- #1
Sherwood Botsford
- 91
- 22
Recent news story about wild boar in Sweden running about 18,000 bec/kg. I was trying to put this in perspective as to what the risk was for untamed porkchops.
This is a non trivial conversion. Please feel free to correct me:
The primary radiation source is Cesium 137 -- it's a gamma emitter, with a peak around 700 kev.
Radiation exposure in terms of effect is measured in Joules/kg.
1 J = 6.2 E+18 ev. = 6.2 E+15 kev
1 kg of pig = 18,000 emissions/second * 700 kev/event = 2 E-10 Watts.
About 30 million seconds in a year, so about .01 J per kg pig emitted in a year.
Cesium has a residence time in the body of 50 to 100 days. Call it .25 year.
So a 60 kg person eating a kg of pig will get 1/4 year * .01 J = 2.5 mSv or .25 rem.
A person gets about 1/3 of a rem per year So this kg of pig is ballpark a year's normal radiation dose.
Am I correct?
Is my methodology correct?
Note to moderators: This may be more appropriate to the biology subforum. Feel free to move it.
This is a non trivial conversion. Please feel free to correct me:
The primary radiation source is Cesium 137 -- it's a gamma emitter, with a peak around 700 kev.
Radiation exposure in terms of effect is measured in Joules/kg.
1 J = 6.2 E+18 ev. = 6.2 E+15 kev
1 kg of pig = 18,000 emissions/second * 700 kev/event = 2 E-10 Watts.
About 30 million seconds in a year, so about .01 J per kg pig emitted in a year.
Cesium has a residence time in the body of 50 to 100 days. Call it .25 year.
So a 60 kg person eating a kg of pig will get 1/4 year * .01 J = 2.5 mSv or .25 rem.
A person gets about 1/3 of a rem per year So this kg of pig is ballpark a year's normal radiation dose.
Am I correct?
Is my methodology correct?
Note to moderators: This may be more appropriate to the biology subforum. Feel free to move it.