Technetium

Harmful Effects, Toxicology, Radiation With the discussion of Tc-99m it seems like it is almost too good to be true and that it must have its drawbacks somewhere. Indeed there is one drawback and that is that it still produces Tc-99 eventually and its half-life is 210,000 years.

Indeed, we may getting ahead of ourselves with all the applications of nuclear physics, in that the problem of what to do with the waste is not yet solved or even really seriously being considered. The radiation from external Tc, however, is not harmful unless in close proximity or really internally present. The key issue is then that it may not be a problem now but its accumulation in the environment can do unexpectedly disastrous things. Internally Tc99 is the only real threat and Tc-99 is easily taken up into plants and animals but does not seem to do any damage as it is just as easily metabolized by biological chelating agents. In humans the same is true where metallothionens take care of the metal efficiently. According to the EPA, the cancer coefficient for Tc-99 and Tc-99m, through food and water ingestion, is 4.28 E-11 and 1.22 E-12 (Bq-1), this epidemiological figure takes into account age and gender dependence of intake, metabolism, dosimetry, radiogenic risk and competing causes of death in estimating the risks to health from internal or external exposure to radionucleotides (7). Unfortunately this is only understandable to those well versed in epidemiology or radiation in general, so for reference, K40 a radioactive isotope of potassium that is regularly ingested and currently resides in the human body in high amounts (~140g ) has a cancer

coefficient of 4.30 E-10, a whole order of magnitude higher and it is in us all the time for our entire lives (8). The matter of radiation is general is somewhat perplexing as relatively unstudied. Indeed this is the case for technetium where internal threat is cautioned but does not really seem to be a threat.

Uraninum

Environmental/Public Health Impacts Although many people assert that nuclear power is an environmentally conscious energy source because no greenhouse gases are emitted, it is in no way shape or form a sustainable or renewable energy source. Mining uranium can have similar problems that arise with coal mining with the added problem that uranium mill tailings, waste formed by extracting the uranium, are radioactive. Only 0.1% to 0.2% of uranium ore is made up of uranium, and of that only 0.7% of this uranium is in the correct form to be used in the reactor (2). Uranium mining because sulfuric is used to extract the uranium causes contamination to ground water from radioactive metals and other metals. In situ leaching is particularly harmful as diagramed in Figure 2, because the rock is not removed from the ground instead sulfuric is merely pushed into a deep aquifer(3).

Figure 2: A diagram of how in situ leaching mining works. (3)

A nuclear power plant meltdown such as the one that occurred in Chernobyl caused a significant amount of radioactive material to journey through Ukraine and all of Europe. This huge radiation exposure largely occurred because there was no containment building. In Three Mile Island a meltdown also occurred, but most of the radiation was secured inside the containment building. Very strict restrictions have made nuclear power plants safer. Nuclear power plants only emit 0.009 millirems/year, which is a negligible amount compared to natural background radiation (4). Therefore, nuclear power plants themselves are fairly safe. However, the waste produced at the end of the process has a huge potential to cause public health problems. Two levels of waste are created at nuclear power plants: low-level waste (LLW) and high-level waste (HLW). LLW consists of cleaning items and other materials that are exposed to radiation. Typically, LLW is compacted and burned in special facilities and buried in the ground (2). HLW is defined as used nuclear reactor fuel. As shown in Figure 3, the waste takes 10,000 years before the activity begins to level off. Developing strategies to keep this waste carefully contained for 10,000 years has been difficult, and debates over a national repository have been occurring for quite some time (2).

Figure 3: The radioactivity of various different radioactive metals in HLW over time (2).