Group Writing: Hot Labs and Health Physics

 

When people in my line of work refer to something as “Hot” we are not generally talking about temperature. We are talking about radioactive contamination.

This is a hot lab.  It has the shielding to protect the researcher or technician (this appears to be a nuclear medicine setup), radiation signage, the absorbent padding on the counter, lead pigs for moving around radiation sources, and a Geiger counter/survey meter for detecting radiation. Radiation and radioactive materials are very useful, while requiring special precautions.  Thus was born the field of Health Physics, the science of radiation protection.

The name Health Physics is derived from the Manhattan Project.  It was a way to disguise the nature of the program with a title that did not reference radiation or radioactive elements.  Nowadays, health physicists work in the medical field, nuclear energy, and research.  While I am not a health physicist, I sometimes feel like I play one on TV.  I’ve been interested in radiation since I was a little kid hearing my father’s stories from the nuclear power plant.  I learned my alphas, betas, and gammas along with my As, Bs, and Cs.  This knowledge has come in handy surprisingly often.

I have been helping out the actual health physicist of my institution with radiation therapy patients and cleaning up after them. Radiation in research has become decreasingly common as medical radiopharmaceuticals have gotten huge.  While I can’t get into the details, (I have been far more worried about HIPPA than radioactive material) I mostly test radioactive wipes for contamination, checking if the area is still “hot.”

We can divide radioactive “hot” materials up based on the primary type of radiation they emit, and the time it takes for them to go decay into something stable.  Hot stuff is hot because it is unstable and is likely to turn into another element.  If that is faster, it goes away more quickly, but releases more radiation.  We measure that as the half-life, which measures the time for 50% to turn into something else.  If we can hold something for ten half-lives, it’s no longer hot and can go in normal trash.

The three types of radiation that make something hot are alpha, beta, and gamma.

Alpha is a big particle (by particle standards), is easily stopped (even paper or skin will work), but it packs a lot of energy.  It’s like someone throwing a bowling ball at you.  Alpha is really dangerous inside the body, as people who’ve had Putin’s Polonium Tea would attest.  It’s not used a lot in research and only used in medical care for palliative treatment.  The Health Physicists say that seeing the kids come in for palliative treatment is the hardest part of the job.  You may actually have alpha hot stuff in your basement – Radon is the biggest radiation source for Americans.

Beta is a smaller particle – an electron – and is more penetrating than alpha.  Beta hot stuff needs Plexiglas or something similar to stop it.  (using lead is a bad idea, as it can actually make the proper worse!)  Beta hot stuff is used in lots of research and medical applications.  We see lots of hot labs working with Phosphorus-32 or Sulfur-35, which have brief but intense radioactivity.  Others use Hydrogen-3 aka Tritium or Carbon-14, which last a lot longer.

Gamma is light that is more violet than ultraviolet, like X-rays.  You need thick lead shielding.  Gamma emitters are used a lot in PET scans (which actually emit antimatter in the process of making gamma rays) and many diagnostic procedures with Technetium-99m.  In research, the main gamma emitter is Iodine-125.

My normal job of lab inspections has had more than a fair share of encounters with hot stuff.  One time, I was defrosting a freezer.  No radiation symbols anywhere, but water all over the floor.  We shop-vac-ed it all up.  As I was clearing a shelf in the now-frostless freezer, I found a bottle of tritium (12year half-life, low energy Beta emitter) that had bee frozen in ice.  The outer container was full of water.  This was naturally a problem, and of course, it happened on Friday at 4 p.m.  Our health physicists quickly came over and took wipes.  We were waiting anxiously as they were counted.  The floor and shop-vac turned out not hot, to much rejoicing, but it was a close call.

Lastly, there is a form of radioactive material that is actually hot in both ways.  The isotope Plutonium-238, which is used in radioisotope thermoelectric generators, is emitting so much radiation it actually become red hot, as seen below.  Now that is what I call hot stuff!

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator fuel

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  1. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Don’t know why this comes to mind.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpfkDEBno1M

    • #1
  2. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    An excellent explanation coming from someone who clearly knows. Thanks, Omega Paladin!

    • #2
  3. She Member
    She
    @She

    Cool!

    Umm, I mean . . . 

