To be fair. Radon in a home basement is (usually low) -negligible- , unless you live in an contaminated area. Where as radioactive fallout is (also) -much- -more- damaging to your health. Edit: I have tried to do research on the topic of radon gas in U.S. homes and found that many of the articles that show up are actually ads for a company selling radon reducing equipment. But I have gathered that yes Radon is a danger to public health and testing is a good idea. Radioactive fallout from nuclear disasters and nuclear testing is also extremely bad for public health. So my original comment was uninformed and not worth posting!
@@jakelong4271 i live in Iowa, we are told it comes from the clay. a family i did work for- the grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer, one of his children already had lung cancer currently, so they tested the other children. 5 ouf 7 children(adults in their 30s-40s) were ultimately diagnosed with lung cancer. radon in the family house was tested and found to bo something like 30x the acceptable level.
It's worth mentioning that radon is a noble gas (inert) that sails right through any kind of filter based mask. It's not just dust, but radon decay progeny that cause contamination. I would have liked to have seen a measurement from the inside of your mask with the filters removed...
The half life of radon is hours however the contaminated dust could be carrying uranium and other daughters of uranium that will put alpha sources in his lungs.
The half-life of radon (Rn222) is 3.8 days and what it decays into are isotopes of lead, polonium and bismuth. If I was hanging out in that mine for a long period of time for many days it would start to be a problem. My short exposure for this video wasn’t that big of a deal.
So I guess the mask he was wearing would keep radioactive dust out of his lungs, but not keep the radon out? So the mask isn't useless, just he has to still limit his time exposed the the radon.
Nobel gasses are not affected by van der waals forces even (no differntial charge distribution for a molecule composed of a single atom). So no. Activated charcoal will not filter radon.
My mom worked with radon no mask making Radon seeds in thin-walled gold tubes for early cancer treatments. That was in the late forties at Mayo clinic up in Minnesota. She took a 27-roentgen dose in 18 months then back to school to get her masters in Nuclear Physics meet my dad and never worked again. I think some of her late life hand problems were from the exposure working around a stack of lead blocks looking in a mirror over the blocks pre-waldo era.
Radon is a Nobel gas, a mask wouldn't help. Nobel gasses can't be filtered out. The only way to safely work around a Nobel gas without exposure unless you use a self contained atmosphere.
Hey Drew, your mentioning of the people bringing home water infused with radium reminded me of the story of American industrialist, sportsman and socialite Eben Byers. He gained notoriety in the 1930s for giving himself multiple radiation-induced cancers from the over-indulgence of consuming _Radithor_ , a popular patented medicine at the time which was made from radium dissolved in water. In 1927, Byers had started taking _Radithor_ at the bequest of his doctor when he had injured his arm after falling from the upper berth of a railway sleeping car. Byers began taking multiple doses per day, claiming it gave him a “toned up feeling” , but stopped taking the medication in October of 1930 after the effects faded. This was after some 1400 doses. He had also started to lose weight, had serious headaches and his teeth began to fall out. In 1931, the Federal Trade Commission asked him to testify about his experience, but he was too sick to travel so the FTC sent a lawyer to his home to collect his statement. The lawyer had reported back that Byers’ “whole upper jaw, excepting two front teeth and most of his lower jaw had been removed” and that "All the remaining bone tissue of his body was disintegrating, and holes were actually forming in his skull." Eben Byers died on March 31, 1932. The said he died from radiation poisoning, even though his death was due to multiple cancers. His body was laid to rest in a family mausoleum within a lead-lined casket in Allegheny Cemetery.
That's an interesting story. It makes me think about a lot of people I know that have missing teeth in middle age or all teeth pulled so they have to use dentures. My father in law had that happen in his twenties. I always wondered what causes this problem in young and middle aged people. Could it be an unknown exposure to radiation?
@@choppinbroccoli7037 At least here in the Netherlands but also in other countries, this is due to the way money is spent on dental healthcare. When I get all of my teeth removed and get dentures, it is all payed by government. But when I have teeth beeing repaired, I have to pay a lot for that myself (and get a part of that back by private insurance for teeth). This system has been in place in many countries at least in Europe for a long time. Historicly, people did not have much of the bad bacteria in the mouth for a long time but these became more widespread especially with the extra amounts of sugars in food. Those effects got worse and worse and if you have alcohol and food without extra good dentalcare, you will get infections and loosing teeth and the cheapest way to get rid of that is to just remove those teeth.
Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking - EPA. I tested my house with two different radon detectors and found rates as high as 17 picocuries per liter (at the under-bathtub access port where the tub plumbing is). I've been monitoring this gas continuously for several years. It is now down to less that one picocurie per liter at mattress level in my bedroom, due to the radon extraction fan I installed, that runs 24/7/365. Every so often (like the recent PG&E power outage) the fan will shut down, and the radiation spikes to about five times normal levels within 12 hours, and takes several days to return to normal.
they say it's the second leading cause but don't give the exact number....ok, it may be the second leading cause but lets put it this way out of a 100 people who got lung cancer how many got it from smoking ? 99 ....1 from Radon (maybe)...personally I think the whole thing is a big scam, instead of all that expensive equipment, just leave your doors and windows open a little...this all came about because of the big move to have well sealed houses, well that has other unintended consequences, like not letting germs and viruses out of your house....oh well, it's all in your mind anyway..
Why do you believe the EPA is so sure about that? Do you understand how hard it would be to know EVERYTHING someone has been exposed to in their life? To assume some 60 year old with lung cancer got it from radon is absolutely hilarious and ridiculous
Years ago when I was a Realtor, I found a plate anchored in concrete in the ground that warned nuclear material that had been dumped in that location. I imagine it is still there. It is located in a subdivision called South Park Ranches in Park county, CO. I do not remember the lot number. Later I was told by an oldtimer that it had probably been dumped there from Rocky Flats plant.
Interesting video! That radon clinic gave me a distinct ]Shining', potentially "here's Johnny" vibe! On a serious note, the fact that during the 24 hours that elapsed after your shirt was contaminated, atoms of polonium-218, lead-214, bismuth-214, all appeared and disappeared and it ended up with a residue of lead -210 is astonishing....the transmutation-thing is what is so fascinating about radioactivity to me.
That is one of the most fascinating things about radioactive isotopes. When I first found that they can change into other isotopes with different chemical properties from releasing radiation I was blown away.
I live in a very radon-heavy area. In the 40s and 50s they would use the uranium mill railings as a way to build up house foundations, which inevitably led to problems later on. Thankfully it’s been mostly fixed as there was a huge cleanup effort in the 80s and 90s, but sometimes older buildings still deal with it. In high school, other students liked to joke about the basement being full of radon just because one of the buildings was from the 50s. There was one story that really creeped me out where a basement room constructed deep underground had a massive radon problem and the room had to be abandoned and locked with a steel door. Rumor said it was used as a food storage room for the lunch ladies and it was left behind, meaning if the story held any truth to it, the mold would likely kill you first. Still a cool spooky story, though.
In that basement situation the radon could get pretty high. Not sure enough to do anything to you with short visits down there to get some food. I've heard of this problem before in Grand Junction, with mill tailings being used in building construction.
@@RadioactiveDrew Eeyup, Grand Junction is notorious about this. The whole valley can have these issues but GJ is probably the biggest offender. A lot of the older buildings here have to get tested every couple of years. The city was pretty polluted in general; you can walk down to the shore of the Colorado River where a bunch of old auto junkyards used to stand (it’s been converted into a public park) and see old bits of metal and concrete sticking out. The radon and mill tailings are the worst offenders, though. Museum of Western Colorado did an interesting timeline on the use of Uranium in Western Colorado and Eastern Utah, if you want to find out more info 👍
Living in Sweden we have a very good understanding (our experts, not me or the general public) that radon is a dangerous and carcenogenic gas and we have tests done in every building built in the 60's and 70's due to this very issue. The statistics tell us that if you're exposed to high levels of radon you have an almost guaranteed risk of developing lung cancer within 40 years. For those who dont know: You basically dont survive lung cancer unless you're lucky or get screened very early on. I have arthritis and i have had it all my life (permanent inflammation in my knee joints due to working out with much too heavy weights and not getting the inflammation checked early enough. Living in an apartement with about 5x the allowed dose of radon, i can without question say that it didnt help me what so ever when it comes to managing my pain levels.
Its not a guarantee to develop lung cancer. Per 100Bq/m³ the chances raise by like 15%. Theres no guarantee for anything, but everyone should get this checked in their homes.
Radon therapy as a spa treatment is equivalent to a salt cave or hot spring, it’s a statistical placebo. Radon testing is a part of a home inspection bc it is the second leading cause of lung cancer behind smoking in America.
Radon is only the second leading cause of lung cancer if you happen to live in a uranium mine. All the data the EPA has on radon exposure causing lung cancer comes from uranium miners only.
Great video, thank you for what you do, radiation gets a bad reputation, and you are helping to educate people. If you ever get the notion to explore in western Colorado look me up, I know most of the mines in the west. I worked in the uranium industry most of my life, in both milling and mining. Started at the mill in Uravan in the 1970s working for Union Carbide right out of college. Next, I worked with Max Anderson, we built a mill to reprocess the tailings pile from the old Vanadium Corporation of America (VCA) mill site on the San Miguel River. After that I spent a few years as a contract uranium miner at the LP-21 mine; super dangerous, always interesting and very lucrative. Back to school in 1980 so I could become a radiation safety officer but by the time I got the education uranium mining in the USA was dead. From there it was on to mine safety but in coal, gold and silver. In 2006 George Glazier started up Energy Fuels Resources in an attempt to revive the US uranium industry, I hired on as corporate safety director and acting RSO. We had so many mines it was crazy, and they were my playground for a few years. I was approached by a group of renowned geologists during this time, and I arranged and led several explorations of mines in the Uravan Uranium Belt. Their goal was to discover new minerals associated with Uranium and Vanadium deposits and man did they discover a lot of new minerals. After about the fiftieth new mineral they discovered they gave me the honor of having one named after me. It is called Fulbrightite, and it is not only beautiful it is very unique. It is an extremely rare calcium vanadyl arsenate, basically it is the arsenate analogue of Sincosite. It has been identified in only one other mine in the world to my knowledge, and that is the Rovnost mine in the Czech Republic, but we found it first in the Packrat mine by Gateway, CO. Best pics are on mindat.org and they should have my contact info.
Thanks for all that info and for all the other comments. Next time I’m out in the Uravana area, maybe this summer I’ll try and hit you up…if you still live out that way.
