N. Koreans Let American Scientist Hold Lump of Plutonium

Livescience.com ^ | 2/22/2010 | Phillip F. Schewe

[Wonder Warthog]

"Grossly unfair."

Unfair but accurate (with appropriate credit to Dan Rather).

[posterchild]

Something similar could probably be said about a load of beach sand turned into powder and delivered into blood streams to cause clots. Sounds like another naderism.

[posterchild]

It’s supposedly very difficult to machine due to it’s 7 allotropes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_plutonium

I once had a brief conversation with Dr. Hecker in a salad bar line, though we didn’t discuss plutonium.

[john in springfield]

One lump of Plutonium.The most toxic substance in the universe.

Where does Governmentium fit?

[mkjessup]

(continuing in that same vein ... )

[Moltke]

Dr. Bernard Cohen, health physicist at University of Pittsburgh, has offered to ingest an amount of Plutonium equal in mass to the amount of caffeine that Ralph Nader would ingest.

Ingesting alpha emitters is not a good idea. Won't do much harm at a distance, as even a few inches of air will stop the alphas, but inside the body they will do damage. Don't think Dr. Cohen was really serious.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Plutonium taken orally is poorly absorbed and most of it is quickly eliminated. Plutonium has a long enough half life that only a very small percentage of it will decay while in the body. As an aspirate it stays in the body more or less for life, hence the distinction.

The specific toxicity of plutonium is about the same as caffeine. I do not suggest mixing plutonium with your morning cup of joe.

Professor Cohen was absolutely serious. He believes that the health risks of foregoing nuclear power are far greater than nuclear power ever could be, by orders of magnitude. Alternative energy sources all present higher health risks, and the alternative of foregoing economic activity has health implications. Longevity correlates with prosperity more strongly than any other identified factor. Being poor makes you unhealthy. Basically, the trade-off of foregoing nuclear power is that we trade prosperity and health for poverty and illness.

BTW, Cohen estimates that if nuclear waste were simply discarded into the environment, into the Mississippi for instance, about one in 10,000 atoms would ever be ingested by a human being (a surprisingly high amount) but the health effects would still be less serious than the poverty resulting from foregoing nuclear power. Again, no one is recommending careless disposal of nuclear waste when far more sensible alternatives are available, but it just shows how irrational and hysterical the arguments about nuclear power have become.