Holy smokes…you survived! Well I guess the probability of nuclear war…uh, wait, I mean it looks like more nuclear power plants are going to be built! Yeah, that’s what I meant. Stable geniuses are running the show now. Nothing to worry about here, just a bunch of billionaires promoting nuclear power while cheerleading for the deregulation of environmental protections.
Nevermind that the newly appointed administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency has zero fucking background in science. Yup, he’s just a weaselly attorney. Is it surprising though? Not really. Since the agency’s creation in 1970 by the Republican President Richard Nixon, most of the EPA administrators have been attorneys with little to no background in science.
You can’t make this shit up: attorneys, businessmen, and lobbyists drafting legislation for science. It makes you wonder about that organic food you’ve been eating. Just remember that the folks that came up with the legislation weren’t exactly brilliant scientists, but rather people that were sponsored by industrial giants to write the rules for the industry. Makes sense.
So you are probably asking yourself, how did we get here? Well, you can thank a trailblazing environmentalist by the name of Rachel Carson and her book, Silent Spring. It was published in 1962 and she was able to link the overuse of DDT, a now-illegal pesticide, to an alarming amount of deaths among both wild and domesticated animals.
Then just a couple of years later in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission, an American astronaut named William Anders snapped a photo of your planet while their Apollo spacecraft was orbiting the moon. The photo was given a special name, Earthrise. It was the first time that your species was able to observe its fragile ecosystem from afar.
Many folks attribute the environmental movement to that one beautiful photo. But really it was a combination of Carson’s book, the Earthrise photograph, and…oh yeah, a fucking river in Cleveland caught on fire. Yes, you read that right. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire due to the copious amounts of flammable liquids that were being dumped into the river by incompetent/negligent chemical handlers.
Since the EPA’s creation 54 years ago, there have been nearly 1,900 former industrial locations that have been designated as Superfund sites. Most of these sites were abandoned by the industrial polluters that created them. These plots of land are speckled all throughout the U.S. and they are saturated with unknown amounts of man-made, toxic chemicals.
Many of these pollutants will likely persist in the environment much longer than the humans that created them. Over 450 of the designated sites have been cleaned up and removed from the list, but nearly 1,300 active sites still remain. The shocking part is that most of the humans who were responsible for creating these environmental catastrophes will likely never be held accountable.
So there you have it. That is how the population of the U.S. became motivated to embrace environmental protections. Well, as my ex-wife always used to say, ‘sometimes the truth hurts, Nord! Nobody wants to hear a reckless drunk nerd talk about science and facts!’ Fuck me, right!? Well, I studied art history too. Memento mori, remember in death, we are all the same, especially when we drink the same fucking water and breathe the same polluted air.
Okay, so what does this have to do with the radioactive nightmare that you were promised? Well, since Donald Reagan made it cool to deregulate and be scientifically ignorant. I don’t know if nuclear power is such a good idea for humans. For instance, how many of you know anything about radioactivity, radiation, or even a little bit about environmental chemistry? Exactly! So are you really going to trust these jabronis that enriched themselves with their chicanery, charisma, and your scientific ignorance? Or are you going to say, slow down motherfuckers, I am learning nuclear physics from Nord the Nerd!
Well now, hold on cowboys and cowgirls. I’m not really here to tell you if I am for or against nuclear power. It may be a viable option considering that Americans are home to only about 5% of the world’s population but are using roughly 25% of the world’s energy. The sad reality is that you are an adult now and you need to start thinking about the possible implications that your scientific ignorance may cause for future generations.
So listen up, I know nuclear and I know it well. I would never intentionally set you up for failure, but this stuff is kind of gnarly and belongs in the hands of well-trained adults. There are three big considerations that humans need to worry about when thinking about nuclear facilities.
First, there will always be radioactive waste to deal with. Secondly, humans working in this industry will be exposed to radiation. The third and scariest issue is that there could be a catastrophic accident. Oh, and I guess there is always the chance that the world could end in a nuclear apocalypse.
The thing with radiation is that you can’t taste it, you can’t feel it, you can’t see it, and you can’t smell it. It could be cooking you right now and you would never know. Of course after a couple of hours of exposure to a significant source of radiation, you might start feeling a bit of nausea and weakness. Depending on the dose, you might need to be hospitalized, you could be near death, or maybe you vanished in a nuclear flash.
To truly understand radiation, you need to know a little bit about chemistry and physics. Don’t be scared…this shit is amazing! Imagine the air in front of your face that you cannot see is filled with little tiny things of existence that we call matter: a substance that has mass and takes up physical space. These little particles of existence are invisible to the human eye, yet they are composed of atoms, molecules, and subatomic particles that fall under the category of matter.