    • #3
  4. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    Could you explain that to a 6 year old, I seem to have progressed backwards?

    • #4
  5. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    Kay of MT (View Comment):

    Could you explain that to a 6 year old, I seem to have progressed backwards?

    Radiation is emitted either by machines (like an X-ray machine) or radioactive materials.  Radioactive materials are called “hot” by people who work with them, and their atoms (the smallest possible piece of a material) are unstable, so they tend to have a piece go flying off (alpha or beta)  or emit invisible gamma rays that are like X-rays at the doctor.

    Radioactive hot stuff can be split up based on how fast it falls apart or what it emits.  Alpha is very short-ranged, and your skin will stop it, but it will hurt your insides if you eat it or breath it in.  That’s why having alpha hot stuff is okay inside a smoke detector, but it is really bad to breathe it radon gas.  Beta tends to go further, but plastic or aluminum will stop it.  That hot stuff is used a lot in research and medicine since it is easy to contain.  Gamma is like an X-ray, goes right through everything out of lead or thick concrete.  It tends to just go through people without hurting them as much, so it is used in nuclear medicine.

    The labs where you work with this hot stuff is called a hot lab.

    How’d I do?

    • #5
  6. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):

    The labs where you work with this hot stuff is called a hot lab.

    How’d I do?

    Pretty good, I understand it a wee bit better.

    • #6
  7. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    @omegapaladin

    A friend’s daughter just had thyroid surgery for cancer. In a couple of weeks she will be given radioactive iodine and will be kept in isolation for a time. Will she be hot?

    • #7
  8. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    Kay of MT (View Comment):

    @omegapaladin

    A friend’s daughter just had thyroid surgery for cancer. In a couple of weeks she will be given radioactive iodine and will be kept in isolation for a time. Will she be hot?

    Yes, she will.  Iodine-131 emits both gamma and beta radiation.   Iodine moves around the body a bit like salt does, so a lot of her body fluids will be hot.  The isolation will be to keep her sweat etc from contaminating other people or their stuff.

    Fortunately, half of Iodine-131 falls apart every 8 days, and she will also get rid of it in body fluids.  After she leaves isolation, she will be “warmer” than normal, but not hazardous to other people.   She might set off security scanners in airports – I read about a guy who received iodine and couldn’t work at the nuclear power plant because he was too radioactive!

    Tell your friend’s daughter to ask the health physicist any questions she has.  That’s their job, and all of the health physicists I work with like helping patients with their questions.  She just needs to obey the isolation and be careful what she brings inside, in case it is contaminated.  (then the health physicist would have to hold on to it until it is not hot.

    • #8
  9. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):
    Tell your friend’s daughter to ask the health physicist any questions she has.

    I’ve know this woman since she was a little girl, in my 4-H dog project. She grew up and became a Registered Nurse.  I’m sure at this point she has asked all the questions there are for her to ask.  Her mom and I are supper good friends, for close to 45 years, and my heart breaks for her.

    • #9
  10. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Well, we’ve had posts on chemical and thermal “Hot Stuff,” now we have “hot” in the radiation, other than infrared, sense.  Please stop by and sign up to share your own angle on July’s topic, “Chill Out,” however loosely construed.

    • #10
  11. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    When I was a rather junior engineer at my first full-time job, I got stuck covering for my then employer’s radiation safety officer when he was traveling or vacationing.  Small cesium sources are really popular in bulk material handling operations (shooting through steel walls to sense product blockages or levels).

    Had to handle the investigation of an incident when one modest source was not closed and locked properly for the service of a very large pressure vessel (12′ inside diameter by ~80′ tall).  After it was discovered, a safety supervisor and I had to conduct a field strength survey with the shutter still open since the accumulated material on the inside wall was of unknown thickness and density.  And we had to go inside, into the field, to reach that point due to internal scaffolding.

    Based on my analysis, which was rather surprising accepted by the NRC, the scaffold crew was exposed to at most 20 millirems.  The welders in the bottom of the vessel were effectively unexposed, only passing through the field for seconds at a time on entry and exit (pressure-rated manhole was at center of the top).  The safety supervisor and I got low single digit millirems.  Neither of those numbers are a big deal, but it scared a bunch of people.  I was kind of antsy myself, to be honest.

