Currently, the United States is constructing a nuclear
waste facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. It will cost $57 billion (not including cost
overruns) and serves only to STORE radioactive waste instead of neutralizing it. The waste
must be transported by rail from 103 reactors, most of which are on the east coast.
Transporting such extremely dangerous material from locations all over the country
has raised serious safety concerns, especially since the events of September 11, 2001. And
the storage site will have to be defended against intrusions and accidents for thousands
of years. (see Nevada's Nuclear Waste Project Office at http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/ .
Various other links: Radioactive Roads And Rails: Hauling Nuclear Waste Through
Our Neighborhoods, http://uspirg.org/uspirg.asp?id2=7242&id3=USPIRG&
; http://www.citizenalert.org/ ; http://www.mapscience.org/ ; http://www.osti.gov/bridge/http://www.radwaste.org/ )
On-site neutralization of radioactive waste at the power
plant would make a lot more sense if the option were in fact available. Currently it is
not. Scientists generally believe that radioactive decay rates are remarkably constant and
that they cannot be changed by a simple, inexpensive process. The discovery of "cold
fusion" in 1989, however, changed all that. It became clear that radioactive decay
rates could be affected by ordinary electrolysis. This led some scientists to propose that
a process be developed for disposal of radioactive waste. Dr. G.H. Miley, for example,
wrote U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (1999), Proposal No.
99-0222, "Scientific Feasibility Study of Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRS) for
Nuclear Waste Amelioration". The proposal was actually accepted, but some of
those "institutionalized, atherosclerotic precision mound builders" that I talk
about, later killed the project. Apparently, this was just too big a mound for them to
leap over. (See: http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue28/criticskill.html
, http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx00210/News/CFRLEngNews/CFRLEN05.htm
, Complaints about U.S. Office of Patents and Trademarks regarding Cold Fusion: http://www.padrak.com/ine/POLETT899.html , Transcript of ABC's "Good Morning America" June
11, 1997 http://www.planetarymysteries.com/energy/abc_tran.html . See also Remediation of radioactive elements
What we now need is more public awareness and support for
the idea that neutralizing radioactive waste at the power plant may be feasible. In Issues I have suggested that even a highschool chemistry
student could build an apparatus to demonstrate the basic principles. If our kids are
doing it, then the universities and national labs will see their way clear to get this
show on the road. Uncle Sam can tell them:
You don't need official permission from any governmental
agency to demonstrate the basic principles of neutralizing radioactive waste that are
described in the essay below. You just need enough courage to annoy a few authority mongers like those that were
around a couple thousand years ago.
"And they said to Him, "By
what authority are You doing these things?
And who gave You this authority to do these things?" --Mark 11:28,
NKJ
My Equipment and Methods
First, I needed a Geiger counter, one that I could hook up
to a computer The RM-60 Radiation Monitor from Aware Electronics (http://www.aw-el.com/)
met my needs very well. It has a Geiger-Mueller tube that has an alpha sensitivity of 2.5 MeV, 80% at 3.6
MeV, a beta sensitivity that is 35% at 50 KeV, 95% at 300 KeV, and a gamma & X-ray
sensitivity of 10 KeV. The unit can be hooked up to a PC and the software handles the
radiation counting. The files can also be converted to a Comma Separated Variables (.CSV)
list and imported into an Excel spreadsheet for more extensive data analysis. The user
manual was also very informative and a pleasure to read.
Second, I needed some radioactive waste to play with. It
turns out the stuff is pretty hard to get J. But actually I wouldn't want it anyway. It is just too dangerous
to have around. I needed something a lot safer. It turns out thorium will work quite well.
So will uranium. Therefore I bought some thorium and uranium nitrates from a
chemical laboratory supply house (no NRC license is needed for these items in small
quantities). Thorium 232 (90Th232) has a half-life of 14 billion
years. That is short enough to make a sensitive Geiger counter crackle vigorously,
but long enough to be very safe for careful experiments, the main danger being inhalation
of the dust. Uranium 238 (92U238) has a half-life of 4.5 billion
years and uranium 235 (92U235) has a half-life of 0.7 billion
years. The latter isotope represents less than 1% of natural uranium, but as you can see
from the half-life, it is about six times more radioactive than the 238 isotope. Both
isotopes are significantly more radioactive than thorium and would be useful in advanced
experiments. All isotopes decay into "daughter products" which in turn are
radioactive. The decay results in the "thorium decay series" and the
"uranium decay series". Radioactive series eventually terminate in a stable,
non-radioactive nuclide like an isotope of lead or bismuth.
