in conflict could not be starker." --Timeshifter (talk) 21:40, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Paid health claims concerning depleted uranium at Wah Chang facility in Oregon

Depleted uranium at Wah Chang led to decades of health woes. By Bennett Hall. Corvallis Gazette-Times. June 22, 2016. Article quote (emphasis added):

While Wah Chang workers were eligible to apply for EEOICPA benefits from the time the law went into effect in 2001, few seem to have been aware of it before the creation of the special exposure cohort and designation of a residual exposure period in 2011.

In general, eligible Wah Chang workers are covered under Part B of the program. Those who qualify receive a lump sum payment of $150,000, plus medical benefits covering the cost of treatment for 22 different types of cancer.

So far, 451 current or former Wah Chang employees — or their survivors in cases where the employee has died — have filed 672 claims for benefits. To date, 302 of those claims have been approved and the government has paid out $32.6 million in cash compensation and $2.3 million in medical bills.

But an unknown number of people who might qualify for benefits still have never been told about the program.

--Timeshifter (talk) 22:05, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

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