    We were all fortunate that it was a simple on-off level sensor that would work with a small cesium source.  That pressure vessel’s big brother on site was equipped with a cobalt source about 2000 times more intense in order to measure product density in realtime.  I hope I wouldn’t have been sent in to survey in person if that one was left un-shuttered.  With what I learned in that incident, I would refuse.

    • #11
  12. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):
    The safety supervisor and I got low single digit millirems.

    So, that’s how you got that third arm?

    • #12
  13. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Thanks, Omega! We’ve discussed nuclear power plants before, and this stuff is really interesting! Thanks for making it so easy to understand.

    • #13
  14. Reese Member
    Reese
    @Reese

    Kay of MT (View Comment):

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):
    Tell your friend’s daughter to ask the health physicist any questions she has.

    I’ve know this woman since she was a little girl, in my 4-H dog project. She grew up and became a Registered Nurse. I’m sure at this point she has asked all the questions there are for her to ask. Her mom and I are supper good friends, for close to 45 years, and my heart breaks for her.

    It breaks my heart that your heart breaks, if your broken heart is due to fear of ionizing radiation over thyroid cancer.

    Thyroid treatment by I-131 is non-invasive and very beneficial to treat many problems– benefits most likely far outweigh the risks.  It works!  You’ll see.  Thyroid cancer is just about the most curable.

    My mother was a pioneer in getting this treatment for thyroid cancer in her forties in the early 1960s.  She lived to age 84 taking replacement hormones, cause of death unrelated to her thyroid.

    I’m not a health physicist, but a former registered radiation protection technologist (RRPT) and member of the Health Physics Society (HPS), if that lends anything to argument from authority.  I’m a member of Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI), a group that seeks to quell unfounded fear of radiation.

    • #14
  15. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    Reese (View Comment):
    It breaks my heart that your heart breaks, if your broken heart is due to fear of ionizing radiation over thyroid cancer.

    No, I am not afraid of the ionizing radiation, just the sadness of the situation for my friend.

    She went through  years with an older daughter with Hodgkin Disease, 5 years before the girl went into remission. The older daughter also one of my 4-H kids.

    This daughter with thyroid cancer was in an auto accident about 5 years ago, so badly injured the first respondents thought she was dead, as there were so many others, from a 5 car pileup. When they went to collect her body, they discovered she was still alive. She was so badly mashed up, broken legs, arms, head, internal injures, she was in the hospital for weeks and weeks. Her doctors won’t let her go back to work as a floor nurse, but she is now the night “Call a Nurse” for her hospital. She has one private patient two days a week, from when the patient was about 5 or 6 years old, and is now 24. That patient is totally incapacitated, can’t talk or walk and is mostly paralyzed.

    My friend flew into Sacramento, CA several days ago to be with her daughters. I probably should have put this on the prayer post.

     

    • #15
  16. Reese Member
    Reese
    @Reese

    Kay of MT (View Comment):

    Reese (View Comment):
    It breaks my heart that your heart breaks, if your broken heart is due to fear of ionizing radiation over thyroid cancer.

    No, I am not afraid of the ionizing radiation, just the sadness of the situation for my friend.

    Thank you for the clarification.  Wow.  That’s all I can say, except I am so sorry.  I was in a totally different mode to what you meant.

    • #16
  17. Reese Member
    Reese
    @Reese

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):
    The safety supervisor and I got low single digit millirems.

    So, that’s how you got that third arm?

    Cute joke, by itself.

    But this kind of joke multiplied by a hundred million is what I hate.  The Simpsons’ opening credits, their fish character “Blinky,” “Godzilla,” “Them,” “China Syndrome.”  You’re being made afraid and it’s 99% baloney.  It’s that last 1%, taken seriously that bad/evil (or true believer) propagandists exploit.  Like fire, heights, planes, trains, automobiles, eating, swimming, taking aspirin.   All these things have risks.  What of the benefits?

    • #17
  18. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Reese (View Comment):
    What of the benefits?

    Agreed. But I’m a consultant. Ever heard any consultant jokes? Any of them complimentary to the consultant? I don’t think so. Then there are lawyers… Every profession and discipline has to put up with something. Some of it is based on truth, too.

    • #18
  19. Reese Member
    Reese
    @Reese

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Reese (View Comment):
    What of the benefits?