These are the basic materials and tools required for these
experiments. The yellow crystals in the plastic bag are uranium nitrate hexahydrate, but
most experiments can be done with the safer thorium nitrate tetrahydrate. The RM-60
counter connects with a computer through the serial cable.
Third, I needed some fixtures to facilitate radiation
counting. The fixtures would ensure uniformity and repeatability, which in this kind
of research are extremely important. The bulk of the work in fact consists of hours and
hours (or several days) of radiation counting. Running the reaction cell is only a minor
part of the effort. Counts must be done both on electrodes as well as the liquid contents
of the cell.
The scheme that seemed to work best for measuring the
liquid portion was constructed from microscope slides that had an SAE 3/8 inch metal
washer epoxied to them. The hole in the washer is slightly smaller in diameter than the
aperture of the Geiger tube. I take the liquid I am going to process and make a set of
"before" slides by putting 4 drops of the liquid into the hole in the washer and
then fast evaporating it in an oven (about 200F). I repeat this until the hole has a total
of 12 drops per slide (the hole will only hold 4 drops at a time). I usually do three
slides as a set. Then I count each in the counting fixture in sequence, (slide #1, then
#2, #3). Then I re-count each one until a total of three passes have been done on each
slide. This gives me an idea of slide-to-slide sampling uniformity (about 6%) and
measurement repeatability on any particular slide (about 2%)
After the reaction cell is turned off, I make a similar set of "after" slides
with the same technique. Electrolysis uses up a little bit of the water and some may have
to be added to bring the cell back to the original dilution (less the 36 drops for the
"before" samples) so that a valid comparison can be made. Also, the liquid may have a radioactive precipitate in it and so the
liquid must be well stirred before taking samples.
The idea, of course, is to compare the before and after
samples to see how the radioactivity has been affected by the electrolytic process.
Both the intensity (counts above background level) and the shape of the decay curve are
critical things to measure. You'll see some examples later.
After I am done "counting the slides" I cover
the washer with a piece of cellophane tape, place the slide in a little plastic soap box
(the kind used for travel) with the other slides, and store the box in a safe place. This
is a precaution against contaminating my surroundings with radioactive dust.
The slide counting fixture helps to
position the geiger tube directly over the hole in the washer which contains the
radioactive material. Slides are labeled with run number, whether they are before or after
the run, and the slide number. Computer file names also include a measurement pass number
(such as R6B-S2P1.RAD). No other slides or radioactive materials
should be near the counter during a counting process. Unneeded slides are normally stored
in a little plastic soap box and kept in a safe place away from the counter.
This is what the computer monitor looks like during
counting (an electrode in this case). At the far right side of the screen, the blue bar
shows that 235 counts have been received in one Time Base Unit (one minute in this case).
The display scrolls leftward as counting continues (usually for days). Electrolyzed
radioactive materials often show periodic variations in the bar graph display, as well as
in the data plots.
Fourth, I needed an electrolytic reaction cell and a power
source to run it. I designed the cell shown in the photo while I was walking around in a
hardware store. It is basically an ordinary Ball wide-mouth canning jar mounted between
two blocks of wood that have been coated with marine epoxy. Liberal amounts of silicon
seal are used for cushioning or sealing. The electrodes are 1/8 inch diameter stainless
steel rods, which each go through 3/16 inch stainless steel tubes. This allows the
electrodes to be removed for counting, cleaning, safe storage, or using a different
type of metal for the electrode such as tungsten. The cell is typically run with 1 gram of
thorium nitrate tetrahydrate dissolved in 150 ml of distilled water. It may be
electrolyzed with alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC). The threaded rods and
nuts are part of a "positive control" scheme intended to keep this ungainly
contraption in one piece when it is being moved around; this reduces the likelihood of
inadvertently splashing hot, radioactive liquids or dropping the glass jar. The clamp nuts
are removed before the cell is energized. Little sand bags (not shown) are placed on top
to keep the lid sealed to the jar (the center area of the lid has been cut out with an
electrolytic etch technique that uses salt water and a car battery charger).
This is my general-purpose electrolytic reaction cell. It has a
provision for a reflux condenser that allows higher power levels to be investigated
without boiling off the electrolyte. It is placed inside a 5 gallon plastic bucket before
power connections are made.
