Cleaning Up Japan's Radioactive Mess With Blue Goo 102
InfiniteZero writes "A clever technology is helping hazmat crews in Japan contain and clean up the contamination caused by the ongoing nuclear disaster there: a blue liquid that hardens into a gel that peels off of surfaces, taking microscopic particles like radiation and other contaminants with it. Known as DeconGel, Japanese authorities are using it inside and outside the exclusion zone on everything from pavement to buildings."
Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
I would sure hate to be the test case here. Poor guy got a bucket of blue paint; now he glows in the dark. Never has a problem finding his keys though.
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and everybody can tell where's he has been and what he has been touching...
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...why is my wife glowing?
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I would sure hate to be the test case here. Poor guy got a bucket of blue paint; now he glows in the dark. Never has a problem finding his keys though.
and everybody can tell where's he has been and what he has been touching...
Sounds like a...PAINT analogy... for how today's social media sites bait and use us afterwards.
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I would sure hate to be the test case here. Poor guy got a bucket of blue paint; now he glows in the dark. Never has a problem finding his keys though.
The uh, control group for the repulsion gel actually got a pair of broken legs, poor bugger.
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No. They formed a musical art performance group called Blue Man Group [blueman.com]
Re:Blue Goo, funny about that (Score:2)
I read it as "Blue Glue" (Score:1)
Am I the only one who read the subject as "Blue Glue" and thought 3M's adhesive?
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Incredibly expensive... (Score:1)
And who is going to cover EVERYTHING in a few square km with it?
Also, first post.
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"Incredibly expensive!"
What? Nuclear accidents expensive?
Who would have thought.
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Right, I always thought it only costs human lives, not real money?
We've been bullshitted by the nuclear industry again!
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The article might have oversimplified things but the truth is radionuclides tend to happen in macroscopic clusters - kind of "dust particles". Single pieces of material sometimes almost a milimeter size (more frequently a few microns) often several centimeters apart, They may be ash, may be post-explosion dust, solid particles in smoke and so on that were heavily irradiated and settled away from the plant - and they account for great most of radiation sources in contaminated area.
Wow! (Score:1)
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
Alpha and beta radiation is radiation for as long as it is actually radiating. As soon as it impacts a surface and sticks, it becomes helium and electrons.
Radiation is short lived, and not a contaminate you can simply remove. Isotopes undergoing decay to produce said radiation can be removed.
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I was about to correct this as well!
Contamination contains radiation. Radiation comes from contamination when it decays. You can clean contamination to reduce/eliminate the radiation that the contamination would have caused.
There are a lot of ways to say it! I don't think I've heard it put quite like the first line in your post. It's perfect!
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It was interesting that during this crisis and all of the coverage I didn't see any news stories try to explain radioactivity and radiation. I was watching a news program and they showed the workers,cleaning up wearing particle masks and my father inlay said why are they wearing masks because it won't stop the radiation. I spent about five inutes explaining that the difference between radioactive elements and radiation. I explained the radiation wasn't dangerous because it was begin monitored and skin and c
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Alpha radiation is helium nuclei. Beta radiation is electrons. Both particles. [ignore the wave/particle duality]
Gamma is a wave, x-rays are a wave.
Might want to learn a thing or two.
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A knowledge of radiation nature you both have is far from being correct. Radiation is not a substance, it,s not a coat of elementary particles on the surface of an object. Radiation isn't just a word, it's really RADIATION, and it's emitted by the specks of radioactive material that is now distributed over the poor Japan. And this mud is supposed to be gathered by that blue liquid.
I suggest reading a school textbook or two to both of you.
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[ignore the wave/particle duality]
Which we're not going to do because we're super-macho pedants, right? All of the above particles/waves under certain conditions can act like particles or waves.
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That's a direct quote from the article, too -- from Popular Science magazine!
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Whenever media talks about "radiation" they actually mean "material containing nuclei that are radioactive".
But then of course copyright infringement is piracy. And code hackers are criminals... *sigh*
Originally a dieting aid (Score:1)
Said the vendor's president, "we're not banging rocks together down here. We know how to suck radiation out of pavement. We've been testing it out on human subjects for years. Went great. Mostly. The only question we've got for you is, do you want to save the world, or do you want to waste our time with more sissy regulatory paperwork?"
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Now all they have to do... (Score:3)
is find somewhere to dispose of all the zillions of "blue goo" sheets.
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You're joking, but I can actually see that happen. Take the radioactive junk, ship it to some place where people would be happy about it (hey, free heat and guess what, the ashes hold the warmth for days!)...
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He might have been joking been if you noticed the +5, Informative post a bit down from here on the page the used goo can actually be burned. The radioactive particles don't become gaseous but instead remain behind in the ash left behind, so you can just drum and store the much smaller volume of ash instead.
Re:Now all they have to do... (Score:4)
We'll find something
new to do now.
Here is lots of
new blue goo now.
New goo. Blue goo.
Gooey. Goeey.
Blue goo, New goo.
Gluey. Gluey.
Gooey goo
for chewy chewing!
That's what that
Goo-Goose is doing
Do you choose to
chew goo, too, sir?
If, sir, you, sir,
choose to chew, sir,
with the Goo-Goose,
chew, sir. Do, sir.
Mr. Fox, sir,
I won't do it.
I can't say it.
I won't chew it.
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It would go where it would normally have gone had this accident not happened. If that was your back yard or not is irrelevant as it has been decided well before you ever made that comment.
