3 ms·
> building a dirty bomb out of it won't really work (as a matter a fact, neither making one out of Pu-239). Plutonium is chemically extremely toxic. Even throw
by wazoox 16y ago
> building a dirty bomb out of it won't really work (as a matter a fact, neither making one out of Pu-239).
Plutonium is chemically extremely toxic. Even throwing some powdered plutonium in air somewhere would cause serious harm.
Edit : In fact it's not :)
- Symmetry 16y agoThats actually an urban legend (though one thats often repeated in the media). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium#Toxicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium#Toxicity http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/plutonium.html http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/pl... The radiological toxicity of plutonium is _way_ higher than the chemical toxicity.
- wazoox 16y agoI stand corrected. In fact, I just checked and it seems like even Uranium isn't actually extremely toxic.
- Symmetry 16y agoI remember my 8th grade science teacher telling us all about Plutonium's toxicity and I believed it for many years, so I don't blame you. Apparently some researchers had a "Hot Particle" theory that said that because of the way plutonium was taken in by the body it was much more dangerous than just looking at its radioactivity would lead you to believe - concentrating in certain areas of the lungs. Its not surprising that media figures like Nader confused this with chemical toxicity, or didn't notice when experiments contradicted this theory. EDIT: Edited for horrible grammar caused by rewriting something without proofreading after.
- dspeyer 16y agoThis is Plutonium Oxide. IIRC, metallic plutonium is a lot more dangerous. Also almost impossible to come by in an oxygen atmosphere. Kind of like Aluminum.