There were several in Idaho Springs Colorado. The state closed them all by 1965. These mines were setup with benches, lights etc. People so crippled with arthritis they could not stand would go in for one hour per day. Three days and they were playing golf. The ones we knew lived well into their 90s.
great video! so much good info, i learned a lot. I took my geiger counter in mammoth cave ky and detected the radon. i could not figure out why I was still getting elevated reading after I left the cave but you taught me abought the radon decay particles that stick around.
I work in a nuclear power plant, we have issues with picking up radon on our clothes when the humidity drops. Static cling grabs the gas and we have to use microfibers clothes to pull it off. The radon puts off enough dose that it's difficult to get out of the radiologically controlled area. On a bad day you may lose your clothes.
The average where I live is around 4 pCi/L, and it's considered normal. There are multiple underground floors below this particular building from where the air is vented out after heat exchange. However, the amount can vary considerably from building to building as some gather more radon from the ground below than others.
That’s a ridiculous thing to say, that there is no safe level of radon exposure. We are exposed to radiation everyday yet not everyone dies from cancer. Some people are exposed to a much higher constant radiation level than most. Like air crews on commercial flights. They aren’t all dying from cancer so something doesn’t add up with the whole no safe level.
Thank you for this video. In my state you have to put mitigation systems in if you have radon higher than 4. There wasn't radon found when I bought my house. When I sold it years later their was. I was very worried. I feel better about it after watching your video I learned a lot.
Radon gas is wild . I'm trained in NBC in the military. My wife and I bought a house in Pa that was a fixer upper . Condition of sale was a Radon test that I did that was sent to a colleague. Was well in limit. Two house down from me was the same . It was vacant for 3 years when I moved in . It was vacant for 5 years previously. Someone bought it . Did a test and was dangerous in Radon. Retested my home and it was off the chart . Did the counter measure and it was down below normal. Turned off the counter measure and 3 month later the levels were once again at the same level it was when I bought the house. Later to find out that Radon will look for. Any and all ways to escape. And sometimes temporary
SMR As I drive around North New Jersey, any time I see a VERTICAL PVC plastic pipe on the side of the house with a baffle or a cap on it that connects to a basement or lower level of the house, that house HAS a radon problem ! There is one down the block from me just like that.
This is the first information ever that I have been 'exposed' to that says there could be beneficial effects with radon. (Obviously, lower levels of radon). Thank You.
Radiation does, in fact, help with inflammation. Lots of peer-reviewed studies on it, the general consensus is that as long as it's from a contained source and isn't actually being INGESTED the hormesis theory does hold true, the main issue with radon spas is all the daughter products and lead that inevitably end up in your system. Some countries STILL use nasopharyngeal irradiation to treat severe sinus inflammation, stuff works. Some of the more recent studies came out during COVID when they noticed symptom improvements in patients that got CT scans or chest X-Rays vs patients that didn't, cause the inflammation cascade's a big reason for long-term bad outcomes. There's also the fact it's a heavy noble gas, like xenon, and those ALSO have analgesic properties so the somewhat-immediate relief from it makes it a lot more noticeable. The vast majority of bad health outcomes related to radon or radiation exposure are either continuous occupational exposure over years, or ingesting of things that are bone or organ seekers, and would still be a major issue even if it WASN'T radioactive - see also, phosphorous and fluorine compounds that do similar things despite being non-radioactive. That's really the big problem with radioisotopes and pollution, and why it's absolutely criminal that oil companies can still use their well brine to salt roads in the winter or control dust in the summer - that stuff is absolutely chock full of radium dissolved in solution, I can pick up on my CDV-700 which brands of frozen corn came from Ohio vs Indiana/Illinois fields cause of the bioaccumulation from dust-suppressing farm roads.
@@RadioactiveDrew IDK I don't live in Ohio, the corn's about 3x background level but non-Ohio-grown corn brands are background. It ain't much until you consider how most of what's actually in there is Radium, not just radon daughters, so it bioaccumulates and doesn't really leave. There's been articles about this stuff going back a decade or more, the WORST is old oil/brine piping that's so bad it's got neutron activation of the steel, scrapyards won't even take old oilfield pipes cause the steel mills have survey meters nowadays. Coal tailings and especially ash ponds are pretty hot too, the NRC made my dad wear a film badge in the mid 80's at Dutch Gap power station cause of how much uranium and radium are in coal, their plant put out MORE radioactive contaminants than the nuclear plant downriver.
You would think that mask would filter the radon but it doesn't. Radon is inert so charcoal or filters can't stop it. It does however stop daughter products or dust from the ground getting in his lungs which beta or alpha are very dangerous once inside the body.
@lexinexi-hj7zo I’m pretty sure you can’t filter out noble gases because they don’t react with anything. The filters on a mask are really going to work against the decay products from radon.
I think the problem with radon in houses is that you live there, so your exposure over time would be much more. Of course, pilots and flight attendants also are exposed on a daily basis, but I'd compare it to something like that rather than just visiting a mine. How is radon therapy supposed to work? I'm always suspicious of alternative medicine. Has there been any science done on it?
The whole radon healing thing needs more research. It could be helpful in some cases. A lot of the people that I talked to there were telling me how it helps them.
There need to be some controlled studies done on the radon gas therapy. Mostly, in the medical literature, radon is considered carcinogenic. But who knows, it may help people with pain. But it needs to be checked out thoroughly before a recommendation can be make. Would be great if it worked.
It's amazing to me that people purposefully go down into a radon filled area for "health reasons". When I bought my house, I had the basement tested for radon prior to the purchase. The levels were absolutely staggering and led me to force the prior owner to install a radon reduction system in the basement, at their expense, in order for the deal to close. They had to perform three installations in order for the radon to get down to safe levels. Prior owner was not happy about the expense... Since radon exposure is the second highest cause of lung cancer, behind only cigarette smoking, I believe it was absolutely necessary.
I think that stat of radon being the second leading cause of lung cancer is extremely misleading. I plan on talking about it further in a future video.
Radon causes more than 21,000 lung cancer deaths in the U.S. every year. Despite that it is totally preventable, radon is the number one lung cancer killer in nonsmokers. There is no known safe level for exposure to radon, but EPA recommends you fix a home if the radon level is 4 pCi/L or more.
The report the DOE did that the EPA and CDC use to base public policy on shows very different data on radon exposure. The "no known safe level", which comes from the Linear No Threshold model is extremely flawed as it only uses extremely high doses as data and works its way backwards for low dose exposure. That's not how radiation exposure works. If it did we would all be dying from cancers from the natural background radiation we are exposed to everyday.
Here in upstate SC the base mineral is granite- plenty of it- and known as a common source of radon. Building codes vary but most now require what workers call a "radon pipe" which goes from the crawl space, basement, or under the slab through the roof like a plumbing vent. It must be enclosed for protection or painted orange and marked "radon". and "do not penetrate". Older homes are recommended to be tested, and this is a requirement with most bank inspections now before a mortgage is approved. Some of the contractors specializing in crawlspace encapsulation also advertise as doing radon testing and mitigation. It's very site-specific here; you may have the only safe home in the neighborhood or the opposite. Some areas are now known for high radon levels. Being in construction I've known about this for many years, but I did not know about 'daughter' products, that radon can't be filtered through masks, or that dust collected on clothing could transfer and emit radon and it's daughters. I'm skeptical of many claims about harmful substances. For instance lead in paint isn't really a hazard except for children who chew on it, and workers who frequently sand it without a mask. And about half of the asbestos isn't very harmful unless again you breathe it's dust in high concentrations. The bad asbestos came mostly from the Libby mine. Neither of these things is going to kill or even harm you but people freak out over them because they've been conditioned to respond that way. I'm still not sure about radon even with the added info I've learned here. There have been studies done here but there is no significant connection between cancer rates and living in what we now know are high-radon areas or buildings. I'm not questioning the medical studies proving the potential for harm- I'm sure they are right. But I don't believe the problem is as severe as it's made out to be, for if it was there would be a clear and large pattern in deaths caused by these things, and that pattern is lacking. Since we now know about these risks then yeah- makes sense to protect ourselves from them. Just don't be paranoid or freak out over them because there's no need to.
This is why crawl spaces were always vented. I leave my vents open, and my condensing furnace takes air from down there and burns it. So air flow in crawl spaces takes care of radon. Encapsulation and super sealing homes traps it inside. "Old homes" may not be "energy efficient" because they "breathe" too much. I'm glad it does.
I personally know several people who live in and around libby, and several who have worked on the cleanup that have various lung problems and cancers and or have died from them.....tell them that asbestos is not that dangerous to their health and its just panic or overreaction.
This video is great and informative. I knew radon daughters were charged (someone has a YT video where he collects fresh dust in a house and shows it to be radioactive for a few hours) but I never thought about the isotopes from radon sticking to your clothes!
In a nearby village (Menzenschand, Germany) there used to be a uranium mine. The mine was closed in the 80s. Back then many locals used to blame the radioactivity set free by this mine for a number of cancer cases. It usually is very hard to to impossible to find a definite cause for a cancer case. And statistical methods only become reliable with a large number of cases. As such blaming anything on the mine was not the most reliable proposition. In the 2000s a radon healthbath was opened which was treating patients with water flowing from the old mine which otherwise had been sealed when the mine was closed. Some patients swear by it, pay the cost by themselves because insurrance doesn't pay for it and regularly travel great distances to that bath. So we have a case for and one against low doses of radioactivity on the same location. Both are different but if anything it is proof how weak the knowledge on the effects of low doses of radiation is.
Beautiful Videography and very well edited. This is really interesting as I grew up in an area "plagued" with Radon gas - St. Austell, Cornwall, UK. Here a lot of public buildings have foundation ducts and blowers to disperse the gas from under the buildings.
Finally! I have been searching for the relative relationship between the different radiation measurements! Now I know that I don't need to be concerned with the 4.0 picoCuries long term average that I am measuring in my basement. Thank you!
It kind of depends on the type of radiation. But if you are in an area that has a 13000 counts per minute background and are spending a lot of time there that could be harmful. If you are around a source of radiation like a uranium glazed plate or tile which can easily be 50,000 CPM...that's not much of a threat. The radiation drops off fairly quickly and can be blocked by thin layers of glass, plastic, wood or metal. So unless you have a source like that very close to you day in and day out you should be fine.
@Radioactive Drew thanks for the reply. Does it build up in your system? What if you were exposed to 13000 cpm for a hour a day for a month? After being exposed to a dangerous dose does your body eventually get rid of it or how does that work?
@@captnkurt83 its like any damage that your body receives. The UV-A and UV-B light from the sun damage our cells and our body heals from it. Ionizing radiation is the same way. The difference is that the different types of radiation are invisible to us. Its when the damage is too great for out bodies to handle is when serious problems can happen. So radiation isn't like heavy metals like mercury that can bioaccumulate in the body. The radiation doesn't stay with you. Only way that could happen is if you have something in you that is radioactive...then that continues to emit radiation inside you, which can be bad.