There is absolutely not reason to find a new storage home for it.
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is find somewhere to dispose of all the zillions of "blue goo" sheets.
Weave them into blankets [wikipedia.org] and give them to the people of North Korea as aid? Wait... never mind. Kim Jong-il would consider it an endorsement of his nuclear ambitions: "They aided us in our quest to collect radioactive materials, which we took as encouragement to seek more-fissionable materials."
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Hmm, didn't Japan announced their new radioactive disposal facility [slashdot.org]: Fukushima Daichi?
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hmm... (Score:3, Funny)
there's a Japanese pornography joke in there somewhere...
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You probably can't figure out the joke because of the pixelation.
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I guarantee that within a few weeks, someone will make actual Japanese porn with girls being covered in DeconGel and having it peeled off. Probably by an octopus.
Useful, but they're going to need a lot of it. (Score:5, Informative)
DeconGel [decongel.com] is a useful material, typically used for little lab-sized spill cleanup jobs. They're going to need tank truck loads of this stuff.
This material concentrates contamination, rather than spreading it across wipes, water, and other cleaning agents. The blue gel can even be incinerated in special high-temperature hazardous-waste incinerators; the radioactives end up in the ash, not the gases. So you end up with a modest number of drums of low-level radioactive dirt.
Perhaps with the need for large quantities of this stuff, the price will come down. If it were cheap, this would be a useful material for routine tough cleaning jobs. It can clean grouted tile, for example. People who have to clean foreclosed houses might find this useful.
Price? (Score:1)
Does anyone know how much this stuff currently costs? Everything I can find says call for quote, which probably isn't a good sign.
Re:Price? (Score:4, Informative)
From http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/25/technology/toxic_waste_cleanup_goo/index.htm [cnn.com]
"One gallon of DeconGel nuclear decontaminant sells for $160 and covers between 50 to 100 square feet. "
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The plant is on the coast, on a narrow strip of flat land next to mountains. Most of the terrain in the mountains is uninhabited. The strip of land in the exclusion zone is roughly triangular, 10km at one end, narrowing near to nothing at the other, so count about 30km^2 as the affected inhabited area.
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"One gallon of DeconGel nuclear decontaminant sells for $160 and covers between 50 to 100 square feet. "
Speed, quality, cost.
Pick two.
The Japanese are obviously choosing speed and quality over cost.
And rightly so, as the economic damage from the nuclear meltdowns will vastly exceeds the price tag of industrial quantites of DeconGel.
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Silly Putty (Score:3, Funny)
Is this kind of like Silly Putty [flickr.com] but the pictures glow in the dark?
Half measures (Score:3)
They should use grey goo instead. That would clean things up even better, and they'd only need to apply a little bit of it.
Happy Fun Ball (Score:3, Funny)
This sounds ominously like the stuff the Happy Fun Ball is made of.
Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly, and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Happy Fun Ball.
Caution: Happy Fun Ball may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Happy Fun Ball contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
Do not use Happy Fun Ball on concrete.
Discontinue use of Happy Fun Ball if any of the following occurs:
itching
vertigo
dizziness
tingling in extremities
loss of balance or coordination
slurred speech
temporary blindness
profuse sweating
heart palpitations
If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Happy Fun Ball may stick to certain types of skin.
When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration. Failure to do so relieves the makers of Happy Fun Ball, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company, Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.
Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
Happy Fun Ball has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
Happy Fun Ball comes with a lifetime guarantee.
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Hydrogen Hydroxide is probabily also known to the State of California to cause cancer. When that warning is plastered on everything it ceases to have any meaning to anyone except for comedians.
Radiation is a particle now? (Score:1)
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Woosh.
Yes, it is supposed to be a site for smart people. Please leave.
The main problem with radioactive contamination is radioactive material such as dust, water and smoke. We're not trying to pick up stray alpha-particles resting on surfaces here.
Repultion Gel? (Score:4, Informative)
They should use Blue pork (Score:2)
they should use blue pork [huffingtonpost.com], solving two problems at once.
can it be used as a disinfectant (Score:2)
I wonder if it could be painted on the surface of a room that needs to be decontaminated instead of relying on temperature or an antibacterial agent. The size of a bacteria might be too small though.
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Yes, it could. For $160/gal, normal disinfectants are considerably cheaper and since they actually kill bacteria, the problem of disposal is not nearly as bad.
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I don't think disinfectants do a very good job. Not to mention bacteria build up resistances to disinfectants and become more dangerous. Tossing them into a super heated furnace sounds like it would be much more difficult for them to adapt.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/03/04/hospital-bacteria-strain-killing-patients/ [cbslocal.com]
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/29/3661803/deadly-bacteria-lurk-inside-hospital.html [sacbee.com]
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/08/10/us-bacteria-hospital-idUSTRE5795AN20090810 [reuters.com]
Blue Goo (Score:1)
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From Fox In Socks? :) (Score:2)
Here is lots of new blue goo now.
New goo. Blue goo.
Gooey. Gooey.
Blue goo. New goo.
Gluey. Gluey.
Gooey goo for chewy chewing!
That's what that Goo-Goose is doing.
Do you choose to chew goo, too, sir?
If, sir, you, sir, choose to chew, sir,
with the Goo-Goose, chew, sir.
Do, sir.
My favorite Dr. Seuess book.
You mean Star Trek: Enterprise had it right? (Score:2)