This is a ground tungsten TIG welding electrode that has been
partially sheathed in glass and silicon rubber sealant. It is made by injecting the glass
tube half-full with sealant, closing off the full end with a finger, and
pressing the electrode through it from the other end, causing the sealant to extrude
around the electrode. The green marking on the right end means that this electrode
is pure tungsten. A red marking would mean 2% thoria alloy, yellow means 1% thoria, blue
means 3%, brown means zirconia. Lanthanated and ceriated rods are also available. Tungsten
does not corrode as easily as stainless steel. It is also useful in experiments requiring
cathodes of high atomic weight.
Before a run, the cell is placed inside a 5 gallon plastic
bucket and anchored with another sandbag at the base. The bucket is intended to confine
glass shards if the cell explodes during operation (electrolysis will generate potentially
explosive combinations of hydrogen and oxygen). The clear packaging tape around the jar
will also help to reduce the mess. A hole in the lid allows the cell to be connected to an
air-cooled reflux condenser, which is just a four foot piece of CPVC pipe. It is open to
the atmosphere at the top end and merely condenses any steam generated by the cell during
operation at higher power settings. The vinyl tubing, which connects the pipe to the
cell, has some stainless steel scouring pad loosely strung through it to demist any
vapors from the liquid boiling below it. There is also a small view port which is covered
with plexiglass.
And yes, I run it in the bath tub (on top of a couple of
car floor mats). I like having a wall and a door between me and something that could
explode. The bathroom does not have pedestrians or inquisitive cats walking through it
either. And the power comes from an outlet protected by a Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI)
which should keep me from getting electrocuted if, in a moment of thoughtless inattention
or complacency, I do something stupid.
The cell is powered by an old Superior Electric Powerstat.
This is an autotransformer that can supply 0 to 140 volts AC at 15 amps (very overpowered
for what I am doing). A small electric outlet box is wired so that a "load
limiter" can be connected in series with the reaction cell. In this case the limiter
is just a photo light bar with a couple of high wattage bulbs. In case of a bad electrical
short, the lamps on the light bar will light up. This keeps the equipment from being
damaged, the wall circuit breaker from popping open (and killing the computers on the same
circuit), and me from becoming a nervous wreck. Another box contains a full-wave bridge
rectifier in case I want to run the cell on DC. The cell power requirement at high voltage
is estimated offhand to be 30-50 watts.
As you may deduce from all the above photos, the basic
equipment shown is very primitive and built from spur-of-the-moment designs and junk box
parts. It is nevertheless sufficient for proving that radioactive half-lives can be
shortened from billions of years to a matter of hours by a quick and simple process.
Background Counting
For my nuclear physics amusement, I bought a 3 ounce
container of Morton Salt Substitute from the grocery store and put it in front of the
RM-60 counter. This salt substitute contains mostly potassium chloride
instead of the usual sodium chloride. Potassium has a couple of stable isotopes that form
the bulk of natural potassium: potassium 39 ( 93.26%) and potassium 41 (6.73 %). But there
is also an unstable isotope, potassium 40, with a half-life of 1.25 billion years (more radioactive than uranium 238). Fortunately, it has an
abundance level that is 0.0117 percent (one-hundredth of one percent) that of natural
potassium. Nevertheless, its activity can be seen with a sensitive radiation
counter. When I put the Morton Salt Substitute in front of the RM-60 counter, it
registered about 30 microRoentgen/hr. Is this radioactivity enough to worry about?
To keep things in perspective, you need to know that the
average background radiation in our everyday environment is about 5 to 25
microRoentgens/hr. It comes mostly from dirt, rocks, bricks, radon gas, and cosmic rays.
Inside a jet at 30,000 feet the background might reach 300 microRoentgens/hr. Overall, the
average American gets a cumulative radiation exposure equivalent to 10-20 chest X-rays per
year. I measured the salt substitute inside a concrete building, where the background is
about 19 microRoentgens/hr. The salt shaker therefore contributes only about 11
microRoentgens/hr above background. This is really not enough to worry about, not even if
you have hundreds of these things in your coat, hundreds of them in your bed, thousands of
them in your house. (and if you are that fond of salt substitute, you
probably have other problems you need to worry about!)
