Ambient office  =113 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 142 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 143 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 56 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 76 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 72 nanosieverts per hour

Part 1 of 4 Parts
       I have blogged often about the radiation threats from nuclear reactors, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons, etc. On the other hand, we may be exposed to different types of radiation from common everyday sources. The term radiation is very broad and covers a variety of specific types of radiation emitted from various sources. I am going to go over the different things that are referred to as “radiation” before dealing with possible sources.
       There are several different types of atomic particles, either single or in combination that are classified as radiation. Helium ions with two protons and two neutrons are a type of radiation called alpha particles. They can cause serious damage to tissue but are easily blocked by even a single sheet of paper. They have to be either consumed or inhaled in order to be a health threat. Highly energetic electrons are radiation referred to as beta particles. They are also easy to block with a few millimeters of aluminum, wood, plastic, water of acrylic plastic. Beta particles cause less damage to tissue than alpha particles. Neutron which are emitted as part of radioactive decay processes can damage tissue. Cosmic rays are highly energetic nuclei of all natural elements that are generated by a variety of processes in outer space.
        The entire electromagnetic spectrum consists of radiant energy. Of particular interest are the following frequency bands. The band used by cell phones has a frequency of about a billion cycles per second. Unfortunately, this happens to be the exact band of electromagnetic radiation absorbed by the human brain. The terahertz band which is used in airport scanners has a frequency of about ten followed by twelve zeros and is considered relatively harmless. It lies between the bands of microwaves and infrared. Ultraviolet radiation is above the visible light band. UV from the sun can burn exposed human skin. UV has frequencies from ten followed by fourteen zeros to ten followed by sixteen zeros. X-rays which are used in medical diagnosis have a frequency of about ten followed by seventeen zeros. Gamma rays which are extremely energetic high frequencies of electromagnetic radiation have a frequency above ten followed by nineteen zeros.
Here are some common sources.
       Bananas are often mentioned in the context of common radiation emitters. They contain the radioactive isotope potassium-40. Potassium-40 emits beta particles and gamma rays as it decays. The amount of radiation from one banana is roughly equivalent to average levels of background radiation. However, a truckload of bananas can set off the radiation detectors at U.S. ports of entry.
        Brazil nuts grown in Brazil turn out to contain radium drawn up by the very deep roots of the trees that grow the nuts. The soil in Brazil is naturally high in radium. Radium emits alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays. The amount can be a thousand times the amount in most other foods, but it is still low enough not to pose a significant health threat.
Please read Part 2

Ambient office  = 88 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 69 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 66 nanosieverts per hour

Beefsteak tomato from Central Market = 71 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 139 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 125 nanosieverts per hour

       I have blogged about the Russian floating nuclear reactor that is being deployed to the Artic to aid oil exploration. Now it appears that the idea of a floating nuclear reactor is becoming more popular.
       Construction of a nuclear reactor onsite becomes problematic if the site is in a remote area with harsh weather conditions. If you use a floating reactor in such locations, it can be built in a convenient shipyard near a major port and then moved to the location where it will be used. Ocean water can be used to cool the reactor. When the reactor is no longer needed, it can be moved to a new location. Of course, there are questions about safety.
      China has announced that it intends to build about twenty floating nuclear reactors. The first such reactor should be ready for service in 2019. Indonesia is very interested in floating nuclear reactgors because there are many small islands in Indonesia which could benefit from a floating electricity generator.
      ThorCon USA Inc. is a private company located in Stevenson, Washington.  It is developing the ThorCon small modular reactor based on a design from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The ThorCon reactor is a molten liquid salt reactor designed to be carried on a barge. They use the same steam conversion system for electricity generation as a five-hundred megawatt supercritical coal plant but without most of the infrastructure required by the coal plant. Ultimately, the ThorCon reactor will generate electricity at about one third the cost of the supercritical coal plant.
       The floating ThorCon nuclear plant is called a nuclear island. It requires about one-sixth as much steel and about one-fourth as much concrete upstream from the steam turbine as a coal plant. A one-gigawatt ThorCon nuclear island requires less than four hundred tons of superalloys and other exotic materials. On the nuclear side, it uses about half the steel and about one fifty the concrete of a land based small modular reactor. Because the ThorCon reactor operates at ambient atmospheric pressure, the concrete used to construct it does not have to be reinforced. Reinforced concrete construction is impossible to automate, its requirements drive the critical path, it cannot be used in block construction and, ultimately, encloses the reactor in a solid structure that makes it very hard to repair and replace. The ThorCon reactor can be constructed entirely in bargable blocks in a shipyard assembly line.
       It is estimated that the ThorCon nuclear island should be able to produce electricity for under five hundred dollars per kilowatt. This would translate into about seven cents per kilowatt hour for consumers. A big well-equipped shipyard should be able to produce one hundred one gigawatt ThorCon nuclear islands a year.
       A one gigawatt ThorCon nuclear island needs about seven thousand pounds of twenty percent Low Enriched Uranium fuel to start. From then on, twenty-four pounds of this fuel must be added every day. Every eight years, the fuel must be changed out completely. One hundred and sixty tons of fuel will be sent to a recycling facility every eight years when the fuel is changed. About twenty four percent of the spent fuel will be uranium with the rest being thorium, If the only processing is boiling off the molten salt and no recovery is carried out, only seventy cubic feet of nuclear waste is produced.
       The ThorCon nuclear reactor could be a game changer for energy production along the world’s coastlines.

