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The chemistry of this plutonium is different from that of the metal oxides formed from nuclear bomb detonations. One example of a site where plutonium entered the soil is Rocky Flats where in the recent past XANES (X-ray spectroscopy) has been used to determine the chemical nature of the plutonium in the soil. [21]
Plutonium-240 has a high rate of spontaneous fission, raising the background neutron radiation of plutonium. Plutonium is graded by proportion of 240 Pu: weapons grade (<7%), fuel grade (7–19%) and reactor grade (>19%). Lower grades are less suited for bombs and thermal reactors but can fuel fast reactors.
Metallic plutonium is a fire hazard, especially if finely divided. In a moist environment, plutonium forms hydrides on its surface, which are pyrophoric and may ignite in air at room temperature. Plutonium expands up to 70% in volume as it oxidizes and thus may break its container. [44] The radioactivity of the burning material is another hazard.
No one fully understood plutonium's effects on humans, wildlife, and the environment at the time. An early warning sign at the Hanford Site. US Department of Energy/National Park Service
The Energy Department's Office of Environmental Management at Los Alamos said Thursday it was preparing a response to Ketterer's findings. Ketterer and Coghlan said the concerns now are the continued downstream migration of plutonium, absorption by plants and the creation of contaminated ash following wildfires.
In the past, one of the largest releases of plutonium into the environment has been nuclear bomb testing. Those tests in the air scattered some plutonium over the entire globe; this great dilution of the plutonium has resulted in the threat to each exposed person being very small as each person is only exposed to a very small amount.
The environmental management field office pointed to a 2018 DOE study that estimated the radiation dose to a person who might recreate in the canyon is less than 0.1 millirem per year. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the annual average dose per person from all natural and man-made sources is about 620 mrems.
Nuclear Watch used what it called the lab's publicly accessible but cumbersome environmental database, Intellus New Mexico, to map 58,100 spots where the lab collected samples between 1992 and ...