The point, of course, is that we are continually bathed in
a sea of very weak radiation. It unavoidably adds a "background" that must
be taken into account when performing sensitive radiation measurements. I regularly
take background readings on the fixtures that I use in my experiments, and then analyze
the data in an Excel spreadsheet and plot it:
The count level, 19 microRoentgens/hr, from the fixture is
essentially the same as that for the room in general. This shows that neither the RM-60
nor the counting fixture has been contaminated with stray radioactive dust. Note also that
the curve is flat (albeit noisy); the background is essentially constant with the passage
of time. We will later see that this observation is critically important for interpreting
radiation measurements on materials that have been in the reaction cell.
My Early Experiments
First, I did a couple of shakedown runs to locate
equipment problems and calibrate my level of nervousness. I used common baking soda
(sodium bicarbonate) as the electrolyte.
The Powerstat gave me the most trouble. When I set the
dial to zero and plugged it in, the circuit breaker at the main panel would pop open. I
was left in the dark, and of course the computers crashed too (they were unavoidably on
the same circuit). It popped the breaker in every outlet I tried, except for the
particular one outlet that I used when I tested it originally! I got
around the problem by adding a twenty foot extension cord and turning off a few
lights. Later, during a run at higher power settings, the Powerstat would start sparking,
hissing, and generating ozone. I had to take the thing apart, clean it up, and realign the
rotor with the windings. After that it worked fine.
The load limiter, a simple light bar used for photography,
had a little surprise too. It has a 500 watt bulb and a 300 watt bulb. During a run, the
300 watt bulb would start glowing first. I thought, "This is crazy. They are acting
like they are connected in series." I had forgotten that years ago I had replaced the
original on/off switch with an on/off/on DPDT switch, and I wired it for a series-start,
parallel-run to extend the filament life. It was now in series and so I simply switched it
to parallel.
I also cranked up the voltage as high as it would go to
see if the cell could be run in the incandescent electrode regime. I was barely able to
get the center electrode to incandesce. It would emit little sparkles of yellow light (due
to the sodium) and make a hash sound on the AM radio that I laid across the extension
cord. (My ad hoc noise filter, consisting of a ceramic capacitor and a
couple of toroids was not very effective.) I was trying to avoid the incandescent
mode for the first several runs, and so when I heard the hash unexpectedly, I turned down
the power, but the noise did not stop. I traced the noise to a fluorescent light that had
decided to go bad that day. Later, there was more noise, but this time it was apparently a
motor in a vacuum cleaner. The power line was actually very noisy. I could not rely solely
on the radio to detect incandescent mode (looking directly at a jar that has hydrogen,
oxygen, and a sparking electrode is not my idea of a safe experience!)
Suffice it to say that practice runs can save you a lot of
grief, especially if you are going to be using radioactive materials.
Finally, I did a run where I decided to collect data. The
cell ran on thorium nitrate, alternating current, and stainless steel electrodes. After
about a half hour, I took the cell apart. I noticed that the curved electrode had a thin
layer of glittering, copper colored substance on it. Tiny metallic-looking
whiskers were also visible. I decided to place the electrode in front of the counter and
see what happened while the liquid portion cooled down.
The counter showed that the dry electrode had significant
radioactivity. With this realization, I began to feel kind of depressed. The cell was
supposed to get rid of the radioactivity and it clearly had not accomplished that. I laid
down for a few minutes to collect my thoughts. I woke up about two hours later. By then
the counts per minute had decreased noticeably from about 40 to 30. I knew something
significant had happened. Thorium has a half-life of 14 billion years, but now I was
watching something decay in just a couple of hours! When I plotted the data, a
discernable decay curve showed up:
The graph shows that the emission rate on the
dry electrode starts out around 40 counts/minute (equivalent to 40 microRoentgens/hr on
the RM-60) then seems to increase briefly, then decays in the pattern of an exponential
curve (basically as expected), except that there seems to be some bursty, sawtooth effects
as the emission rate approaches the background level (20 counts/min). Although the
radioactivity was not gone, it was clearly going, and it was not going to
take billions of years either (the passage of 5 half-lives reduces the radiation by 1/25
or to 1/32 of the original; 10 half-lives would be less than one-thousandth).
Later I ran a cell that contained the brown
sludge from the previous run. This was, in effect, my own "radioactive waste"
and I just wanted to get rid of the stuff somehow. This time I used direct current
along with stainless steel electrodes. The center electrode was the cathode. On runs with
AC the center electrode acquired a shiny, electropolished look (industrial
electropolishing is done with alternating current). But this time the center electrode
came out black. I decided to put it in front of the counter and see what happened. Here is
the plotted data:
This one was even more of a surprise. The counting on the
dry electrode began 8 minutes after the electrolysis was shut off. The emission rate
starts out at about 150 counts/min and then steeply increases
instead of decreases. It goes up to about 270 and then very slowly tapers off, again in
somewhat of a sawtooth fashion. The counting was terminated after about 130 hours.
