La. workers: Exxon hid radiation risk of cleaning job

[phantom power]

The claims are among thousands pending against Exxon and other oil companies over allegations that they put workers and residents near pipe-cleaning operations at risk from radiation- connected diseases, primarily cancer. The 19 plaintiffs in this trial, who worked at a site outside New Orleans, are seeking medical monitoring and punitive damages.

...

Until Exxon warned the cleaning contractor of the dangers in March 1987, Intracoastal Tubular didn’t try to control radium-tainted dust and scale removed from the pipes or to protect workers from radiation poisoning, the workers said.

The exposure increased the risk of cancer, and Exxon should pay damages for this risk and for fear of the disease, according to the workers.

None of the plaintiffs at trial has cancer. Exxon settled with three plaintiffs with cancer who were scheduled to go to trial with this group.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/6824124.html

[NNadir]

1. It is very difficult to imagine a mechanism by which this could happen.

Radium is in constant equilibrium with uranium, the element in the periodic table that Greenpeace wants to ban on the grounds that you can't be in Greenpeace if you have a scientific education.

The amount of radium at equilibrium is the ratio of the decay constants of any two radioactive species in a decay chain, where the decay constant k = ln(2)/t_1/2.

The half life of radium-226, in the decay chain of uranium-238, is 1600 years. The decay constant is thus k_Ra = ln(2)/1600 = 0.00043 (approximately). The half life of uranium-238, notwithstanding Greenpeace's objections to the supernova that created it (and the bulk of the rest of the mass of this planet), is 4,510,000,000 years, and hence the decay constant is k_U = ln(2)/(4.51 X 10⁹) = 1.54 X 10^-10. It follows that the ratio of radium to uranium in equilibrated ores is about 2.8 million uranium atoms for every radium atom.

This suggests that one ton of pure uranium at equilibrium contains about 350 milligrams of radium. As it happens, the curie is defined as the number of decays (Beq) in one gram of radium - generally taken as 37 billion Beq - meaning one ton of uranium at equilibrium contains about 350 mCi of radium activity.

Basalt, typical of oceanic crustal rocks, contains, if one believes http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~ajs/1960/ajs_258A_11.pdf/151.pdf">this old reference, something like 0.2 - 0.5 ppm of uranium. Let us suppose that a 30 cm drill bit effectively shatters around 700 sq. cm of basalt as it drills, or 0.07 m². Let's also take the density of basalt to be 3 g/cm³ or 3 metric tons per m³. Let us also assume - although such an assumption is extremely dubious - that radium is perfectly extracted from shattered basalt and embedded into a drill bit.

If we take the high value of uranium in basalt, 0.5 ppm, in order to encounter 1 metric ton of uranium, and thus 350 mg of radium, one would need to shatter 2 billion kg of basalt. Since the density is taken at 3000 kg/m³. This would involve, from my "back of the envelope" a drill of about 30,000 km! Worse the 350 mg of radium would be distributed along this shaft.

One possibility is that the reporter - who most likely doesn't know any science whatsoever, sort of like an E&E anti-nuke - has confused radium and radon.

Radon is known to contaminate deep structures, and to be highly radioactive owing to its very short half-life. What's more, radon is a gas, and is easily fractionated in shattered rock. Further it is in equilibrium with uranium and radium and polonium and lead-210, radioactive metals that are the decay products of radon gas. Further the gas would be carried along - and is known to be carried along - by dangerous fossil fuel fluids, including but not limited to dangerous natural gas. By this mechanism it is possible to imagine radioactivity accumulated in dangerous fossil fuel drilling pipe.

Nevertheless the report is mangled clearly, although not as mangled, at least in a moral sense, as a report from an anti-nuke that Haitians should wait all day in the hot sun for a single glass of water to distill in a giant kiddie pool because he is paranoid about a nuclear reactor that can distill 400,000 gallons of water a day.

[kristopher]

4. So the reporter is a scientific illiterate eh?

Odd that I can't seem to find 224Ra, 226Ra and 228Ra listed anywhere as "radon"...

Posted by 'nnads:

NNadir


Radium is in constant equilibrium with uranium, the element in the periodic table that Greenpeace wants to ban on the grounds that you can't be in Greenpeace if you have a scientific education.

The amount of radium at equilibrium is the ratio of the decay constants of any two radioactive species in a decay chain, where the decay constant k = ln(2)/t1/2.

The half life of radium-226, in the decay chain of uranium-238, is 1600 years. The decay constant is thus kRa = ln(2)/1600 = 0.00043 (approximately). The half life of uranium-238, notwithstanding Greenpeace's objections to the supernova that created it (and the bulk of the rest of the mass of this planet), is 4,510,000,000 years, and hence the decay constant is kU = ln(2)/(4.51 X 109) = 1.54 X 10-10. It follows that the ratio of radium to uranium in equilibrated ores is about 2.8 million uranium atoms for every radium atom.