Ambient office  = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 153 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 147 nanosieverts per hour

Peach from Central Market = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 120 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 109 nanosieverts per hour

       The Russians have been rattling their nuclear saber for years. Their nuclear bombers have invaded other countries airspace and their nuclear submarines have invaded other countries territorial waters. They have moved nuclear missiles into border provinces to threaten neighbors. Putin has publicly threatened to use tactical nukes if Russia is losing a conventional war against NATO.
       Recently, Putin has been bragging about the amazing new nuclear weapons delivery systems the Russians are developing. They have announced a new missile with twenty-four independently tagetable warheads that could overwhelm any anti-missile system in the world, a hypersonic cruise missile that can be launched from a plane, an underwater stealth drone that could sail undetected right into the harbor of an enemy and detonate a nuclear bomb. They also announced this March that they are working on a cruise missile with a nuclear engine that would be able to fly for days without the need for fuel and reach anywhere in the world.
       The U.S. once worked on a missile with a nuclear engine but decided that it was not really a good idea. The missile would spew radiation as it traveled because there would be no shielding. That would mean that if it were launched from a location on the maker’s territory, it would irradiate the countryside on its way to the enemy. The project was abandoned.
        The Russians have been working on their new nuclear-powered missile design since the year 2000 but only announced it in March of this year. The new missile is believed to use a gasoline-powered engine for takeoff before switching to a nuclear-powered one for flight.
      Reports from the U.S. intelligence community have stated that four tests of the new Russian nuclear power missiles between November and February all crashed. The longest test lasted about two minutes. The missile crashed after flying just twenty-two miles. The shortest test flew for five miles before crashing. Apparently, the nuclear engine failed to ignite during the tests. It has been reported that senior Russian officials demanded that the tests be carried out over the objects of the engineers that the missile was not ready for testing.
       Now it appears that they cannot find the wreckage of one of the new missiles that they launched on a test flight in November. The missile went down in the Barent Sea north of Russia and Norway which the Soviet Union used as a dumping ground for nuclear waste and contaminated equipment and ships for decades. There have been times in the past when the Russians warned the Norwegians that there was a danger that Norwegian fishing zones were being contaminated by Russian underwater nuclear dumps.
       The Russians have launched a recovery mission for their nuclear power missile. Three ships will be involved including one equipped to handle radioactive materials. The U.S. intelligence report that revealed the Russian recovery mission did not mention any threat to the environment or public health.
      A spokesman for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists released a statement that said, “It goes without saying that if you fire a missile with a nuclear engine or energy source, that nuclear material will end up wherever that missile ends up. If this missile was lost at sea and recovered in full, then you might hypothetically be able to do it without pollution, I would have my doubts about that because it’s a very forceful impact when the missile crashes. I would suspect you would have leaks from it.”