🚀 go-pugleaf

This posting I have tried to post earlier with no success:
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Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,ba.transportation
Subject: Re: Wind and solar power
From: dambo@sbbs.se (Hans Pedersen Dambo)
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 07:50:13 GMT

As my news server did not feed me your posting and I found it at Alta
Vista I have not been able to connect to the correct thread but hope
that you will find it anyway.

>Josh Halpern:
>
>Re: Wind and solar power
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>From           jbh@ILP.Physik.Uni-Essen.DE ()
>Organization   Universitaet Essen
>Date           26 Jun 1996 09:00:13 GMT
>Newsgroups     ba.transportation,sci.energy,sci.environment
>Message-ID     <4qqu6t$gsb@sun3.uni-essen.de>
>References     1 2 3 4
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Hans Pedersen Dambo (dambo@sbbs.se) wrote:
>: This is my position:
>:
>: Rn-222 is a gas that for example can  get into a building from the
>: ground or from concrete walls. It mixes with the air but as it is a
>: noble gas it doesn't form chemical compounds (Here I'm uncertain about
>: the terminology in English. Should it be bonds or unions instead?).
>
>I'd be carful here.  Xe, for example does form some stable compounds,
>and I would expect, by analogy, so would radon,  The -reactivity of
>noble gases increases as the number of electrons.  Helium reacts
>with nothing.  True, no one would expect radon to be as reactive
>as sodium, but neither would you expect it to be completely
>non-reactive.

As my own knowledge in this field is limited I am not able to dispute
what you say. I have based my statements on written and spoken sources
that unanimously claim that the radon daughters - not the radon gas -
are the main risk factors concerning lung cancer and that the radon
gas exits from the lungs with the exhalation. Radon as a noble gas is
also mentioned in several places.
I respect your saying "I'd be carful here" and agree that my
statements may have been too generalising. It would have been more
correct to say "most of the radon gas exits...." and "radon as a noble
gas does not easily form compounds".
  
>:
>: Most of the Radon decays (alpha) in the air.
>: The Radon daughters from the decay
>: (Rn-222->Po-218->Pb-214->Bi-214->Po-214->Pb-210->Bi-210->Po-210) are
>: solide particles that easily adhere to dust particles in the air.
>: When you breathe you get a mixture of air, Radon gas, dust and Radon
>: daughters into your lungs.
>: The Radon gas does not stay in the lungs but goes out with the air
>: when you exhale. Naturally some of the Radon atoms can decay inside
>: the lungs between inhalation and exhalation. That is not the real lung
>: cancer problem.
>:
>Have you ever heard of physisorption.  The inside of your lungs
>are pretty sticky places, even on the molecular level.  Again, I
>don#t have any data on average residence time of radon in the
>lungs, nor do I know if it can cross over into the blood stream,
>but I do know that Xe acts as an anasthetic (sp?), and that He
>when used by divers displaces nitrogen in the blood stream to
>prevent bends.  Thus, one could reasonably have doubts about the
>statement made above that Rn is simply inhaled and exhaled and
>does not remain in the body.
>

I have above admitted beeing too generalising and thereby possibly
giving the impression that I claimed 100% of the Rn-222 atoms exiting
with exhalation. That I did not mean.
But the important thing is that those Rn-222 atoms that stay in the
lungs will decay to radon daughters and the number of decays from the
chain of radon daughters will be several times higher and also
irradiate the during a longer period. 
Add this to radon daughters inhaled and the lung cancer risk will be
much bigger from radon daughters than from radon gas.

>: Hans Pedersen Dambo
>:
>Josh Halpern
>::::
>

Hans Pedersen Dambo