This suggests that one ton of pure uranium at equilibrium contains about 350 milligrams of radium. As it happens, the curie is defined as the number of decays (Beq) in one gram of radium - generally taken as 37 billion Beq - meaning one ton of uranium at equilibrium contains about 350 mCi of radium activity.

Basalt, typical of oceanic crustal rocks, contains, if one believes this old reference, something like 0.2 - 0.5 ppm of uranium. Let us suppose that a 30 cm drill bit effectively shatters around 700 sq. cm of basalt as it drills, or 0.07 m2. Let's also take the density of basalt to be 3 g/cm3 or 3 metric tons per m3. Let us also assume - although such an assumption is extremely dubious - that radium is perfectly extracted from shattered basalt and embedded into a drill bit.

If we take the high value of uranium in basalt, 0.5 ppm, in order to encounter 1 metric ton of uranium, and thus 350 mg of radium, one would need to shatter 2 billion kg of basalt. Since the density is taken at 3000 kg/m3. This would involve, from my "back of the envelope" a drill of about 30,000 km! Worse the 350 mg of radium would be distributed along this shaft.

One possibility is that the reporter - who most likely doesn't know any science whatsoever, sort of like an E&E anti-nuke - has confused radium and radon.

Radon is known to contaminate deep structures, and to be highly radioactive owing to its very short half-life. What's more, radon is a gas, and is easily fractionated in shattered rock. Further it is in equilibrium with uranium and radium and polonium and lead-210, radioactive metals that are the decay products of radon gas. Further the gas would be carried along - and is known to be carried along - by dangerous fossil fuel fluids, including but not limited to dangerous natural gas. By this mechanism it is possible to imagine radioactivity accumulated in dangerous fossil fuel drilling pipe.

Nevertheless the report is mangled clearly, although not as mangled, at least in a moral sense, as a report from an anti-nuke that Haitians should wait all day in the hot sun for a single glass of water to distill in a giant kiddie pool because he is paranoid about a nuclear reactor that can distill 400,000 gallons of water a day.

Assessment of radiation exposures from naturally occurring radioactive materials in the oil and gas industry
M. S. Hamlata et al

Received 8 August 2000

Abstract

Radioactive deposits, often referred to as naturally occurring radioactive material scale, can, because of incompatibility of formation and injection waters, be formed inside production equipment of the oil and gas industry. These scales contain mainly 226Ra and its daughter products, which can cause an exposure risk. The gamma ray dose rates, with the associated occupational doses in the oil and gas industry, and 226Ra concentration in production water, crude oil and hard/soft scale samples were determined. Results obtained are discussed and compared to those from other studies.

Distribution of radium in oil and gas industry wastes from Malaysia

M. Omar
26 February 2004.

Abstract

Radium concentrations in 470 samples of the various types of waste from oil and gas industries were analysed using gamma spectrometers. The results showed that the radium concentration varied within a wide range. The highest mean 226Ra and 228Ra concentrations of 114,300 and 130,120 Bq/kg, respectively, were measured in scales. Overall, 75% of the waste, mostly sludge and extraction residue lies within the normal range of radium concentration in soils of Malaysia. However, some platform sludge can have radium concentration up to 560 Bq/kg.

Radium and potassium-40 in solid wastes from the oil industry
M.H.P. Gazineua,
July 2007.

Abstract

Activity concentrations of 226Ra, 228Ra and 40K in scales and sludge generated during oil extraction and production operations were determined using an HPGe gamma spectrometric system. Concentrations ranged from 42.7 to 2110.0 kBq kg−1 for 226Ra, 40.5 to 1550.0 kBq kg−1 for 228Ra and 20.6 to 186.6 kBq kg−1 for 40K. The magnitude of these results demonstrates the need of screening oil residues for their radionuclide content in order to decide about their final disposal.

Measurements of radiation level in petroleum products and wastes in Riyadh City Refinery

F.S. Al-Saleh
22 January 2008.

Abstract

Recent concern has been devoted to the hazard arising from naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) in oil and gas facilities. Twenty-seven petroleum samples were collected from Riyadh Refinery. Fourteen samples were products and 13 were waste samples; three of them were scale samples and 10 were sludge samples. The specific radioactivities of 238U, 232Th, 226Ra, 224Ra, 40K, and 235U for all samples were determined using high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometry. The radium equivalent activity, radiation hazard indices and absorbed dose rate in air for all waste samples were estimated. The radon emanation coefficient of the waste samples was estimated. It ranged between 0.574 and 0.154. The age of two scale samples was determined and found to be 2.39 and 3.66 years. The chemical structure of the waste samples was investigated using X-ray florescence analysis (XRF) and Mg, Al, Si, S, Cl, Ca and Fe were found in all samples. From this study, it was noticed that the concentrations of the natural radionuclides in the petroleum wastes were higher than that of the petroleum product

Yeah, those scientific illiterates. They're everywhere, posing like they know what they are talking about. Or...