The part about being contaminated was very interesting. A lot of the comments here write "Radon is a noble gas and it goes right through the filter" - but in that case, it won't stick to the clothing either. A noble gas is chemically inert because of its electron configuration. But if an atom decays, the electrons don't change automatically with the nucleus. So you get an ionized atom and I can imagine it is the ionization which makes the single-atom decay products stick to normal dust particles. Radiation makes a mess out of chemistry if the energy is high enough.
For me the mask I was wearing was more for the decay products. To protect against high amounts of radon usually takes a full face mask with its own air supply...at least that's what I've seen.
The decay products of radon are charged metallic particles (Po, Pb & Bi) and they will stick to clothing. But using a Geiger counter to detect these particles is very inefficient and gives a misleading notion that the radon hazard is small. You have to use the correct detectors for radon, not a Geiger counter.
I think the health benefits of radon should be explored further to see if there could be a benefit. The people I talked to at that health mine seem to think it does them some good.
@@RadioactiveDrew It would be interesting to find out for sure! Living in Florida, I regularly talk to people who swear up and down that crystal healing, homeopathic remedies and prayer reliably work, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. I don't think most people care much for evidence these days.
@@Cthulhu013 my personal feeling is that radon therapy and crystal healing aren't in the same camp. Certain levels of radiation exposure have been found to help inflammation. I'm hoping to do another couple videos about the subject this summer.
Like what kind of radon issues? Just high radon levels? I hope I showed in my video that there is a very big difference between residential radon and radon you would find in a uranium mine.
@@RadioactiveDrew yes you did. I live in an area with a lot of small but strong uranium occurrences so mining was to a minimum and stayed out of the public eye. A lot of cases of lung cancer around these areas with normally healthy people. Your videos area great, keep them coming.
Abandoned Mines of Pennsylvania Yep, there exists a radon belt across Pennsylvanian and into New Jersey known as the Reading Prong. Where you find natural uranium deposits, you find radon gas.
My mom lives near Allentown PA. Every house has the radon vacuums on the side. When I was little I was fascinated by anything radioactive because of the mysterious unknown factor.
I always understood the problem to be with the Polonium that is the daughter product of the radon. Particularly in smokers, it accumulates in the lungs. With that said, I do agree that there are much bigger exposure risks from other things you listed. Awareness and informed decision making are you best defense in those cases.
I am unclear if this video is promoting the health benefits of going underground to experience elevated levels of radon. Is this the case? Radon emits alpha particles which whilst they cannot get through your skin can damage lungs if you breath it in and the alpha particles are emitted inside your lungs.
After coming out of the mine .The guy looks so much younger and so pain free . Hopefully he does not start growing extra limbs .Only kidding of coarse .I enjoy this man's videos .For me it's a learning experience for sure .Hope he is safe doing these things .It's not worth getting a cancer to make some videos .I realize he is really into these things .And knows allot .But long term effects are not seen until later .
One of the most interesting and well made videos i've seen. Thank you. Did you happen to see what count the mask filters were giving off a day or so later?
@@RadioactiveDrew Thank you. That is fascinating, and shows how little i know on the topic. Does that mean there was no radioactive dust that was caught in the filters? Would the contamination on your fingers from that rock still put off energy 24 hours later if you didn't wash it off because that isn't only radon, but uranium, or whatever other element(s)?
@@bjornegan6421 the bulk of the contamination was from the radon daughters (decay products). When radon gas emits its radiation, it is no longer radon. This keeps happening on down the decay series until it finally gets to stable non-radioactive lead. If I had any uranium dust on me I could wash it off. Same with the other contamination. The radon daughters are negatively charged and like to sick to surfaces.
@@RadioactiveDrew Thank you very much for taking the time to explain that. If I had paid more attention to the information in the video and some of your other videos i've seen, I would have already known that I suppose. Thanks!
Yeah this mine has been kind of rare in the level of radon it produces. I’m sure it has something to do with how good the deposit of uranium is in that area.
When I worked with radiation they advised us to stay 1 to2 feet distance from the radiation as much as possible. We wore a badge that was tested regularly. I did as they advised so had routinely low readings of exposure. Some were .ore casual about the distance so got much higher readings.
About longcancer; probably also just because of the amounts of dust that miners breath in. This happens also in a lot of other occupations without any of these radiations. But yues, I would try radon-therapy if I could/
This is really cool ! Drew is very interesting and these videos are awesome ! I definitely would "try out" that mine ! Pretty cool. The study of radioactivity, matter, energy, mines, Uranium is fascinating. I love the video he does with that "creepy" ( lol ) vintage smoke detector !
You can also visit the beautiful beaches of Guarapari, Ramsar of Kerala. You also get a good dose of radiation there, but you don't have to pay for it.
This sounds akin to the treatment of syphilis patients in 1800s England. One of the treatments was to go in to a special place where they could inhale mercury vapors which caused short-term relief but long-term health issues. Are their any peer reviewed journal studies exploring the overall health effects of radon inhalation? I need to look that one up...
That area has always interested me. I’ll have to detour through there on my next trip to Moab. I always wanted to go see Charles sheens big strike. Have you stopped at the sunset grill in Moab? They tell a great story about him.
I’ll need to check out that grill next time I’m there. I might have been to it as I try and hit a bunch of different areas there. Be careful on that road by the mine. There are pieces of metal sticking out of the road that will easily go through a tire.
Thanks for the heads up. I know some people at that copper mine, but have never made it out there. We usually hide out just north of there between the la sal mtn, gateway, and paradox. The sunset grill is in Charlie’s old house, way up on a hill just north of downtown. It’s not as good as it used to be, but not a bad meal with everything else getting a bit expensive in town these days. I’ve been super interested in atomic history since moving to the area a few years ago. Glad I came across your channel to learn a bit more about the area. Your trinity site video inspired me to make time to be there this spring.
I honestly would expect any therapeutic properties of radon gas to be attributable to the anesthetizing effect of heavy noble gases, not to the radiation. The radiation would be strictly harmful in any amount (by the linear no-threshold model), but some people might judge the harm of the radiation to be outweighed by the benefits of the anaesthesia. Honestly, though, stable xenon gas likely confers almost the same benefits as radon but without the hazards of radiation, and you can safely breathe it in higher concentrations.
The LNT radiation model doesn't make any sense and most scientists have rejected it. If it was a good way to show risk and negative results from radiation exposure we would see every commercial pilot and air crew dying from cancer.
@@RadioactiveDrew That's a logical fallacy, though maybe you're being intentionally hyperbolic. There are many ways for a human being to die, and radiation-induced cancer is only one of them - and not a very common one at that. Maybe the average person would die of radiation-induced cancer at the age of 150, and the average airline pilot would die of radiation-induced cancer at the age of 100, but because no one lives to those ages, we can't statistically observe the effects of chronic, low-level radiation on cancer rates. Now, you can argue that, if something else kills you before radiation does, then the risk posed by low-level radiation is moot, but that's only valid in the average case. There are always statistical outliers. I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid flying just because of the increased radiation dose, but, if all else is equal, I will always choose to live with less exposure rather than more, even if we're talking about a choice between 0.25 µSv/hr and 0.12 µSv/hr, which you might consider a pointless distinction.
I came here to say the same thing (and did). Given that xenon has a more pronounced anesthetic effect than krypton (the next lighter noble gas), I would expect radon's anesthetic effect to be even more powerful, which could explain why even relatively modest concentrations such as found in the "health mines" can have noticeable effects. That said, I wouldn't take the trade-off of the increased health risk from the radiation.
Here in the UK there are major concerns relating to homes being contaminated with high levels of Radon. The incidence of lung cancer spikes where the above is found. They also seal floors to stop Radon from rising from the radioactively found in granite and the release of the gas. Are there concerns there relating to the gas and the release of alpha particles, so destructive to internal tissue. Other than from smoking most other lung cancers are thought to be generated from the above. What precautions are taken there?
There is no volume control on the detector but I could have brought it down in my editing program. When I made the video I didn’t realize it was so loud. I’ve tried to turn the sound down a bit in newer videos.
@@RadioactiveDrew i thought so. In the other videos its a lot better. Just though I'd yell out my experience as a feedback. I have sensitive hearing to start with so that does not exactly make it better. Love the videos by the way. Important to show the truth about radioactive materials and how radiation works to kill the misinformation. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the feed back and I’m glad you enjoy the videos. I do try and be much more conscious of loud noises I’m my videos. Doing the sound mix with headphones does help.
At an apartment complex I lived at from 1987 until 2014, the owners in 2008 put a radon detection pack in every apartment that stayed in place for 30 days, then sent to a lab to determine the amount of radon detected. All but one apartment building had infinitesimally low radon exposure, including the building for my apartment. The one building that had high radon count had a 24/7 ventilation system installed that used low speed fans in the crawlspace of the building and vented out of ducts to the roof. After the mitigation system was installed, apartments in that building had the radon detection packs installed again and after 30 days, were tested and the building had infinitesimally low radon.
Radon mitigation is mainly just ventilation, especially if its from building material. Then there is Radon from the ground and this can cause significantly higher doses. Its NOT the same being exposed for a very long time.
@@RadioactiveDrew Not true Drew! Google on the Stanley Watras case. There have been many cases in Europe, one where a house built over karst limestone (i.e cavities) had almost 50 KBq/m³ and everybody who lived in that house died from lung cancer. The original cases came from Sweden in the 60s where some houses built with blocks containing uranium (from roasted shale) gave very high radon concentrations of radon with very definite health consequences.
@@RadioactiveDrew Well, vested interests are always going to argue for or against as the radon hazard is based on statistical analyses. It is impossible to say which lung cancers have been caused by radon, so not an obvious cause and effect. But the alpha scintillator cells I used 15 years ago to collect high radon gas activity, and which were flushed immediately after measurement, still continue to have high background counts from the long-lived daughters, Pb-210, Bi-210 (beta emitters) and Po210 (alpha emitter). Perhaps you could try measuring the radon in those old mines, but don't breath in that air! The DNA mutation is like a lottery ticket, you might win on the first ticket you buy or perhaps never win. You will never know which alpha particle causes the mutation to a cancerous tumour in a lung tissue cell.
