Letters

摘要

On page 4 of the February 2009 issue of Nuclear News, E. Michael Blake calculates the release of radioactivity associated with the coal-ash spill at the Kingston power plant. I think the calculation should be double-checked. Mr. Blake uses a value of 0.336 curies per kilogram uranium. However, my sources indicate that the specific activity of U-238 is 0.34 microcuries per gram (3.4 E-7 Ci/g). At 1000 g per kg, that comes to 0.00034 Ci/kg, a factor of 1000 smaller than the value noted in Blake's article. Correcting his final value accordingly, the total release of uranium (as U-238) is about 22 Ci.