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Why is my dryer radioactive?

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Re: Why is my dryer radioactive?

#61

Post by ck2 »

skybrian wrote: post #30
ck2 wrote: post #13

Florida is about to build some test roads using phosphogypsum, a radioactive waste product of the fertilizer industry that has been piling up and they want to unload. It contains high quantities of radium which decays into radon, this should end well. > "Phosphogypsum contains appreciable quantities of uranium and its decay products, such as radium-226," according to the EPA. And because the fertilizer production pro…

It’s outside though, so the radon wouldn’t normally accumulate unless something weird happens. Seems like this is the sort of thing you’d want experts to look at.

They have looked. For 30 years. And it was continuously banned. Until the previous president decided all regulation was silly and unprofitable.

Now we have states trying to override federal regulations because superpac donations.

Re: Why is my dryer radioactive?

#62

Post by zamnos »

jupp0r wrote: post #57
dylan604 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hope that at some place like Los Alamos the technicians are a little more qualified than your run of the mill techs.

Do you think they would be paid more?

Nope. Government salaries are public information, and are reported all over the usual sites (levels.fyi, glassdoor, indeed, etc) More importantly though, the government doesn't give out stock options with a vesting schedule. Meanwhile, techs who were at Tesla and got a small grant when it was at $20 are likely pretty happy with the stock being at $170. (Tech's that got grants at $400, less so.)

Re: Why is my dryer radioactive?

#63

Post by jpmattia »

perihelions wrote: post #55

I doubt it has anything to do with molecular dipoles. More likely I'd guess ionized radionuclides adsorb onto macroscopic dust particles (or some similar mechanism), which then maintain a net charge imbalance.

Yeah, the wording in the explanation was particular suspect:

> Polarized or polarizable objects are attracted to strong electric fields

Polarizable objects align in an E field, they aren't attracted to the E field. I don't doubt you could contrive a field to move a polarized object, but the wording seems to be confusing an ionized object with a polarized object.

Re: Why is my dryer radioactive?

#64

Post by eichin »

simcop2387 wrote: post #52
geoduck14 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the middle of moving from Texas to New England. In Texas, Radon is such a "not a problem", that I've never considered it before our move. In New England, our basement tested above the "safe" limit (iirc, 4 somethings), so we are having a venterlator installed for ~$1.4k. In the south, Radon "can" be an issue, but it simply isn't an issue. In New England, it is often an issue.

My understanding on why this is, is because in New England there's a lot more granite in the ground. Granite is particularly annoying in that respect because the trace amounts of, i think, uranium and radium that the rock concentrated when it was formed will give off the radon gas when they decay.

and that can mean high outdoor radon levels... a home inspector back in early 2000 told me about a seller sneaking back in and opening basement windows to attempt to pass a radon test (sensors left in the basement over the weekend.) The inspector caught it but let the test run to completion - at which point it failed anyway because the adjacent "forest with exposed granite rocks" was a fine natural radon source...

Re: Why is my dryer radioactive?

#65

Post by bitL »

tpmx wrote: post #5
afterburner wrote: post #3

> I was once prevented from leaving a neutron-science facility at Los Alamos after the seat of my pants set off a radiation alarm on exit. This was odd because the neutron beam had been off for weeks. It was a Saturday, so the radiation safety technician on call didn't arrive for half an hour — at which point I was clean, so the detective questions began. I had spent the day sitting on a plastic step stool. The tech…

Also: That competence (the radiation safety technician).

I presume that the technician had at least one PhD. I had a colleague who worked at Los Alamos with a top PhD and he was basically driving around placing and collecting data from some sensors all day long.

Re: Why is my dryer radioactive?

#66

Post by antognini »

BetterGeiger wrote: post #33

I think the core of the explanation given is correct but some of the adjacent details need adjustment. The important part is: "Clothes dryers are very effective at making statically charged surfaces. (Dryer sheets help.) So when radon and its temporary decay products are blown through the dryer, electrically-polarized molecules tend to be attracted to the charged surfaces" What that commenter misses is that nearly al…

> hobbyist grade detectors (Geiger tubes) are not sensitive to alpha but they are highly sensitive to beta and a little sensitivity to gamma.

This was part of the reason why it took so long to discover the cause of Alexander Litvinenko's death by Polonium-210 poisoning. Doctors (and later detectives) had suspected some form of radiation poisoning, but the early tests used Geiger counters and came back negative. But Po-210 decays almost exclusively by emitting an alpha particle which is not detectable by Geiger counters. (And it also means it's not very dangerous outside the body but becomes extremely toxic if ingested.)

Re: Why is my dryer radioactive?

#67

Post by robocat »

belter wrote: post #49
kzrdude wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just make a note of a few good ones.. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/121830/does-eart... There is no tidal bulge

GPT-4 get's this wrong...There is still hope for humans...

At least lay the blame correctly: humans get this wrong and they write it all over the internet and we then train our models on incorrect information.

An astonishing amount of what we each believe is plain wrong, especially when we have little stories about it.

Re: Why is my dryer radioactive?

#68

Post by _Microft »

jpmattia wrote: post #63
perihelions wrote: post #55

I doubt it has anything to do with molecular dipoles. More likely I'd guess ionized radionuclides adsorb onto macroscopic dust particles (or some similar mechanism), which then maintain a net charge imbalance.

Yeah, the wording in the explanation was particular suspect: > Polarized or polarizable objects are attracted to strong electric fields Polarizable objects align in an E field, they aren't attracted to the E field. I don't doubt you could contrive a field to move a polarized object, but the wording seems to be confusing an ionized object with a polarized object.

Polarized objects in inhomogeneous electric fields experience a net force. This effect is called dielectrophoresis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectrophoresis

Re: Why is my dryer radioactive?

#69

Post by [deleted] »

afterburner wrote: post #3

> I was once prevented from leaving a neutron-science facility at Los Alamos after the seat of my pants set off a radiation alarm on exit. This was odd because the neutron beam had been off for weeks. It was a Saturday, so the radiation safety technician on call didn't arrive for half an hour — at which point I was clean, so the detective questions began. I had spent the day sitting on a plastic step stool. The tech…

[deleted]

Re: Why is my dryer radioactive?

#70

Post by Merad »

geoduck14 wrote: post #40
dmicah wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be an issue everywhere, Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer, after smoking.

I'm in the middle of moving from Texas to New England. In Texas, Radon is such a "not a problem", that I've never considered it before our move. In New England, our basement tested above the "safe" limit (iirc, 4 somethings), so we are having a venterlator installed for ~$1.4k. In the south, Radon "can" be an issue, but it simply isn't an issue. In New England, it is often an issue.

> In the south, Radon "can" be an issue, but it simply isn't an issue.

There's more to the south than Texas, y'know. I can't recall if radon tests are required during a home inspection here in NC, or just highly recommended, but when I was buying a house last year I toured several homes that had radon mitigation systems installed.

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