This is so crazy. I just fled NE TN to Myrtle Beach SC because I knew something, possibly radon, was killing me and my 7 yo son. I could feel the effects as soon as I entered the area where we lived regardless of which of the four roads I would use to drive into town. My entire family thinks I'm overreacting, but his teeth have been rotting out of his head and mine had gotten so loose they would shift as I ate. Little by little we're regaining our health. Been here six weeks so far. Hopeful for complete recoveries. Don't understand why it possibly helps some while hurting others. As an aside, I get sick by just driving roads that pass by open caves. Plenty of those in TN. The cool air feels great on a hot summer day, but cruising back roads no longer works for me :(
I think some this may be "psych sematic": it could be both ways, to you exposure to Radon makes you feel ill, while someone else it makes them feel great...a self fulfilling prophecy if you will.
Love this and the channel. (I’m a nuclear engineer.) You do realize the mask was leaking, right? You have facial hair and filtration masks of any kind cannot perform at their rated function if they cannot achieve a seal. I’m not worried as I’m sure you are not because you weren’t there long enough. But as a nuclear power plant worker, I would have been forced to shave before doing what you did, even with such a thin beard. But this issue keeps coming up among DIY workers and even with biological airborne contaminants when people who have full beards and think filtration masks will protect them. Keep the content coming!
Yeah, I’m aware that the mask didn’t have a great seal. I was trying to cut down on breathing in the daughter products a bit. Also I wanted to show how those daughter products collected on the filters. Technically there isn’t a mask that will filter out radon since it’s a noble gas. Seems like the only way to keep your exposure down is with a supplied air system. My visits to these mines is pretty short so my exposure is very low.
Sieverts wouldn’t really be the best to measure down there only because that’s mainly for gamma radiation. Down in these mines you are dealing with alpha, beta and gamma radiation.
if i am not mistaken about where i live in Canada, New-Brunswick, most of the land mass has uranium under it so Radon floods basements in certain area that are kind of lower in elevation, so unless someone has such criteria, it should not be a problem.
Can you get lead poisoning from radon decay? E.g., say you have your house remediated for radon, what about all the accumulated lead from when radon was in the home?
In the book Atomic Adventures the author tells a story about 2 miners breaking into a cave and being overcome by unknown gasses. He makes it sound like this cave was sealed up tight allowing absurd amounts of radon to build up. One died outright and the other reported symptoms of radiation poisoning but it was before that was a known illness as it was the early to mid 1800s....I really have to visit that mine, although I would want a full face mask to cover my eyes as well.
Probably lack of oxygen in the environment due to the excessive amount of inert gasses. As radon is a heavy gas there maybe a pool of radon that suffocated them
@@RadioactiveDrew This was not really a mine, more of a cave the broke into. But this is my 3rd hand remembering of a 2nd hand story from the 1800s. I could see it being a possibility but not probable.
Got a radon detector, here in northern Germany, our house with no cellar, in a region where the radon maps shows zero, there is Radon ! Only a little, no concern at all, but if the living room is not used and vented for ie 2-3 days the Radon concentration goes up to the first health limit. Above ground ! Old houses in the south of Germany with a cellar have unhealthy high concentrations
This video really makes me wanna travel the less-touristed parts of the US. I don't think I've been more than 100km inland of either coast (except maybe on the train from NY to Toronto). How lame ...
@@RadioactiveDrew Indeed! It looks absolutely amazing. Even though Australia is roughly the same size, the interior is almost entirely empty (save for a few rather important sites), whereas the US has a lot of varied geography, hundreds of cities and countless towns. Australia is red sand coast to coast except for a 100-200km strip of habitability around (most of) the coastline, but there is a lot where the desert just meets the sea. French and Dutch explorers arrived in such locations (long before the British hit the east coast), and said, "ahh, no thanks". Haha. I'd love to start somewhere on the west coast of the US, buy a car and a telescope (unless carrying my own on a flight isn't an absurd task) and get myself lost for six months or so. Probably land in San Francisco because I've spent the least time there, drive the Californian coast up to the PNW to then cross the country on a rough diagonal from NW to SE, drive up the east coast and return NE to SW, finishing in LA or San Fran. Really hanging out to visit Oak Ridge NL and the site of MSRE, EBR-II, the Trinity site, Kennedy Space Centre and JPL ... and the list of space and nuclear science related places goes on and on. It would be handy to get some recommendations from someone like you who really knows where to go. Just gotta get myself together before I get too old and tired. Haha. Your time lapse images of the night sky have really got me psyched on such a trip again ... so beautiful!
I'm way late to this, but after watching this excellent video about a thing that admittedly I know only a cursory amount, I started to wonder, how did the miners protect themselves - or was it a matter of 'different place, different time'? How do modern Uranium miners protect themselves?
Once they realized that the concentration of radon was way too high for people to work in, the mines started having ventilation installed in the mines. This greatly helped protect the miners.
Ventilation, dosimeters, training, litigious unions and knowledgeable miners. Also several agencies monitoring H&S plus weekly urine samples and health checks. In high-grade mines like Cigar lake they use remote-controlled mining machinery.
I'm actually from austria, jobed for a few times in NPPs in germany and swiss, mainly suportive Jobs, helping clean and refurbish old valves, check the funtion of electronic measurement circuits, but also one time an assistent in radiation protection, decontamination, clear-measuring at the exit of the controled area, but never was in a uranium mine or radium therapy-mine. Looks all quite empty, is that normal there or just did you get to there at a 'low-season' time when there isn't much fuzz going on?
Well I tried not to film anybody down there so they weren’t bothered. The times I’ve been there it’s been a bit busy with people in the above ground room and some down in the mine. I’m hoping to go back there and do some interviews.
cool video. I am a radon mitigation contractor for 22 years. I would personally not go in those caves or mines without PPE. I've been to that area near Moab...is it Yellowcat?
Hi again....ok after the post on reddit was removed ....it looks mi vida was closed with a wall of sand and a little hole for venting...so someone can crouch into it deeper? I will not do that since im from europe but i thought they are fully sealed? ...like the montana health mine i already visited the svornost mine in jachymov ,they more use the radon water for bathing in the radium palace /curie hotels ..btw great skydome and aerial videos!
Glad you found me on here. Not sure why the hole in the top of the backfill of the Mi Vida was there. Could have originally formed from air pressure starting it and then mine explorers making it larger. I found some pictures from a group that explored the inside of that mine back in 2012. www.flickr.com/photos/8880725@N06/albums/72157629544605504 For a future video I might go in there to look around a bit because it seems really interesting.
@@weirdmeisterinc in the entrance I didn't find anything that was very hot...maybe inside the mine. Found some really hot pieces on the road leaving the mine.
I found it strange that some people feared Chernobyl radiation in the US, yet, have not had their homes tested for Radon.
To be fair. Radon in a home basement is (usually low) -negligible- , unless you live in an contaminated area. Where as radioactive fallout is (also) -much- -more- damaging to your health.
Edit:
I have tried to do research on the topic of radon gas in U.S. homes and found that many of the articles that show up are actually ads for a company selling radon reducing equipment. But I have gathered that yes Radon is a danger to public health and testing is a good idea. Radioactive fallout from nuclear disasters and nuclear testing is also extremely bad for public health.
So my original comment was uninformed and not worth posting!
@@jakelong4271 i live in Iowa, we are told it comes from the clay. a family i did work for- the grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer, one of his children already had lung cancer currently, so they tested the other children. 5 ouf 7 children(adults in their 30s-40s) were ultimately diagnosed with lung cancer. radon in the family house was tested and found to bo something like 30x the acceptable level.
Amazing work thanks for educating me. Is radon like tecnicium from molybdenum
@@builderman912 My home in Indiana was about 7 - 8x the acceptable level of 4pCi/L of Radon
US nuclear testing has killed as many as 700,000 people here in the states whereas Chernobyls death toll is under 150,000.
It's worth mentioning that radon is a noble gas (inert) that sails right through any kind of filter based mask. It's not just dust, but radon decay progeny that cause contamination. I would have liked to have seen a measurement from the inside of your mask with the filters removed...
He was wearing cartridges with P100 and activated charcoal. The charcoal does have the ability to adsorb inert gasses I believe.
The half life of radon is hours however the contaminated dust could be carrying uranium and other daughters of uranium that will put alpha sources in his lungs.
The half-life of radon (Rn222) is 3.8 days and what it decays into are isotopes of lead, polonium and bismuth. If I was hanging out in that mine for a long period of time for many days it would start to be a problem. My short exposure for this video wasn’t that big of a deal.
So I guess the mask he was wearing would keep radioactive dust out of his lungs, but not keep the radon out? So the mask isn't useless, just he has to still limit his time exposed the the radon.
Nobel gasses are not affected by van der waals forces even (no differntial charge distribution for a molecule composed of a single atom). So no. Activated charcoal will not filter radon.
“The good news is that my arthritis isn’t bothering me that much, the bad news is that I now have lung cancer.”
My mom worked with radon no mask making Radon seeds in thin-walled gold tubes for early cancer treatments. That was in the late forties at Mayo clinic up in Minnesota. She took a 27-roentgen dose in 18 months then back to school to get her masters in Nuclear Physics meet my dad and never worked again. I think some of her late life hand problems were from the exposure working around a stack of lead blocks looking in a mirror over the blocks pre-waldo era.
Pre Waldo era?
@@NiceMuslimLady en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_manipulator
Yes we did that too reaching over. large lead blocks to do some procedures.
Radon is a Nobel gas, a mask wouldn't help. Nobel gasses can't be filtered out. The only way to safely work around a Nobel gas without exposure unless you use a self contained atmosphere.
Hey Drew, your mentioning of the people bringing home water infused with radium reminded me of the story of American industrialist, sportsman and socialite Eben Byers. He gained notoriety in the 1930s for giving himself multiple radiation-induced cancers from the over-indulgence of consuming _Radithor_ , a popular patented medicine at the time which was made from radium dissolved in water.
In 1927, Byers had started taking _Radithor_ at the bequest of his doctor when he had injured his arm after falling from the upper berth of a railway sleeping car. Byers began taking multiple doses per day, claiming it gave him a “toned up feeling” , but stopped taking the medication in October of 1930 after the effects faded. This was after some 1400 doses. He had also started to lose weight, had serious headaches and his teeth began to fall out. In 1931, the Federal Trade Commission asked him to testify about his experience, but he was too sick to travel so the FTC sent a lawyer to his home to collect his statement. The lawyer had reported back that Byers’ “whole upper jaw, excepting two front teeth and most of his lower jaw had been removed” and that "All the remaining bone tissue of his body was disintegrating, and holes were actually forming in his skull."
Eben Byers died on March 31, 1932. The said he died from radiation poisoning, even though his death was due to multiple cancers. His body was laid to rest in a family mausoleum within a lead-lined casket in Allegheny Cemetery.
