These are scientific radioactive facts purposely ignored by anti-Lynas group.
Fact 1: Lynas radioactive residue contain a very low level of radiation at 6 Bq/G.
Fact 2: Banana with natural potassium level of radiation is about 31 Bq/g. [15 Bq for a banana or 0.2Bq/G]
G is for the weight of substance in gram, g is for the weight for natural radioactive material in gram. [Revised on 5/3/2012, 7.11PM.]
I eats radioactive bananas every week, so what?
Actually, we adult human body contains 250g of potassium and 0.012% is the radioactive beta emitter potassium-40 (half-life 1.3 x 109 yr). Therefore, the activity of potassium-40 in the body is 7600 Bq. Its radioactivity is 500 times stronger than a banana and equivalent to 1.3 Kg Water Leach Purification (WLP) residue from Lynas.
Should we commit suicide for having a small quantity of radioactive substance in our body?
Mind you, Potassium-40 is 62 times more radioactive than Thorium-232. Beta particle in Potassium-40 is more energized than alpha particle from Thorium-232 and it can penetrate through our skin.
Unless you are living in the wooden house, the cements used in your house also has the natural radioactivity from Th-232, Ra-226 and K-40, certain cement has more radioactive doses than Lynas waste.
I have no problem to use Lynas waste to build my house since the cement we used now also has the same level of natural radioactivity if anti-Lynas supporters are willing to pay for the construction cost.
Any taker for my appeal? I am becoming a guinea pig to prove my point is right.
The keyword here is the dose of alpha and beta radioactive particles from Thorium-232 and Potassium-40 are too small and distributed evenly in the huge population for both cases.
A reader points out (the accuracy is subject to expert review)
A miner for Potassium chloride (16.4 Bq/G) would only need to be near the big pile of mine for about 7 hours to exceed the public dose limit of 1 mSv.
This exposure level is same dose of radiation as working 6 months in LAMP or living 500 years near it.
The message here is more radioactive substance is freely sold in the shop and used as a fertilizer for food source like paddy.
http://energyfromthorium.com/tech/physics/activity1/
Don’t let PR politicians and half-cooked environmentalists misleading you for their political agenda. I am anti-BN does not mean I blindly support wrong thing from PR.
Intentionally deleted to avoid confusion on substance and radioactive weights after revision.
I have read and seen a lot of myths from Anti-Lynas activists like
1. Australian government has rejected Lynas rare earth plant in Australia.
Answer: Not true.
2. Lynas choosen Malaysia, not Australia because of hazardous waste disposal issue.
Answer: A half true.
All foreign investors like poor waste management policy in Malaysia for cost saving reason.
My support to Lynas always come with one condition, proper waste management audited by an independent expert panel.
3. Gebeng rare earth processing plant is same with Bukit Merah rare earth.
Answer: Not true.
Rare earth compound composition is varied and in different grade, the radioactive from waste in Bukit Merah is 50 times stronger than Gebeng waste.
4. Lynas plant is the same and as dangerous as nuclear plant in Fukushima.
Answer: A big lie.
Lynas plant is just another mining extraction factory from the rare earth with various toxic chemical processes like in the wafer and solar cell factories in Kedah, Sarawak, Penang , Melaka, etc.
5. All radioactive materials are deadly as Uranium used in the nuclear reactor.
Answer: Not true.
Thorium-232 does not produce dangerous gamma rays, which have high ionising energy, high frequency and short electromagnetic wavelength. So thorium radioactive material will not travel more than a few centimeters in the air and cannot penetrate into your skin like X-ray.
Thorium-232 with a half-life span 14000000000 year means destructive beta and gamma radiations are negligible compared to low energy alpha particles.
6. Thorium can dissolve into rainwater.
Answer: Not true.
Thorium is insoluble in water and the risk of going into food chain is minimal.
7. Environmental pollution in China is due to rare earth plants.
Answer: Not true.
All sort of factories, vehicles and coal-powered plants are main sources of pollution in China due to lack of enforcement on waste management.
8. Thorium can cause cancer.
Answer: True.
Thorium can cause cancer if you eat or inhale it into your body. But, there are more than 1000 types of chemical toxic particulates in the smoke from the cigarette can cause cancer also.
Which source is closer to you and would cause cancer risk to you?
9. Our stadium can collapse, how we trust our government to oversee Lynas waste storage facility?
Answer: Several space shuttles, bridges and dams in America did collapse and kill hundred of people. By this weired logic from green activists and PR politicians, American government should stop carry out any public project.
10. 10,000-20,000 protesters in a rally is “suara rakyat” must be listened and followed by a government.
Answer: Yes, every Malaysian has the right to express opinion openly. Whether a rally is representing the majority Malaysian is still unknown and uncertain for its non-random sampling and biasness.
Opinion is not fact, and those taking opinion as fact is disastrous to human civilization. The collective opinion of 28 million Malaysians cannot change this fact, “no object can travel faster than light speed”.
Please get the experts to study rebuttals from Lynas about anti-Lynas myths before you want to argue with me.
https://www.facebook.com/lynasmalaysia?sk=app_165496300219838
The major natural source of radioactivity in plant tissue is potassium, which in nature contains 0.0117% of the unstable isotope potassium-40 (40K). This isotope decays with a half-life of about 1.25 billion years (4×1016 seconds), and therefore the activity of natural potassium is about 31 Bq/g — meaning that, in one gram of the element, about 31 atoms will decay per second.[2][3] Plants naturally contain other radioactive isotopes, such as carbon-14 (14C), but their contribution to the total activity is much smaller.[citation needed] Since a typical banana contains about half a gram of potassium,[4] it will have an activity of roughly 15 Bq. (Although small in environmental and medical terms, the radioactivity of a few bananas is sufficient to trigger radiation sensors used to detect possible smuggling of nuclear material at U.S. ports.[5])
[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose]