Yes, even you are composed of matter, because you have mass (weight) and you take up physical space (volume). I know this is a bit of mind fuck, but just hold on and enjoy the ride. Molecules are built out of atoms. Atoms are so fucking small that a piece of dust has more atoms in it than humans that have ever existed. Think about that!
Remember back in high school when you would come back from lunch after smoking too much weed and you were sitting there and zoning out? Staring at the wall of that huge poster that was called the periodic table? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, it’s fucking awesome!
It was invented in 1869 by the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev and each little box on the periodic table represents a different element. I like to refer to the elements listed on the periodic table as the pieces to the puzzle of existence. There are 118 elements listed on the periodic table, but only 92 of those are considered naturally occurring.
This means that 26 elements cannot be found in nature and even some of the naturally occurring elements are in such low abundance or so short lived that they are difficult to find. An element cannot be broken down chemically into anything else. For example, think about gold, silver, iron, aluminum, lithium, and so on.
But here is the kicker: elements are composed of atoms which are made up of a unique amount of three pieces: protons, neutrons, and electrons. The word atom is derived from the Greek word atomos for indivisible or undividable.
A proton has a positive charge and is considered the fingerprint of each element. For instance, if it has one proton, then it is a hydrogen atom, if it has two protons then it is a helium atom, three protons then it is a lithium atom…and all the way up to a uranium atom that contains 92 protons. Trust me, I’ll weave all this shit together beautifully.
The protons with their positive charge and neutrons with no charge are clumped together in the nucleus and held together with what is known as the strong force. As for the electrons, they zoom around the nucleus in tiny orbitals with a negative charge. However, when you end up with an atom that has too many neutrons, it results in an unstable nucleus and it begins to disintegrate and undergo radioactive decay.
When these radioactive decays occur, subatomic particles are ejected from the unstable nucleus. These particles are called alpha or beta particles. Some of these decays can also emit energy packets known as gamma radiation. And you can’t forget about the nuclear processes and radioactive materials that also emit neutrons. So that is radioactivity in a nutshell, the spontaneous emission of subatomic particles.
Long story short, these nuclear emissions can be troublemakers by ripping off electrons from unsuspecting victims. These particles are especially dangerous when they collide with human bodies. The subatomic particles that have been ejected are now ionizing radiation that has enough energy to remove electrons from biological tissue, which can cause significant damage.
Now don’t freak out, but humans are actually exposed to natural radiation all of the time. On average, humans receive a pretty consistent dose around the world. But this can increase significantly with a couple of medical procedures or if you spend a lot of time flying at high altitudes. Why? Because you are being exposed to medical imaging, or a radioactive source such as nuclear medicine in a doctor’s office, or being closer to the sun while flying at high altitudes. Don’t look up fruits and vegetables that contain potassium-40, because that will really freak you out.
Alrighty, well now that we got the easy part out of the way, let’s reiterate the difference between radioactivity and radiation. The dog shit analogy always works for this. Imagine a fresh pile of stinky dog poop is the radioactive material and the smell is the radiation.
Notice the further you are away from the dog poop, the less it smells. Radiation works the same way. The further you are away from the radioactive material…aka the source of radiation, the smaller the dose of radiation you will receive. In radiation protection, this is called the inverse square law. Meaning if you double your distance away from the source of radiation the intensity decreases by a factor of four.
However, just like dog shit, you want to handle radioactive material with gloves and not get it on your skin, or worse, in your mouth. Also when you store it for transport, you want it at least sealed in a bag, like you do with a dog poop bag. So that’s it! Dog poop is radioactivity and the poop smell is the radiation hitting your body.
In the nuclear industry here on earth, they try to reduce your exposure to dog shit, I mean radiation. You will hear acronyms like ALARA which means, as low as reasonably achievable. They will also use engineering control schemes to shield sources of radiation by utilizing radiation attenuating materials such as lead, cement, and high tech plastics.
They will tell you to employ best work practices such as time, distance, and shielding. Meaning minimize your exposure time, maximize your distance from the source, and use shielding to attenuate/decrease the radiation exposure. If you end up in this industry you will be required to go through lots of training and probably end up in a great and well paying job.
Just remember I don’t know if I am for or against nuclear power. But I will tell you this, if it wasn’t for the environmental protections that were put in place 54 years ago, this place would not be fun to live in, in fact, I’d have probably opted for early retirement and headed elsewhere. However, you are in luck! Ireland hasn’t run out of whiskey, they haven’t forced me out of my tenureship, and no one can figure out how to slow me down.
Time for a drink, eh?! Tune in next time for more environmental despair and tidbits of energy conundrums that fuel my rage. Just wait till you hear my take on the oil industry and the implications that come along with those corporate welfare recipients. I’ll let you in on a little secret, they have been poisoning your water longer than you have been alive.