I heard about this story when I visited Pittsburgh, PA.
That's an interesting story. It makes me think about a lot of people I know that have missing teeth in middle age or all teeth pulled so they have to use dentures. My father in law had that happen in his twenties. I always wondered what causes this problem in young and middle aged people. Could it be an unknown exposure to radiation?
Would have nothing to do with radiation exposure.
@@choppinbroccoli7037 At least here in the Netherlands but also in other countries, this is due to the way money is spent on dental healthcare.
When I get all of my teeth removed and get dentures, it is all payed by government. But when I have teeth beeing repaired, I have to pay a lot for that myself (and get a part of that back by private insurance for teeth).
This system has been in place in many countries at least in Europe for a long time.
Historicly, people did not have much of the bad bacteria in the mouth for a long time but these became more widespread especially with the extra amounts of sugars in food. Those effects got worse and worse and if you have alcohol and food without extra good dentalcare, you will get infections and loosing teeth and the cheapest way to get rid of that is to just remove those teeth.
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Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking - EPA. I tested my house with two different radon detectors and found rates as high as 17 picocuries per liter (at the under-bathtub access port where the tub plumbing is). I've been monitoring this gas continuously for several years. It is now down to less that one picocurie per liter at mattress level in my bedroom, due to the radon extraction fan I installed, that runs 24/7/365. Every so often (like the recent PG&E power outage) the fan will shut down, and the radiation spikes to about five times normal levels within 12 hours, and takes several days to return to normal.
they say it's the second leading cause but don't give the exact number....ok, it may be the second leading cause but lets put it this way out of a 100 people who got lung cancer how many got it from smoking ? 99 ....1 from Radon (maybe)...personally I think the whole thing is a big scam, instead of all that expensive equipment, just leave your doors and windows open a little...this all came about because of the big move to have well sealed houses, well that has other unintended consequences, like not letting germs and viruses out of your house....oh well, it's all in your mind anyway..
thats crazy, why is the reason there is so much radon in the air?
@@v44n7 Natural radioactive decay of uranium and thorium in granite, for instance. There are maps of the USA that show the levels across the country.
Why do you believe the EPA is so sure about that? Do you understand how hard it would be to know EVERYTHING someone has been exposed to in their life? To assume some 60 year old with lung cancer got it from radon is absolutely hilarious and ridiculous
Years ago when I was a Realtor, I found a plate anchored in concrete in the ground that warned nuclear material that had been dumped in that location. I imagine it is still there. It is located in a subdivision called South Park Ranches in Park county, CO. I do not remember the lot number. Later I was told by an oldtimer that it had probably been dumped there from Rocky Flats plant.
That explains the stories I hear about those people in South Park. Especially 4 of the 3rd graders
There's a Superfund site in CO where some waste material from Rockey Flats was used to pave public roads.
Colorado has an interesting nuclear history with all the uranium mining and with Rocky Flats being located there.
Interesting video! That radon clinic gave me a distinct ]Shining', potentially "here's Johnny" vibe! On a serious note, the fact that during the 24 hours that elapsed after your shirt was contaminated, atoms of polonium-218, lead-214, bismuth-214, all appeared and disappeared and it ended up with a residue of lead -210 is astonishing....the transmutation-thing is what is so fascinating about radioactivity to me.
That is one of the most fascinating things about radioactive isotopes. When I first found that they can change into other isotopes with different chemical properties from releasing radiation I was blown away.
Your production is great. Your subject matter is both fascinating and slightly dangerous/ exciting. You should have 100x the subs.
I’m getting there. Thanks for the kind words.
Wow, this is one of the most interesting videos I've seen. Instant sub 100%.
Thanks for the sub. Glad you liked the video.
I live in a very radon-heavy area. In the 40s and 50s they would use the uranium mill railings as a way to build up house foundations, which inevitably led to problems later on. Thankfully it’s been mostly fixed as there was a huge cleanup effort in the 80s and 90s, but sometimes older buildings still deal with it.
In high school, other students liked to joke about the basement being full of radon just because one of the buildings was from the 50s. There was one story that really creeped me out where a basement room constructed deep underground had a massive radon problem and the room had to be abandoned and locked with a steel door. Rumor said it was used as a food storage room for the lunch ladies and it was left behind, meaning if the story held any truth to it, the mold would likely kill you first. Still a cool spooky story, though.
In that basement situation the radon could get pretty high. Not sure enough to do anything to you with short visits down there to get some food. I've heard of this problem before in Grand Junction, with mill tailings being used in building construction.
@@RadioactiveDrew Eeyup, Grand Junction is notorious about this. The whole valley can have these issues but GJ is probably the biggest offender. A lot of the older buildings here have to get tested every couple of years. The city was pretty polluted in general; you can walk down to the shore of the Colorado River where a bunch of old auto junkyards used to stand (it’s been converted into a public park) and see old bits of metal and concrete sticking out. The radon and mill tailings are the worst offenders, though.
Museum of Western Colorado did an interesting timeline on the use of Uranium in Western Colorado and Eastern Utah, if you want to find out more info 👍
Thanks for the info. I’ve heard of this problem with Grand Junction. I want to check it out more next time I’m through there.
Living in Sweden we have a very good understanding (our experts, not me or the general public) that radon is a dangerous and carcenogenic gas and we have tests done in every building built in the 60's and 70's due to this very issue.
The statistics tell us that if you're exposed to high levels of radon you have an almost guaranteed risk of developing lung cancer within 40 years.
For those who dont know: You basically dont survive lung cancer unless you're lucky or get screened very early on.
I have arthritis and i have had it all my life (permanent inflammation in my knee joints due to working out with much too heavy weights and not getting the inflammation checked early enough.
Living in an apartement with about 5x the allowed dose of radon, i can without question say that it didnt help me what so ever when it comes to managing my pain levels.
There is a percerntage (around 14%) of americicans that are dumb as a box of rocks. They are also empowered to be the most vocal.
Its not a guarantee to develop lung cancer. Per 100Bq/m³ the chances raise by like 15%. Theres no guarantee for anything, but everyone should get this checked in their homes.
Radon therapy as a spa treatment is equivalent to a salt cave or hot spring, it’s a statistical placebo. Radon testing is a part of a home inspection bc it is the second leading cause of lung cancer behind smoking in America.
Radon is only the second leading cause of lung cancer if you happen to live in a uranium mine. All the data the EPA has on radon exposure causing lung cancer comes from uranium miners only.
@@RadioactiveDrew that is simply not true.
Great video, thank you for what you do, radiation gets a bad reputation, and you are helping to educate people. If you ever get the notion to explore in western Colorado look me up, I know most of the mines in the west. I worked in the uranium industry most of my life, in both milling and mining. Started at the mill in Uravan in the 1970s working for Union Carbide right out of college. Next, I worked with Max Anderson, we built a mill to reprocess the tailings pile from the old Vanadium Corporation of America (VCA) mill site on the San Miguel River. After that I spent a few years as a contract uranium miner at the LP-21 mine; super dangerous, always interesting and very lucrative.
Back to school in 1980 so I could become a radiation safety officer but by the time I got the education uranium mining in the USA was dead. From there it was on to mine safety but in coal, gold and silver. In 2006 George Glazier started up Energy Fuels Resources in an attempt to revive the US uranium industry, I hired on as corporate safety director and acting RSO. We had so many mines it was crazy, and they were my playground for a few years.
I was approached by a group of renowned geologists during this time, and I arranged and led several explorations of mines in the Uravan Uranium Belt. Their goal was to discover new minerals associated with Uranium and Vanadium deposits and man did they discover a lot of new minerals. After about the fiftieth new mineral they discovered they gave me the honor of having one named after me. It is called Fulbrightite, and it is not only beautiful it is very unique. It is an extremely rare calcium vanadyl arsenate, basically it is the arsenate analogue of Sincosite. It has been identified in only one other mine in the world to my knowledge, and that is the Rovnost mine in the Czech Republic, but we found it first in the Packrat mine by Gateway, CO. Best pics are on mindat.org and they should have my contact info.
Thanks for all that info and for all the other comments. Next time I’m out in the Uravana area, maybe this summer I’ll try and hit you up…if you still live out that way.
There were several in Idaho Springs Colorado. The state closed them all by 1965. These mines were setup with benches, lights etc. People so crippled with arthritis they could not stand would go in for one hour per day. Three days and they were playing golf. The ones we knew lived well into their 90s.
I talked to people that went to the one in Montana and they would swear by it. Some would say the effects would last 3 months after leaving.
great video! so much good info, i learned a lot. I took my geiger counter in mammoth cave ky and detected the radon. i could not figure out why I was still getting elevated reading after I left the cave but you taught me abought the radon decay particles that stick around.
I work in a nuclear power plant, we have issues with picking up radon on our clothes when the humidity drops. Static cling grabs the gas and we have to use microfibers clothes to pull it off. The radon puts off enough dose that it's difficult to get out of the radiologically controlled area. On a bad day you may lose your clothes.
Awesome. I know of a similar radon clinic in Germany. You need a prescription to enter.
I’ve heard of that place.
The average where I live is around 4 pCi/L, and it's considered normal. There are multiple underground floors below this particular building from where the air is vented out after heat exchange. However, the amount can vary considerably from building to building as some gather more radon from the ground below than others.
4 pCi/L may be 'normal' but the EPA (I think it was them) states that there is no 'safe' level. 4 is the level above which to take remedial action.
That’s a ridiculous thing to say, that there is no safe level of radon exposure. We are exposed to radiation everyday yet not everyone dies from cancer. Some people are exposed to a much higher constant radiation level than most. Like air crews on commercial flights. They aren’t all dying from cancer so something doesn’t add up with the whole no safe level.
Thank you for this video. In my state you have to put mitigation systems in if you have radon higher than 4. There wasn't radon found when I bought my house. When I sold it years later their was. I was very worried. I feel better about it after watching your video I learned a lot.
The level of radon can change based on a bunch of factors...temp, pressure...if you have your widows open a lot. Glad you learned something.
You've helped give me some peace of mind as reside 5000 ft mountains
I almost live at the same altitude here in Montana. Radon is usually a product of geology more than anything else.
Love these man you teach so much
Thanks…glad you enjoy them.
Radon gas is wild . I'm trained in NBC in the military. My wife and I bought a house in Pa that was a fixer upper . Condition of sale was a Radon test that I did that was sent to a colleague. Was well in limit. Two house down from me was the same . It was vacant for 3 years when I moved in . It was vacant for 5 years previously. Someone bought it . Did a test and was dangerous in Radon. Retested my home and it was off the chart . Did the counter measure and it was down below normal. Turned off the counter measure and 3 month later the levels were once again at the same level it was when I bought the house. Later to find out that Radon will look for. Any and all ways to escape. And sometimes temporary
SMR As I drive around North New Jersey, any time I see a VERTICAL PVC plastic pipe on the side of the house with a baffle or a cap on it that connects to a basement or lower level of the house, that house HAS a radon problem ! There is one down the block from me just like that.
