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144 comments on Implications of Energy Return on Investment, Peak Oil and the Concept of “Best First”
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144 comments on Implications of Energy Return on Investment, Peak Oil and the Concept of “Best First”
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I suppose Alan thinks that on the frequent occasions when natural gas blows up houses, workplaces, and the vicinities of pipelines, these are not nuclear explosions of radon. True.
A week in transit does indeed allow ~75 percent of the radon the natgas emerges from the ground with to decay. What does it decay into, 'AlanfromBigEasy'?
(Threats from small amounts of radiation from natgas and LPG are no more made up than the threats from any small doses of radiation. They are, of course, much less small, much bigger, than doses of radiation from you-know-what.)
--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)
222Rn decays to 218Po (half-life 3.10 minutes). The remaining elements in the decay chain are bismuth and thallium, ultimately ending in 206Pb.
Number 7 in the above-linked list, lead-210, is the interesting one. Its 22-year half-life means gas and LPG plumbing accumulate it. Each second about one in a billion of its atoms turns into 210-Bi, and that, within days, turns into 210-Po. 210-Po is also known as Litvinenko's bane.
--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)
And, once plated out on the plumbing (which it is likely to do as soon as it becomes 218Po), it is very unlikely to ever wind up at the burner tip and bother anyone.