After I plotted the data, I wished that I could have seen the first 8 minutes!
This leads to a working hypothesis that the electrolytic
process converts thorium 232 to numerous daughter products. These are radioactive and are
neutralized (in parallel) just like the thorium is, as long as the cell is operating. But
when the cell is shut off, nothing neutralizes the existing daughter products. A complete
radioactive "decay series" then emerges. The short-lived products cause the
radiation to increase initially but after they "cook off", the longer-lived ones
cause the decay curve to flatten out, although still trending downward.
The results seem to be very similar to those
in an experiment by Goddard, Dash, and Frantz done with uranium. They used 10 mg samples and a 3 minute counting window with matched Geiger-Muller tubes:
"Previously, it has been reported that
nuclear transmutation reactions are accelerated when radioactive elements are subjected to
low-level electric fields during electrolysis of aqueous electrolytes. . . . Our research
investigated the codeposition of U3O8 and H on Ni cathodes, using an
acidic electrolyte and a Pt anode. Then, the radiation emitted by the electroplated U3O8
was compared with radiation emitted by unelectrolyzed U3O8 from the
same batch. . . . The electroplated U3O8 initially produced ~2900
counts in 3 min (April 17, 2000). This rose sporadically in steps to 3700 counts in 3 min
on May 11, 2000, and it remained relatively constant at this level until the . . .
measurements ended on June 8, 2000. The unelectrolyzed U3O8 from the
same batch emitted radiation at a much lower rate, ~1250 counts in 3 min, and this
remained almost constant over the entire period of measurement." (G. Goddard, J. Dash and S. Frantz, "Characterization
of Uranium Codeposited with Hydrogen on Nickel Cathodes", Transactions of the
American Nuclear Society, 83, 376-378 (2000) ).
Later they did gamma ray measurements and these
showed that, overall, the electrolyzed sample was 1.7 times more gamma emissive than the
unelectrolyzed sample.
Of course I still wanted to know what was happening with
the copper-colored sludge. The precount slides on unprocessed thorium nitrate
tetrahydrate typically show the following pattern:
Note that the counts are around 50 and that
the trend of the plot is flat. This is exactly what you would expect. Something that has a
half-life of 14 billion years is not going to show a noticeable change in decay rate in
several hours. There is no obvious sawtooth pattern either; I had worried that the cycling
of the air conditioner could somehow show up on the graphs.
Post counts on the dried copper-colored
sludge slide looked like the following:
Here the radioactivity starts out between
50-60 counts/minute (higher than the original 50) but after 1000 minutes has decayed to
between 50-40, and at 2500 minutes has decreased to about 40. (During the blank range I
was counting a different slide.) A week later the average had dropped to 38. There is
still quite a bit of radioactivity present, and it is not decaying as fast as desired.
Clearly though, it was affected by the electrolytic process, and in a
manner similar to the electrode.
After the run with AC and stainless steel
electrodes, the liquid looked something like iced tea with copper paint stirred into it.
The liquid had tiny, iridescent particles that looked like metal flecks of copper (the
same stuff that I saw on the electrodes). They were fascinating to watch as they were
slowly swept around in the thermal currents of the slowly cooling liquid. Copper is a
transmutation product that has been seen in these kinds of cells. But I had my doubts that
this was copper. There was an awful lot of it. If it got there by transmutation, its
presence would represent the release of a lot of energy, but none was apparent. Did it all
go off as neutrinos (which do not interact with the environment and produce heat)? Very
unlikely. And I could see the particles. That meant they must be at least
40 microns in diameter (the limit of unaided vision), and if they were that big and made
of metal, they should be settling out of the liquid a lot faster.
After several hours, the particles had
settled out and I removed the "supernatant liquor" with a modified turkey
baster. I scooped out a sample of the sludge and dried it on a microscope slide. It looked
just like a blob of fine, glittery copper particles:
But it was non-conductive. It could not be copper. (I really don't know
what it is. My best guess would be a mixture of thorium and ferric hydroxides, the latter
coming from corroded stainless steel electrodes).
"Wherever the tree falls, there it lies." ¾Ecclesiastes 11:3
Tempted to try it yourself?