Thanks for all the info and effort to provide to us. Something I've wondered about
No problem. I'm planning on making a couple more videos about the topic of radon.
This is the first information ever that I have been 'exposed' to that says there could be beneficial effects with radon. (Obviously, lower levels of radon). Thank You.
Tom Scott has a ‘scintillating’ video about such a mine where double-blind studies could be conducted
In Michigan we were encouraged to test our basements for radon.
I'm sure...because there is money to be made in radon mitigation.
Michigan radon is low compared to many places.
Radiation does, in fact, help with inflammation. Lots of peer-reviewed studies on it, the general consensus is that as long as it's from a contained source and isn't actually being INGESTED the hormesis theory does hold true, the main issue with radon spas is all the daughter products and lead that inevitably end up in your system. Some countries STILL use nasopharyngeal irradiation to treat severe sinus inflammation, stuff works. Some of the more recent studies came out during COVID when they noticed symptom improvements in patients that got CT scans or chest X-Rays vs patients that didn't, cause the inflammation cascade's a big reason for long-term bad outcomes. There's also the fact it's a heavy noble gas, like xenon, and those ALSO have analgesic properties so the somewhat-immediate relief from it makes it a lot more noticeable. The vast majority of bad health outcomes related to radon or radiation exposure are either continuous occupational exposure over years, or ingesting of things that are bone or organ seekers, and would still be a major issue even if it WASN'T radioactive - see also, phosphorous and fluorine compounds that do similar things despite being non-radioactive. That's really the big problem with radioisotopes and pollution, and why it's absolutely criminal that oil companies can still use their well brine to salt roads in the winter or control dust in the summer - that stuff is absolutely chock full of radium dissolved in solution, I can pick up on my CDV-700 which brands of frozen corn came from Ohio vs Indiana/Illinois fields cause of the bioaccumulation from dust-suppressing farm roads.
What kind of count rates are you getting on those roads with the CDV-700?
@@RadioactiveDrew IDK I don't live in Ohio, the corn's about 3x background level but non-Ohio-grown corn brands are background. It ain't much until you consider how most of what's actually in there is Radium, not just radon daughters, so it bioaccumulates and doesn't really leave. There's been articles about this stuff going back a decade or more, the WORST is old oil/brine piping that's so bad it's got neutron activation of the steel, scrapyards won't even take old oilfield pipes cause the steel mills have survey meters nowadays. Coal tailings and especially ash ponds are pretty hot too, the NRC made my dad wear a film badge in the mid 80's at Dutch Gap power station cause of how much uranium and radium are in coal, their plant put out MORE radioactive contaminants than the nuclear plant downriver.
You would think that mask would filter the radon but it doesn't. Radon is inert so charcoal or filters can't stop it. It does however stop daughter products or dust from the ground getting in his lungs which beta or alpha are very dangerous once inside the body.
To be honest I’m much more concerned about the radon daughters than the radon its self.
@RadioactiveDrew as the duaghters are solids and reactive to water and O2? carbon filters everything except Nobel gasses or all gasses?
@lexinexi-hj7zo I’m pretty sure you can’t filter out noble gases because they don’t react with anything. The filters on a mask are really going to work against the decay products from radon.
Super good video Drew. Always enjoy your videos
Thanks. I’m planning on doing a follow up video on the subject of radon.
this is right in there with the "health benefits" of radium....
No quite. Everything is about dose. Also the human body with introduce radium into the bones because it mimics calcium. Radon is very different.
Maybe a video about Maria Skłodowska-Curie, and her work. How she labored to get 1 gram of Radium.
I think the problem with radon in houses is that you live there, so your exposure over time would be much more. Of course, pilots and flight attendants also are exposed on a daily basis, but I'd compare it to something like that rather than just visiting a mine.
How is radon therapy supposed to work? I'm always suspicious of alternative medicine. Has there been any science done on it?
The whole radon healing thing needs more research. It could be helpful in some cases. A lot of the people that I talked to there were telling me how it helps them.
There need to be some controlled studies done on the radon gas therapy. Mostly, in the medical literature, radon is considered carcinogenic. But who knows, it may help people with pain. But it needs to be checked out thoroughly before a recommendation can be make. Would be great if it worked.
I think it’s more about the exposure level that makes it a carcinogen. At low levels it might have some benefits and at very high levels be a problem.
It's amazing to me that people purposefully go down into a radon filled area for "health reasons". When I bought my house, I had the basement tested for radon prior to the purchase. The levels were absolutely staggering and led me to force the prior owner to install a radon reduction system in the basement, at their expense, in order for the deal to close. They had to perform three installations in order for the radon to get down to safe levels. Prior owner was not happy about the expense... Since radon exposure is the second highest cause of lung cancer, behind only cigarette smoking, I believe it was absolutely necessary.
I think that stat of radon being the second leading cause of lung cancer is extremely misleading. I plan on talking about it further in a future video.
@@RadioactiveDrew Looking forward to it for sure!
@@RadioactiveDrew please do a video in depth on this. I think a lot of us are being taken for by basement companies.
@deondeneau2721 I’m working on a video right now about radon. Will take a little while for it to be finished.
Radon causes more than 21,000 lung cancer deaths in the U.S. every year. Despite that it is totally preventable, radon is the number one lung cancer killer in nonsmokers.
There is no known safe level for exposure to radon, but EPA recommends you fix a home if the radon level is 4 pCi/L or more.
The report the DOE did that the EPA and CDC use to base public policy on shows very different data on radon exposure. The "no known safe level", which comes from the Linear No Threshold model is extremely flawed as it only uses extremely high doses as data and works its way backwards for low dose exposure. That's not how radiation exposure works. If it did we would all be dying from cancers from the natural background radiation we are exposed to everyday.
Thanks Drew! Have a Merry Christmas!!
Thanks...have a Merry Christmas as well.
Brilliant!!! Great Job!!!
Thanks.
the whole 4 pCi/l is totally made up. totally. @@RadioactiveDrew
Here in upstate SC the base mineral is granite- plenty of it- and known as a common source of radon. Building codes vary but most now require what workers call a "radon pipe" which goes from the crawl space, basement, or under the slab through the roof like a plumbing vent. It must be enclosed for protection or painted orange and marked "radon". and "do not penetrate". Older homes are recommended to be tested, and this is a requirement with most bank inspections now before a mortgage is approved. Some of the contractors specializing in crawlspace encapsulation also advertise as doing radon testing and mitigation. It's very site-specific here; you may have the only safe home in the neighborhood or the opposite. Some areas are now known for high radon levels.
Being in construction I've known about this for many years, but I did not know about 'daughter' products, that radon can't be filtered through masks, or that dust collected on clothing could transfer and emit radon and it's daughters. I'm skeptical of many claims about harmful substances. For instance lead in paint isn't really a hazard except for children who chew on it, and workers who frequently sand it without a mask. And about half of the asbestos isn't very harmful unless again you breathe it's dust in high concentrations. The bad asbestos came mostly from the Libby mine. Neither of these things is going to kill or even harm you but people freak out over them because they've been conditioned to respond that way. I'm still not sure about radon even with the added info I've learned here. There have been studies done here but there is no significant connection between cancer rates and living in what we now know are high-radon areas or buildings. I'm not questioning the medical studies proving the potential for harm- I'm sure they are right. But I don't believe the problem is as severe as it's made out to be, for if it was there would be a clear and large pattern in deaths caused by these things, and that pattern is lacking. Since we now know about these risks then yeah- makes sense to protect ourselves from them. Just don't be paranoid or freak out over them because there's no need to.
This is why crawl spaces were always vented. I leave my vents open, and my condensing furnace takes air from down there and burns it. So air flow in crawl spaces takes care of radon. Encapsulation and super sealing homes traps it inside. "Old homes" may not be "energy efficient" because they "breathe" too much. I'm glad it does.
I personally know several people who live in and around libby, and several who have worked on the cleanup that have various lung problems and cancers and or have died from them.....tell them that asbestos is not that dangerous to their health and its just panic or overreaction.
Sokobanja Serbia has radon springs for healthcare use purposes, been around for centuries.
Love your TH-cam show.
Thanks.
Super interesting.Thank you.
May Atom guide you in his glow!
This video is great and informative. I knew radon daughters were charged (someone has a YT video where he collects fresh dust in a house and shows it to be radioactive for a few hours) but I never thought about the isotopes from radon sticking to your clothes!
In a nearby village (Menzenschand, Germany) there used to be a uranium mine. The mine was closed in the 80s. Back then many locals used to blame the radioactivity set free by this mine for a number of cancer cases. It usually is very hard to to impossible to find a definite cause for a cancer case. And statistical methods only become reliable with a large number of cases. As such blaming anything on the mine was not the most reliable proposition. In the 2000s a radon healthbath was opened which was treating patients with water flowing from the old mine which otherwise had been sealed when the mine was closed. Some patients swear by it, pay the cost by themselves because insurrance doesn't pay for it and regularly travel great distances to that bath.
So we have a case for and one against low doses of radioactivity on the same location. Both are different but if anything it is proof how weak the knowledge on the effects of low doses of radiation is.
Beautiful Videography and very well edited. This is really interesting as I grew up in an area "plagued" with Radon gas - St. Austell, Cornwall, UK. Here a lot of public buildings have foundation ducts and blowers to disperse the gas from under the buildings.
Finally!
I have been searching for the relative relationship between the different radiation measurements!
Now I know that I don't need to be concerned with the 4.0 picoCuries long term average that I am measuring in my basement.
Thank you!
4 picoCuries is so low. When it starts to get into the hundreds I can start to detect the radiation on the Radeye B20.
An excellent video.
Thanks...trying to find time to revisit the subject.
Wow I didn't know those majestic mountains and rocks could be so active. Much great information in your video. Thanks
So how many counts per minute are dangerous? Whats the threshold? For example 13000 counts per minute for 24 hours, is thay dangerous?
It kind of depends on the type of radiation. But if you are in an area that has a 13000 counts per minute background and are spending a lot of time there that could be harmful. If you are around a source of radiation like a uranium glazed plate or tile which can easily be 50,000 CPM...that's not much of a threat. The radiation drops off fairly quickly and can be blocked by thin layers of glass, plastic, wood or metal. So unless you have a source like that very close to you day in and day out you should be fine.