...it could just be that there are delusional people who really can't understand what they read - no matter the type of writing involved.

[NNadir]

5. Yeah. Sort of like an E&E anti-nuke.

Just for reference, kiddie, what do you happen to think the half-life of radon-224 is?

I wonder if there is one, just one, anti-nuke airhead on this website who has ever taken a high school physics course, learned the radioactive decay law and (gasp) opened the table of nuclides in one of those dumb ass cut and paste exercises they are always undertaking obliviously.

How about Th-232? Serious radiation hazard?

I already told you in my post what the half-life of U-238 is. Now, I will confess I've seen some pretty stupid stuff here about depleted uranium, which is, um, what U-238 is, but mostly from people who don't know shit from shinola about radiochemistry.

Being anti-nukes, and thus having contempt for the science about which they know, nothing, anti-nukes don't understand the inverse relationship between half-life and activity and are so clueless as to not understand what a gas camping mantle is made of, it is possible for this gem to appear in your post:

The specific radioactivities of 238U, 232Th, 226Ra, 224Ra, 40K, and 235U

.

Let me guess where you think potassium-40 comes from? Nuclear power plants?

Any big concerns about, um, banana peel dumps?

The number of anti-nukes who can engage in critical thinking remains exactly where it has been in the last 8 years here, zero. They are all cut and paste, sometimes hilariously so.

Have a wonderful evening, Einstein.

[kristopher]

6. Your understanding of our energy issues is even worse.

Radium is in constant equilibrium with uranium, the element in the periodic table that Greenpeace wants to ban on the grounds that you can't be in Greenpeace if you have a scientific education.

The amount of radium at equilibrium is the ratio of the decay constants of any two radioactive species in a decay chain, where the decay constant k = ln(2)/t1/2.

The half life of radium-226, in the decay chain of uranium-238, is 1600 years. The decay constant is thus kRa = ln(2)/1600 = 0.00043 (approximately). The half life of uranium-238, notwithstanding Greenpeace's objections to the supernova that created it (and the bulk of the rest of the mass of this planet), is 4,510,000,000 years, and hence the decay constant is kU = ln(2)/(4.51 X 109) = 1.54 X 10-10. It follows that the ratio of radium to uranium in equilibrated ores is about 2.8 million uranium atoms for every radium atom.

This suggests that one ton of pure uranium at equilibrium contains about 350 milligrams of radium. As it happens, the curie is defined as the number of decays (Beq) in one gram of radium - generally taken as 37 billion Beq - meaning one ton of uranium at equilibrium contains about 350 mCi of radium activity.

Basalt, typical of oceanic crustal rocks, contains, if one believes this old reference, something like 0.2 - 0.5 ppm of uranium. Let us suppose that a 30 cm drill bit effectively shatters around 700 sq. cm of basalt as it drills, or 0.07 m2. Let's also take the density of basalt to be 3 g/cm3 or 3 metric tons per m3. Let us also assume - although such an assumption is extremely dubious - that radium is perfectly extracted from shattered basalt and embedded into a drill bit.

If we take the high value of uranium in basalt, 0.5 ppm, in order to encounter 1 metric ton of uranium, and thus 350 mg of radium, one would need to shatter 2 billion kg of basalt. Since the density is taken at 3000 kg/m3. This would involve, from my "back of the envelope" a drill of about 30,000 km! Worse the 350 mg of radium would be distributed along this shaft.

One possibility is that the reporter - who most likely doesn't know any science whatsoever, sort of like an E&E anti-nuke - has confused radium and radon.

Radon is known to contaminate deep structures, and to be highly radioactive owing to its very short half-life. What's more, radon is a gas, and is easily fractionated in shattered rock. Further it is in equilibrium with uranium and radium and polonium and lead-210, radioactive metals that are the decay products of radon gas. Further the gas would be carried along - and is known to be carried along - by dangerous fossil fuel fluids, including but not limited to dangerous natural gas. By this mechanism it is possible to imagine radioactivity accumulated in dangerous fossil fuel drilling pipe.

Nevertheless the report is mangled clearly, although not as mangled, at least in a moral sense, as a report from an anti-nuke that Haitians should wait all day in the hot sun for a single glass of water to distill in a giant kiddie pool because he is paranoid about a nuclear reactor that can distill 400,000 gallons of water a day.

The reporter didn't "mangle" it, you did.

The reporter's science knowledge was obviously adequate to the task of accurately reporting what was happening; your own wasn't adequate to read the story without misunderstanding it.

It wasn't RADON it was RADIUM.

Radium (Ra) has no stable isotopes. A standard atomic mass cannot be given. The longest lived, and most common, isotope of radium is 226Ra which occurs in the disintegration chain of 238U (often referred to as the radium series.)

