“Exponential functions are used to model situations in which growth or decay change dramatically. Such situations are found in nuclear power plants, which contain rods of plutonium-239, an extremely toxic radioactive isotope.
Operating at full capacity for one year, a 1,000-megawatt power plant discharges about 435 lb of plutonium-239.”
-Finney, et al, Calculus
The plutonium-239 is mixed in with other plutonium isotopes. This is important because plutonium-239 can be used in atomic bombs and the mixture found in a nuclear power plant cannot.
Nor are there “rods of plutonium” at a nuclear power plant. Fuel rods are never more than 2% plutonium (a “dramatic change”). The rest is uranium and waste.
The word “discharge” is sometimes used to mean “taken out of the reactor.” Such is the case here; it does not mean that the rods are allowed to leave the plant in any way. They are stored in an underwater rack. Also, the rods are not taken out every year; they are taken out every six years (one-third of the rods are taken out every two years for a total of six years in the reactor), and since only one-third of the rods are taken out at a time, it’s not 435×6=2,610 pounds either. And, obviously, the figure they give is for total plutonium in the rods, not total plutonium-239 in the rods.
Plutonium is also not “extremely toxic.” It’s about as toxic as caffeine, not very mobile, and completely harmless outside the body. The only place where it can really do harm is in the lungs, and in fairly high amounts at that.
Filed under Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day, Health, Physics, Plutonium, Radiation
Posted on October 28, 2006 by Stewart Peterson |