Students might ask "Can I do this experiment as part
of a highschool science project?" And teachers might view it as a possible project in
an honors program. So I am sure such questions will come up. Here are some things to
consider.
Remember that one of my purposes here is to show that
radioactive decay rates can be affected by a simple electrolytic process, and that this
suggests a way of neutralizing radioactive waste that should be promptly and vigorously
investigated. I am really not so much interested in students doing these experiments as I
am in having parents realize "If my kid can do it, why can't the Department of Energy
do it? Why should I have tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste being shipped
through my state? Why should we spend $57 billion on STORAGE of radioactive waste if there
might be a way to neutralize it right at the power plant?" (Advertisement2.pps
; press ESC to exit)
As I have explained above, the obstacles to this research are more social and political
than technical. The popular press has convinced people, through irresponsible
journalism, that this is "junk science". Consequently, universities won't
touch it for fear of public criticism and loss of prestige and funding. The government
isn't going to listen until they hear that mom and dad are convinced that this kind of
research is worthwhile. (see also military
interested)
Nevertheless, if you decide to try this experiment as a
science project, you will of course need adult sponsorship* and professional supervision
from your teacher. Your teacher will probably have several suggestions. One will undoubtly
be to use only hardware that is specific to the purpose of the experiment. The equipment
in the illustrations is intended for multiple purposes and can be simplified if you
copy the essential principles, not the equipment. For instance, you can use a
nine volt battery for the power supply. This is strongly recommended and will greatly
improve safety and reduce equipment complexity. You should also use much less thorium
nitrate. If you want to use AC, use a doorbell transformer or one of those little
plug-in transformers (the AC type) and give careful attention to electrical safety
(including shields, fusing, grounding, GFI protection, and power ratings). You'll
need well-shielded and physically stable counting fixtures, and some rudimentary skills
with data analysis software like Microsoft Excel. Your teacher might arrange to have
operating cells and counters in a locked display cabinet, and might want to handle all
radioactive material himself, instead of letting a student do it. Remember that teachers
always want to know "What are you going to learn from doing this?" Be
prepared with a list of answers (review relevant material in Issues ). And finally, PUBLISH YOUR FINDINGS on the
Internet (please send me a link) and explain why they are important. (*in many states it is probably unlawful for people less than 18 to work on
radioactive materials. Check your state laws and proceed appropriately)
Also, expect a little hysteria when proposing experiments
of this type. Parents and teachers are not generally aware that our environment contains
radioactive materials like thoriated mantles in the gas lamps that might light your
street, thoriated tungsten rods that are used in welding, monazite sand sometimes used in
pottery, the tiny amounts of americium in smoke detectors (don't mess with it!), the
potassium 40 circulating in your own body, and the equivalent of the 10-20 chest X-rays
Americans get every year from ambient radiation. When a clerk at the photo shop saw the
photo with the cans of thorium and uranium nitrate (above), I ended up having a little
unscheduled talk with the police after I drove home from church. The labels visible in the
photos had words like "nitrate", "radioactive", "may cause
cancer", "Oxidizer. May cause fires", and so forth. They did not understand
the rest of the photos either, and just wanted to know what I was doing. The next day
(Monday), there was a lot of publicity about the arrest of a suspect in a radiological
bomb ("dirty bomb") plot. I was actually glad that the police had already talked
to me.
When people have questions and concerns, try to deal with
them as God deals with Christians: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God,
who gives to all men generously and without reproach . . ." (James 1:5).
And some words of advice from a guy in government, namely, King Solomon:
"He who keeps a royal command experiences no trouble, for a wise heart knows the
proper time and procedure" and "If a ruler's temper rises against you, do not
abandon your position, because composure allays great offenses." (Ecclesiastes 8:5
and 10:4). "By forbearance a ruler may be persuaded, And a soft tongue breaks the
bone." (Proverbs 25:15) Keep a cool, patient head, and maybe those around you
will too.
And remember . . . It's an adventure! Be
careful, but enjoy the wonder!
Low Voltage Electrolysis
A different method was used to collect data for Run 6. The counter
was started as a background counter and then the dry electrode was placed in the electrode
counting fixture directly after the run and while the counter was already operating. The
delay to get data was only 2 minutes instead of the usual 8. As expected, the electrode
radioactivity increases with time. Later, the RM-60 was moved from the electrode fixture
to the slide fixture. Counts on the dried liquid sample imply that quite a bit of the
thorium did not plate out and is still in the liquid. The RM-60 was then transfered back
to the electrode counting fixture. This scheme helps to reduce any effects of geiger tube
warm up or software initialization.