Isotopes of radium occurring within the radioactive disintegration chains of actinium and thorium were known as

* actinium X, 223Ra
* thorium X, 224Ra
* mesothorium I, 228Ra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_radium

Your understanding of our energy issues is even worse.

[pscot]

2. Much as I loath Exxon

this seems like a lawyers wet dream. If these guys can collect because they fear cancer, will secretaries be able to sue because they fear carpal tunnel? How about librarians worried about eyestrain? The concept is most definitely fraught.

[hunter]

3. The extent of this problem wasn't recognized until it became common practice to check scrap metal...

... for radioactivity.

When the alarms go off at the scrap metal recycling plant one can't ignore them.

These days all oil and gas field pipe is suspect.

I couldn't tell from the article why the scale was being removed and where the descaled pipe was going. It wouldn't surprise me if Exxon knew the pipe was radioactive -- they probably had some fairly decent internal research on the chemistry of the scaling problem.

[caraher]

7. NNadir's analysis doesn't model the scale production process correctly

According to the EPA,

The briney solution contained in reservoirs of oil and gas is known as "formation water." During drilling, a mixture of oil, gas, and formation water is pumped to the surface. The water is separated from the oil and gas into tanks or pits, where it is referred to as "produced water." As the oil and gas in the reservoir are removed, more of what is pumped to the surface is formation water. Consequently, declining oil fields generate more produced water.

While uranium and thorium are are not soluble in water, their radioactive decay product, radium, and some of its decay products are somewhat soluble. Radium and its decay products may dissolve in the brine. They may remain in solution or settle out to form sludges, which accumulate in tanks and pits, or mineral scales, which form inside pipes and drilling equipment.

So you're actually drawing not from just whatever part of the earth the drill itself passes through, but essentially all of the oil deposit. Over time, some of this precipitates and forms "scales." From the same source:

Scale is composed primarily of insoluble barium, calcium, and strontium compounds that precipitate from the produced water due to changes in temperature and pressure. Radium is chemically similar to these elements and as a result is incorporated into the scales. Concentrations of Radium-226 (Ra-226) are generally higher than those of Ra-228.

Scales are normally found on the inside of piping and tubing. The API found that the highest concentrations of radioactivity are in the scale in wellhead piping and in production piping near the wellhead. Concentrations were as high as tens of thousands of picocuries per gram.

An older New York Times article notes that,

State radiation specialists in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas have determined that radium contamination in oilfields is one of the major sources of exposure to radiation in the United States. The radiation measured in oil and gas industry equipment and in some products, like natural gas, exposes people to levels that are equal to and at times greater than workers receive in nuclear power plants.

Now, given what I've seen of the typical measured radiation dose rates from this equipment it seems likely that the excess cancer rate from this radiation exposure isn't likely to be very different from what it is in the nuclear industry. Which is not very high. The only exception I can think of would be if these workers were handling the pipes in a way that led to substantial ingestion and/or inhalation of the radioactive scale. But I'd imagine there are plenty of issues with chemical toxicity and chemical carcinogens in such a case that would largely mask the effects of any increased radiation dose.

The bottom line is, this is just one more way in which fossil fuels are "dirty."

[kristopher]

8. Thanks. The issue (I believe)...

is accumulation of contamination at the site where these pipes were cleaned. *If* I have pieced it together properly these workers are suing as part of the same contamination that already led to a nearly $1B award against Exxon and the original court case dates back to the late 1980s.

The other settlements involved actual cases of cancer; but these folks are suing under a provision that is based on pain and suffering that applies to those with a near certainty of future illness.

Waiting for a cancer time bomb to go off has got to suck.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. Was this oil-industry-byproduct NORM?

(NORM = Naturally-Occurring Radioactive Material).

The EPA has a substantial web presence dealing with NORM.

So Exxon played dumb and deceived their employees? Hammer them. Even if the workers weren't exposed to a single alpha ray.

This will only become a more important issue to address, since the deep Devonian shale gas formations (Marcellus, Fayetteville, Barnett, etc.) are all very radioactive, as natural gas goes. The absolute level of NORM isn't all that great, but the deeper the source, the higher the radioactivity. It would be a useful exercise to calculate whether or not it could be collected and processed and burned in a reactor -- safely and economically. (Coal itself contains almost enough uranium to be a reliably economical source of uranium). In any case, with any fossil fuel, it's got to be better than just releasing it into the atmosphere by the ton, which is what we do now.

Marcellus Shale gas, and gas from other such deposits, is probably going to do to the energy picture what cheap oil did to it in the 1970s -- no nukes, but plenty of "invisible" nuclear waste. And no solar. And no replacements for what wind farms we have now. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

--d!
"Dear? There's a strange man here who says he wants to drink our milkshake."