Environment & Energy

The bottle leaked, the plastic bag didn't. Don't know how long that would have held up, and it had to be disposed of anyway.

Bummer about living near such a radon source.

"actually more radioactive than the sea outside Fukushima" ... Well, I think we both know how low a bar that is. Too bad journos never get it.

I remember (well, at least generally) when you posted about NORM in used drilling mud. I hadn't realized that was something that affected you personally, just realized that was one of those things that most people never worry about. Unintended Consequences and all that.

I wonder if the air in a basement could be continuously pumped through refrigerated water, and the radon hydrate allowed to settle to the bottom. I once saw a demonstration by an MIT chemist of the effect of bubbling Xe through H2O (maybe D2O, not too important) and MRI'ing the result. There was a layer of Xe-rich water towards the bottom, and pretty much Xe-free above that. I keep thinking that someday this will be used to collect Xe isotopes from nuclear reactors, but if anyone's doing that, I haven't heard of it. Of course you'd have to remove everything reactive first, so maybe that's unworkable. There are lots of pubs on Xe-129 and Xe-131 NMR of hydrates; maybe I need to d/l and read a few. It's something that's been on the back burner for years. If you've heard more on that, let me know.