Things to keep in mind
Please keep the following in mind when
designing experiments or reviewing those presented above:
1. Before meaningful measurements can be made
on electrodes or on a liquid, the electrolysis must be stopped. This is because
electrolysis will move the radioactive ions around and change their geometrical
relationship with the counter. The radioactive ions may plate out on the cathode, or they
may precipitate out of the solution and settle to the bottom of the container. Or bubbles
may sweep them to the top and they may stick to the sides like a bathtub ring. If
you have the counter looking at an operating reaction cell, you may see a decrease (or
increase) in the measured radioactivity, but this may be due to radioactive ions moving to
a different location, not because there has been any basic change in radioactivity levels.
In fact, this can happen even if the cell is not energized; uranium can self-plate onto an
electrode just like copper will self-plate onto an iron nail in a solution of copper
sulfate.
2. The geometrical relationship between the
counter and the dry electrode (or dry sample) must be fixed and stable. If the counter is
looking at a portion of an electrode and then gets bumped, or moved by a wife who wants to
"tidy things up a bit", then the results are going to be skewed, and may lead to
an unsupportable conclusion. This is why counting fixtures are so important.
3. Total amounts of radiation are NOT
measured in these experiments. Instead, the radioactivity of an essentially unknown (but
fixed) amount of electrolyzed material is compared with the radioactivity of
an unknown amount of un-electrolyzed material. Only the behavior with
time (the shape of the decay curve) has any meaning in this setup, not the
absolute level of counts. In the experiments shown above, the decay curves of electrolyzed
material that satisfied the above two requirements showed either a fast decrease
in radioactivity, or a gradual increase in radioactivity. Virgin, un-electrolyzed
material just showed a flat line with essentially constant radioactivity levels.
(Amounts are chosen only to give a signal that is significantly above the background
level.)
4. Radiation measurements that are done on a
liquid with the counter viewing the liquid through the wall of a plastic container will
register only beta and gamma counts, with no alpha counts (alpha particles are easily
stopped by the water and the plastic). In contrast, measurements on bare, dry
material will also register alpha counts besides the beta and gamma counts.
(If you run measurements on a liquid, it is a good idea to remove the electrodes,
so that there is no possibility of radioactive metal deplating from the electrodes and
re-entering the liquid phase.)
Thorium and uranium are used in these
experiments for safety reasons, not because people care about neutralizing the
radioactivity of these very long-lived isotopes. Similarly, very short-lived isotopes are
not of much concern either; the radioactivity from these materials is intense, but burns
off to safe levels in just a few days, weeks, or months. The real concern is with the
isotopes that have intermediate half-lives of dozens of years to tens of thousands of
years. From the human standpoint, these are both intensely radioactive, and intensely
persistent. Cesium 137 has a half-life of 30 years; strontium 90, 29 years; radium 226,
about 1620 years; plutonium 239 and 240, about 24,000 and 6,537 years respectively. The
passage of 20 half-life periods will decrease the radioactivity levels by more than a
million. But you can readily see that tens of thousands of tons of this
stuff is going to remain dangerously radioactive for a long, long time. That is why any
simple economical process that affects radioactive half-lives is of great significance. No
one will care if you can change the half-life of thorium from 14 billion years to a few
days, but if you could change the half-life of strontium 90 from 29 years down to a month
or a week, that would have enormous scientific and economic implications. Currently, we do
not know if isotopes with intermediate half-lives are more sensitive to electrolytic
neutralization than long-lived isotopes. And unfortunately, experiments on these
intermediate materials are far too dangerous for the amateur experimenter.
An Afterthought: Extending radioactive
half-lives might also be useful
The focus of the above article has been on reducing
the half-lives of radioactive materials, especially nuclear waste, in order to render it
safe for disposal. However, an opposite kind of technology might also be possible:
a technology to extend the half-lives of radioisotopes.
There are three reasons this should be investigated:
1. Extending the shelf life of valuable
medical radioisotopes might be possible. Technetium 99m is widely used in nuclear
medicine for "functional" diagnostic medical imaging. It has a half-life
of 6 hours. This is long enough for functional studies, but short enough so that the
residual radioactivity is not a nuisance (people in an airliner don't like sitting next to
a slightly radioactive former patient). Because of the short half-life, the Tc-99m
has to be produced just before use, usually offsite in a molybdenum 99 generator. The
Tc-99m, of course, decays during transport to the hospital. Costs would go down and
convenience improved if such isotopes could be prepared, purified, and preserved in a
special environment that makes such radioisotopes stable.