@Radioactive Drew thanks for the reply. Does it build up in your system? What if you were exposed to 13000 cpm for a hour a day for a month? After being exposed to a dangerous dose does your body eventually get rid of it or how does that work?
@@captnkurt83 its like any damage that your body receives. The UV-A and UV-B light from the sun damage our cells and our body heals from it. Ionizing radiation is the same way. The difference is that the different types of radiation are invisible to us. Its when the damage is too great for out bodies to handle is when serious problems can happen. So radiation isn't like heavy metals like mercury that can bioaccumulate in the body. The radiation doesn't stay with you. Only way that could happen is if you have something in you that is radioactive...then that continues to emit radiation inside you, which can be bad.
@Radioactive Drew thank you for the information, always wondered about this stuff.
Your content quality is masterful, your channel is about to blow up, algorithm got you covered! Good luck ^^
The part about being contaminated was very interesting. A lot of the comments here write "Radon is a noble gas and it goes right through the filter" - but in that case, it won't stick to the clothing either. A noble gas is chemically inert because of its electron configuration. But if an atom decays, the electrons don't change automatically with the nucleus. So you get an ionized atom and I can imagine it is the ionization which makes the single-atom decay products stick to normal dust particles. Radiation makes a mess out of chemistry if the energy is high enough.
For me the mask I was wearing was more for the decay products. To protect against high amounts of radon usually takes a full face mask with its own air supply...at least that's what I've seen.
The decay products of radon are charged metallic particles (Po, Pb & Bi) and they will stick to clothing. But using a Geiger counter to detect these particles is very inefficient and gives a misleading notion that the radon hazard is small. You have to use the correct detectors for radon, not a Geiger counter.
I am skeptical of health benefits, but I do agree fear of radon or radiation in general is way overblown, especially here in the United States.
I think the health benefits of radon should be explored further to see if there could be a benefit. The people I talked to at that health mine seem to think it does them some good.
@@RadioactiveDrew It would be interesting to find out for sure!
Living in Florida, I regularly talk to people who swear up and down that crystal healing, homeopathic remedies and prayer reliably work, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
I don't think most people care much for evidence these days.
@@Cthulhu013 my personal feeling is that radon therapy and crystal healing aren't in the same camp. Certain levels of radiation exposure have been found to help inflammation. I'm hoping to do another couple videos about the subject this summer.
@@RadioactiveDrew Looking forward to your findings.
@@RadioactiveDrew Lol. Of course it does. It's called placebo effect. Believe in something enough and for granted it'll make you feel better.
We have quite a lot of radon issues in my area of Pennsylvania. Great video.
Like what kind of radon issues? Just high radon levels? I hope I showed in my video that there is a very big difference between residential radon and radon you would find in a uranium mine.
@@RadioactiveDrew yes you did. I live in an area with a lot of small but strong uranium occurrences so mining was to a minimum and stayed out of the public eye. A lot of cases of lung cancer around these areas with normally healthy people. Your videos area great, keep them coming.
Abandoned Mines of Pennsylvania Yep, there exists a radon belt across Pennsylvanian and into New Jersey known as the Reading Prong. Where you find natural uranium deposits, you find radon gas.
My mom lives near Allentown PA. Every house has the radon vacuums on the side. When I was little I was fascinated by anything radioactive because of the mysterious unknown factor.
I always understood the problem to be with the Polonium that is the daughter product of the radon. Particularly in smokers, it accumulates in the lungs. With that said, I do agree that there are much bigger exposure risks from other things you listed. Awareness and informed decision making are you best defense in those cases.
I am unclear if this video is promoting the health benefits of going underground to experience elevated levels of radon. Is this the case? Radon emits alpha particles which whilst they cannot get through your skin can damage lungs if you breath it in and the alpha particles are emitted inside your lungs.
Its just modern darwinism. people who believe this will breathe the gas wich decays in their lungs..
Interesting and informative video. I'd love to be able to visit places like that, and simply pick up nice, active samples from the ground!
Glad you enjoyed the video. There will be a lot more coming soon.
After coming out of the mine .The guy looks so much younger and so pain free . Hopefully he does not start growing extra limbs .Only kidding of coarse .I enjoy this man's videos .For me it's a learning experience for sure .Hope he is safe doing these things .It's not worth getting a cancer to make some videos .I realize he is really into these things .And knows allot .But long term effects are not seen until later .
Believe it or not but my exposure its pretty low.
One of the most interesting and well made videos i've seen. Thank you. Did you happen to see what count the mask filters were giving off a day or so later?
After 24 hours they are back to nothing.
@@RadioactiveDrew Thank you. That is fascinating, and shows how little i know on the topic. Does that mean there was no radioactive dust that was caught in the filters? Would the contamination on your fingers from that rock still put off energy 24 hours later if you didn't wash it off because that isn't only radon, but uranium, or whatever other element(s)?
@@bjornegan6421 the bulk of the contamination was from the radon daughters (decay products). When radon gas emits its radiation, it is no longer radon. This keeps happening on down the decay series until it finally gets to stable non-radioactive lead. If I had any uranium dust on me I could wash it off. Same with the other contamination. The radon daughters are negatively charged and like to sick to surfaces.
@@RadioactiveDrew Thank you very much for taking the time to explain that. If I had paid more attention to the information in the video and some of your other videos i've seen, I would have already known that I suppose. Thanks!
@@bjornegan6421 no problem. The subject of radon will come up again on this channel.
why did they shut down these mines?
Nice and interesting video's from you.
The government stopped buying the uranium. So the market crashed.
I was in an abandoned uranium mine recently, background was a bit higher but nowhere near that!
Got a couple nice stones though
Yeah this mine has been kind of rare in the level of radon it produces. I’m sure it has something to do with how good the deposit of uranium is in that area.
When I worked with radiation they advised us to stay 1 to2 feet distance from the radiation as much as possible. We wore a badge that was tested regularly. I did as they advised so had routinely low readings of exposure. Some were .ore casual about the distance so got much higher readings.
Thank you for this fascinating look into this subject.
About longcancer; probably also just because of the amounts of dust that miners breath in. This happens also in a lot of other occupations without any of these radiations.
But yues, I would try radon-therapy if I could/
Well, if you are ever in Montana you can go to these radon health mines. I'll be doing another video on the subject soon.
not gonna lie at around 13:40 my ears were ringing from hearing the Geiger counter freak out like that
I’ve tried to dial down the sound of the Geiger counter a bit in other videos.
You’re doing the Lord’s work 🙏 thank you
Glad you enjoy the videos.
this channel is a little jewel.
thank you
This is really cool ! Drew is very interesting and these videos are awesome ! I definitely would "try out" that mine ! Pretty cool. The study of radioactivity, matter, energy, mines, Uranium is fascinating. I love the video he does with that "creepy" ( lol ) vintage smoke detector !
My uncle died from cancer from Radon...he died in 2015 and he underwent kemo and radiation with no good results,so iabit Confused
You can also visit the beautiful beaches of Guarapari, Ramsar of Kerala. You also get a good dose of radiation there, but you don't have to pay for it.
Do the pain relieving effects last or do you need continual treatments to maintain a lower pain level?
This sounds akin to the treatment of syphilis patients in 1800s England. One of the treatments was to go in to a special place where they could inhale mercury vapors which caused short-term relief but long-term health issues. Are their any peer reviewed journal studies exploring the overall health effects of radon inhalation? I need to look that one up...
Might take a trip to Montana and visit these mines one day.
The underground area is open during the summer months.
That area has always interested me. I’ll have to detour through there on my next trip to Moab. I always wanted to go see Charles sheens big strike. Have you stopped at the sunset grill in Moab? They tell a great story about him.
I’ll need to check out that grill next time I’m there. I might have been to it as I try and hit a bunch of different areas there. Be careful on that road by the mine. There are pieces of metal sticking out of the road that will easily go through a tire.
Thanks for the heads up. I know some people at that copper mine, but have never made it out there. We usually hide out just north of there between the la sal mtn, gateway, and paradox. The sunset grill is in Charlie’s old house, way up on a hill just north of downtown. It’s not as good as it used to be, but not a bad meal with everything else getting a bit expensive in town these days. I’ve been super interested in atomic history since moving to the area a few years ago. Glad I came across your channel to learn a bit more about the area. Your trinity site video inspired me to make time to be there this spring.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I have been to Mi Vida prior with the same effect.
I honestly would expect any therapeutic properties of radon gas to be attributable to the anesthetizing effect of heavy noble gases, not to the radiation. The radiation would be strictly harmful in any amount (by the linear no-threshold model), but some people might judge the harm of the radiation to be outweighed by the benefits of the anaesthesia. Honestly, though, stable xenon gas likely confers almost the same benefits as radon but without the hazards of radiation, and you can safely breathe it in higher concentrations.
The LNT radiation model doesn't make any sense and most scientists have rejected it. If it was a good way to show risk and negative results from radiation exposure we would see every commercial pilot and air crew dying from cancer.
@@RadioactiveDrew That's a logical fallacy, though maybe you're being intentionally hyperbolic. There are many ways for a human being to die, and radiation-induced cancer is only one of them - and not a very common one at that. Maybe the average person would die of radiation-induced cancer at the age of 150, and the average airline pilot would die of radiation-induced cancer at the age of 100, but because no one lives to those ages, we can't statistically observe the effects of chronic, low-level radiation on cancer rates. Now, you can argue that, if something else kills you before radiation does, then the risk posed by low-level radiation is moot, but that's only valid in the average case. There are always statistical outliers. I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid flying just because of the increased radiation dose, but, if all else is equal, I will always choose to live with less exposure rather than more, even if we're talking about a choice between 0.25 µSv/hr and 0.12 µSv/hr, which you might consider a pointless distinction.
Pretty neat place with a little bit of a weird kind of Americana nostalgia. It'd be fun to visit, but not so much for the radon itself. Cheers.
400,000 participants study in USA and Australia showed that survival rate for cancer radiotherapy patients is 4,1-4,3% (four)
Xenon is a strong anesthetic too, I guess Radon could work the same way but it’s not worth the radiation exposure
I came here to say the same thing (and did). Given that xenon has a more pronounced anesthetic effect than krypton (the next lighter noble gas), I would expect radon's anesthetic effect to be even more powerful, which could explain why even relatively modest concentrations such as found in the "health mines" can have noticeable effects. That said, I wouldn't take the trade-off of the increased health risk from the radiation.
Great job on this subject.
Thanks. I plan to revisit this subject again as there is a bunch to talk about.
Here in the UK there are major concerns relating to homes being contaminated with high levels of Radon.
The incidence of lung cancer spikes where the above is found. They also seal floors to stop Radon from rising from the radioactively found in granite and the release of the gas.