    Agreed. But I’m a consultant. Ever heard any consultant jokes?

    No!  But I’m willin’ to hear some. 

    Thanks.  Got it.  “Lighten up Francis.” 

    • #19
  20. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    I like to joke that nuclear power is the only energy source safe enough for Homer Simpson to operate.

     

    • #20
  21. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    A common, I suppose harmless colloquialism I never liked: “I’ll just nuke this pizza in the microwave”. Unless the microwave oven also happens to be a particle accelerator, coated in isotopes, or is a fission device, it’s an example of the modern habit of dressing up mundane everyday actions in the gaudy rainment of action verbs. (“Let’s crack open a few brews”) Plus it plays into most people’s ignorance of how things work; I’m sure plenty of people now have the idea that microwave ovens work via radioactivity.

    • #21
  22. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    Unless the microwave oven also happens to be a particle accelerator…

    It is. It accelerates water molecules.

    • #22
  23. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Reese (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):
    The safety supervisor and I got low single digit millirems.

    So, that’s how you got that third arm?

    Cute joke, by itself.

    But this kind of joke multiplied by a hundred million is what I hate. The Simpsons’ opening credits, their fish character “Blinky,” “Godzilla,” “Them,” “China Syndrome.” You’re being made afraid and it’s 99% baloney. It’s that last 1%, taken seriously that bad/evil (or true believer) propagandists exploit. Like fire, heights, planes, trains, automobiles, eating, swimming, taking aspirin. All these things have risks. What of the benefits?

    A pet peeve of the past: After Three Mile Island, the press, NPR in particular, went into a frenzy of paranoid ignorance. Regrettably after nearly 40 years, I can only paraphrase an incident where very mildly radioactive cotton gloves were buried with non-radioactive waste in leak-resistant containers nowhere near an aquifer. We ain’t talkin’ Pu 249, here, folks. Drops of iodine. Property owners and parents in the county were mad with un-informed fear, which NPR treated as quasi-proof that the scientists must be wrong, because if the fear was wrong, the fear was real! What else are the so-called scientific authorities lying about? Hah? 

    A few years later, during the early years of AIDS, when little was known about it other than blood was the means of transmission, there was a panic, as it turned out, unjustified, that mosquitoes could spread the plague. Not true, but not a crazy idea. But this time, NPR treated the same lovable lumpen proletariat as dimwitted morons who didn’t fall into line when the scientists said not to worry. It never occurred to them that undermining logic and spreading fear when it suited them might come back to bite them. 

    • #23
  24. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Reese (View Comment):
    No! But I’m willin’ to hear some. 

    Probably should be a separate thread. We can do consultants, lawyers, and who else? Should be a few other despised professions. Telemarketers?

    • #24
  25. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    It never occurred to them that undermining logic and spreading fear when it suited them might come back to bite them.

    Alar in apples. Darned near gets us back to my thread about “How Many Times Have You Died and What of?”

    • #25
  26. Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw Member
    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw
    @MattBalzer

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Reese (View Comment):
    No! But I’m willin’ to hear some.

    Probably should be a separate thread. We can do consultants, lawyers, and who else? Should be a few other despised professions. Telemarketers?

    Didn’t we already do that thread?

    • #26
  27. Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw Member
    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw
    @MattBalzer

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    After Three Mile Island, the press, NPR in particular, went into a frenzy of paranoid ignorance.

    “Paranoid Ignorance” could be used to describe most journalistic misbehavior.

    • #27
  28. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):
    Didn’t we already do that thread?

    Maybe. Link? Or idea of who started it?

    • #28
  29. Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw Member
    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw
    @MattBalzer

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):
    Didn’t we already do that thread?

    Maybe. Link? Or idea of who started it?

    Hmm. I might have guessed you did; there was a point when a lot of lawyer jokes were getting deployed and some found them offensive. Maybe they just took over another post.

    • #29
  30. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):
    Hmm. I might have guessed you did; there was a point when a lot of lawyer jokes were getting deployed and some found them offensive. Maybe they just took over another post.

    I vaguely remember that. Some of the jokes were about dead lawyers. I remember it was @garyrobbins who objected. Hey, Gary, where was that? Do you remember?

    • #30
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