2. Studies of elements at the upper end of
the Periodic Table might be possible. Elements at the upper (heavy) end of the
Table from about polonium, element #84, to the unnamed element #118, show generally
increasing instability. They either eject mass in the form of alpha particles, or simply
split in two (fission). The ability to create and preserve such elements
indefinitely would greatly facilitate studies of these heavy elements.
3. Demonstrating that half-lives can be
altered artificially has deep geochronological and cosmological implications. Suppose
the Earth at one time had all the elements of the Periodic Table and that they were all
stable (non-radioactive). Then suppose some process occurred on a time span of millions of
years, and with increasing intensity, that caused the heavier elements to become
radioactive. Elements at the upper end of the Periodic Table would begin disappearing.
Perhaps several thousand years ago this process began to affect polonium, which until that
time was a stable element. This could explain the mystery of "parentless"
polonium radiohalos such as those in Gentry's careful studies that have been used to
support the "instant Earth hypothesis" advanced by Creationists. Some
references:
http://www.grisda.org/origins/15032.htm
Examining Radiohalos, R. H. Brown, H. G. Coffin, L. J. Gibson, A. A. Roth, and C.
L. Webster, Geoscience Research Institute, Origins 15(1):32-38 (1988), Literature Review:
Creation's Tiny Mystery, R. V. Gentry. 2nd ed. (1988). Earth Science Associates,
Knoxville, Tennessee. 347 pages.
Also, (in case you are wondering) the Bible says:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1). The
time is indefinite and could easily have been millions of years or longer for the creation
of the physical heavens and earth. The preparation of the (already existing)
earth for habitation took six Creative Days. God rested on the seventh Day, but there is
no scriptural statement that the seventh Day ever ended. On the contrary, it seems to have
continued down to our time (Hebrews 4:3-6, 9), and this implies that a Creative Day is at
least 6000 years long.
And while we are at it, please note that the
earth was worked over by water on two occasions, not one. The first was the
waters of Creation, (Genesis 1:2) which probably converted the surface of the earth from a
pile of rocks (like those evident on Mars and Venus) into something that was more like
fine dirt. The other was the Flood of Noah's day (Genesis 7 & 8). ) Both events need
to be taken into account when trying to determine the ages of rock strata.
Update 11-27-08: Researchers believe they
have seen variations in the radioactive decay rates of silicon 32, chlorine 36, manganese
54, radium 226, and possibly plutonium 238. The variations are typically a few tenths of
one percent and seem to correlate with the yearly variations in Earth-Sun distance. The
scattered quotes below are from "Half-Life (more or less)", by Davide
Castelvecchi, Science News, Nov 22, 2008, p. 20-23:
" . . . when researchers suggested in August that the sun causes
variations in the decay rates of isotopes of silicon, chlorine, radium, and manganese, the
physics community reacted with curiosity, but mostly with skepticism."
"Both experiments had lasted several years, and both had seen
seasonal variations of a few tenths of a percent in the decay rates of the respective
isotopes."
"In those experiments, the decay rate changes may have been related
to Earth's orbit around the sun, the Purdue teams says. In the Northern Hemisphere, Earth
is closer to the sun in the winter than in the summer. So the sun may have been affecting
the rate of decay, possibly through some physical mechanism that had never before been
observed."
"The closer to the sun, the denser the shower of neutrinos."
"If the results are confirmed, and nuclear decay is not immutable,
perhaps physicists could find a way to speed it up to help get rid of waste from nuclear
power plants."
"About 7 percent fewer solar neutrinos hit detectors when Earth is
furthest from the sun, compared with when it's closest, says Arthur B. McDonald, director
of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Ontario." Science News, Vol 160, No. 8, August
25, 2001, p. 115
See "Evidence for Correlations Between Nuclear Decay Rates and
Earth-Sun Distance", J. H. Jenkins, et al. Available online at http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3283
Links
http://www.lenr-canr.org/Experiments.htm
Shows lots of very detailed color photographs and drawings of cold fusion
cells. Also has article "High School Students Do Cold Fusion" which is about the
work Prof. John Dash (Portland State University) with high school students as part of the
Apprenticeships in Science and Engineering program.