Are there concerns there relating to the gas and the release of alpha particles, so destructive to internal tissue.
Other than from smoking most other lung cancers are thought to be generated from the above.
What precautions are taken there?
Probably none
The sound is deafening! I had to turn the volume all the way down and use captions. Is there no way to lower the volume on the device?
There is no volume control on the detector but I could have brought it down in my editing program. When I made the video I didn’t realize it was so loud. I’ve tried to turn the sound down a bit in newer videos.
@@RadioactiveDrew i thought so. In the other videos its a lot better. Just though I'd yell out my experience as a feedback. I have sensitive hearing to start with so that does not exactly make it better. Love the videos by the way. Important to show the truth about radioactive materials and how radiation works to kill the misinformation. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the feed back and I’m glad you enjoy the videos. I do try and be much more conscious of loud noises I’m my videos. Doing the sound mix with headphones does help.
At an apartment complex I lived at from 1987 until 2014, the owners in 2008 put a radon detection pack in every apartment that stayed in place for 30 days, then sent to a lab to determine the amount of radon detected. All but one apartment building had infinitesimally low radon exposure, including the building for my apartment. The one building that had high radon count had a 24/7 ventilation system installed that used low speed fans in the crawlspace of the building and vented out of ducts to the roof. After the mitigation system was installed, apartments in that building had the radon detection packs installed again and after 30 days, were tested and the building had infinitesimally low radon.
Radon mitigation is mainly just ventilation, especially if its from building material. Then there is Radon from the ground and this can cause significantly higher doses. Its NOT the same being exposed for a very long time.
Radon is the same if it comes from building material or from the ground. None of the residential radon is in high enough concentrations to be harmful.
@@RadioactiveDrew Not true Drew! Google on the Stanley Watras case. There have been many cases in Europe, one where a house built over karst limestone (i.e cavities) had almost 50 KBq/m³ and everybody who lived in that house died from lung cancer. The original cases came from Sweden in the 60s where some houses built with blocks containing uranium (from roasted shale) gave very high radon concentrations of radon with very definite health consequences.
I’m going to make a video talking about this referencing EPA and DOE reports that contradict the current feelings on radon.
@@RadioactiveDrew Well, vested interests are always going to argue for or against as the radon hazard is based on statistical analyses. It is impossible to say which lung cancers have been caused by radon, so not an obvious cause and effect. But the alpha scintillator cells I used 15 years ago to collect high radon gas activity, and which were flushed immediately after measurement, still continue to have high background counts from the long-lived daughters, Pb-210, Bi-210 (beta emitters) and Po210 (alpha emitter). Perhaps you could try measuring the radon in those old mines, but don't breath in that air! The DNA mutation is like a lottery ticket, you might win on the first ticket you buy or perhaps never win. You will never know which alpha particle causes the mutation to a cancerous tumour in a lung tissue cell.
Well really thankyou for this video so i can use it for my presentation material and explain it to my friends
Not sure why I am here, but now I know about radon mines.
This is so crazy. I just fled NE TN to Myrtle Beach SC because I knew something, possibly radon, was killing me and my 7 yo son. I could feel the effects as soon as I entered the area where we lived regardless of which of the four roads I would use to drive into town. My entire family thinks I'm overreacting, but his teeth have been rotting out of his head and mine had gotten so loose they would shift as I ate. Little by little we're regaining our health. Been here six weeks so far. Hopeful for complete recoveries. Don't understand why it possibly helps some while hurting others.
As an aside, I get sick by just driving roads that pass by open caves. Plenty of those in TN. The cool air feels great on a hot summer day, but cruising back roads no longer works for me :(
I think some this may be "psych sematic": it could be both ways, to you exposure to Radon makes you feel ill, while someone else it makes them feel great...a self fulfilling prophecy if you will.
Love this and the channel. (I’m a nuclear engineer.) You do realize the mask was leaking, right? You have facial hair and filtration masks of any kind cannot perform at their rated function if they cannot achieve a seal. I’m not worried as I’m sure you are not because you weren’t there long enough. But as a nuclear power plant worker, I would have been forced to shave before doing what you did, even with such a thin beard. But this issue keeps coming up among DIY workers and even with biological airborne contaminants when people who have full beards and think filtration masks will protect them. Keep the content coming!
Yeah, I’m aware that the mask didn’t have a great seal. I was trying to cut down on breathing in the daughter products a bit. Also I wanted to show how those daughter products collected on the filters. Technically there isn’t a mask that will filter out radon since it’s a noble gas. Seems like the only way to keep your exposure down is with a supplied air system. My visits to these mines is pretty short so my exposure is very low.
Drew what an awesome video! Well said. Curious if you have a sievert result for those mines to share?
Sieverts wouldn’t really be the best to measure down there only because that’s mainly for gamma radiation. Down in these mines you are dealing with alpha, beta and gamma radiation.
@@RadioactiveDrew
Roger that but could at least do the 20x standard weighting factor to get an idea.
This is fascinating!
if i am not mistaken about where i live in Canada, New-Brunswick, most of the land mass has uranium under it so Radon floods basements in certain area that are kind of lower in elevation, so unless someone has such criteria, it should not be a problem.
Can you get lead poisoning from radon decay? E.g., say you have your house remediated for radon, what about all the accumulated lead from when radon was in the home?
No...the amount of lead is so small its almost undetectable.
In the book Atomic Adventures the author tells a story about 2 miners breaking into a cave and being overcome by unknown gasses. He makes it sound like this cave was sealed up tight allowing absurd amounts of radon to build up. One died outright and the other reported symptoms of radiation poisoning but it was before that was a known illness as it was the early to mid 1800s....I really have to visit that mine, although I would want a full face mask to cover my eyes as well.
this story is nonsense.
I have to agree…that story sounds like BS. Plenty of gases that can overcome you and kill you very quickly in a mine. Radon isn’t one of them.
Probably lack of oxygen in the environment due to the excessive amount of inert gasses. As radon is a heavy gas there maybe a pool of radon that suffocated them
I’ve never ever heard of that. It’s usually hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide that gets you down in a mine.
@@RadioactiveDrew This was not really a mine, more of a cave the broke into. But this is my 3rd hand remembering of a 2nd hand story from the 1800s. I could see it being a possibility but not probable.
AWESOME music choices in all of your videos. WOW!
For anyone wondering: Solstice/Kaldt Project
Got a radon detector, here in northern Germany, our house with no cellar, in a region where the radon maps shows zero, there is Radon ! Only a little, no concern at all, but if the living room is not used and vented for ie 2-3 days the Radon concentration goes up to the first health limit. Above ground ! Old houses in the south of Germany with a cellar have unhealthy high concentrations
This video really makes me wanna travel the less-touristed parts of the US. I don't think I've been more than 100km inland of either coast (except maybe on the train from NY to Toronto). How lame ...
There’s plenty to see here.
@@RadioactiveDrew Indeed! It looks absolutely amazing. Even though Australia is roughly the same size, the interior is almost entirely empty (save for a few rather important sites), whereas the US has a lot of varied geography, hundreds of cities and countless towns. Australia is red sand coast to coast except for a 100-200km strip of habitability around (most of) the coastline, but there is a lot where the desert just meets the sea. French and Dutch explorers arrived in such locations (long before the British hit the east coast), and said, "ahh, no thanks". Haha.
I'd love to start somewhere on the west coast of the US, buy a car and a telescope (unless carrying my own on a flight isn't an absurd task) and get myself lost for six months or so. Probably land in San Francisco because I've spent the least time there, drive the Californian coast up to the PNW to then cross the country on a rough diagonal from NW to SE, drive up the east coast and return NE to SW, finishing in LA or San Fran. Really hanging out to visit Oak Ridge NL and the site of MSRE, EBR-II, the Trinity site, Kennedy Space Centre and JPL ... and the list of space and nuclear science related places goes on and on. It would be handy to get some recommendations from someone like you who really knows where to go. Just gotta get myself together before I get too old and tired. Haha. Your time lapse images of the night sky have really got me psyched on such a trip again ... so beautiful!
If you can’t get other pain relief I get it. I have burns from both ice packs and heating pads and they hurt less than my chronic pain.
I'm way late to this, but after watching this excellent video about a thing that admittedly I know only a cursory amount, I started to wonder, how did the miners protect themselves - or was it a matter of 'different place, different time'?
How do modern Uranium miners protect themselves?
Once they realized that the concentration of radon was way too high for people to work in, the mines started having ventilation installed in the mines. This greatly helped protect the miners.
Ventilation, dosimeters, training, litigious unions and knowledgeable miners. Also several agencies monitoring H&S plus weekly urine samples and health checks. In high-grade mines like Cigar lake they use remote-controlled mining machinery.
love your video's, so interesting thanx so much for sharing,
I'm actually from austria, jobed for a few times in NPPs in germany and swiss, mainly suportive Jobs, helping clean and refurbish old valves, check the funtion of electronic measurement circuits, but also one time an assistent in radiation protection, decontamination, clear-measuring at the exit of the controled area, but never was in a uranium mine or radium therapy-mine.
Looks all quite empty, is that normal there or just did you get to there at a 'low-season' time when there isn't much fuzz going on?
Well I tried not to film anybody down there so they weren’t bothered. The times I’ve been there it’s been a bit busy with people in the above ground room and some down in the mine. I’m hoping to go back there and do some interviews.
cool video. I am a radon mitigation contractor for 22 years. I would personally not go in those caves or mines without PPE. I've been to that area near Moab...is it Yellowcat?
It’s the MiVida Mine.
Hi again....ok after the post on reddit was removed ....it looks mi vida was closed with a wall of sand and a little hole for venting...so someone can crouch into it deeper? I will not do that since im from europe but i thought they are fully sealed? ...like the montana health mine i already visited the svornost mine in jachymov ,they more use the radon water for bathing in the radium palace /curie hotels ..btw great skydome and aerial videos!
Glad you found me on here. Not sure why the hole in the top of the backfill of the Mi Vida was there. Could have originally formed from air pressure starting it and then mine explorers making it larger. I found some pictures from a group that explored the inside of that mine back in 2012. www.flickr.com/photos/8880725@N06/albums/72157629544605504 For a future video I might go in there to look around a bit because it seems really interesting.
@@RadioactiveDrew thank you, interesting link ....i have a mi vida specimen ...must be from deeper inside i think
@@weirdmeisterinc why do you think your sample came from deeper within the mine?
@@RadioactiveDrew i think in the entrance all things are picked up in the time
@@weirdmeisterinc in the entrance I didn't find anything that was very hot...maybe inside the mine. Found some really hot pieces on the road leaving the mine.