[Greenbuilding] Radioactivity in drinking water supplies in Western Australia | Philip J Jennings - Academia.edu

Wed Apr 27 12:36:16 CDT 2016

Nick: Since you and other Greenbuilders continue to promote tank-type heat pump water heaters instead of tankless water heaters with tankless heat recovery systems like those shown @ http://www.gfxtechnology.com/, you all should read "Radioactivity in drinking water supplies in Western Australia" because storage tanks used in heat pump & solar water heaters accumulate radioactive sediment from radioactive water supplies. Even if you filter it with expensive RO or GAC filter systems, Radon-220 & Rn-222 gases produced by Ra-224, Ra-226 & Ra-228 will contaminate sediment with their decay products; including Lead-210 & Polonium-210.       The Abstract & Highlights are inserted below. NOTE: The USEPA MCL is 4 mrem/yr (0.04 mSv/yr) so some of your well water exceeds the it by a factor of 59. Here on Long Island some wells contain Pb-210 & Po-210 levels exceeding 1,000 pCi/L (37,000 mBq/L) compared to 114.2 mBq/L in your country.The USEPA has no MCL for Radon, despite the tach that Congress mandated one by 1991. Groundwater will gather millions of water soluble Radon-222 atoms produced by less soluble Radium-226. Ingested Radon gases enter the blood stream via the stomach wall and are quickly exhaled by the lungs -- except those that changed into Polonium, Lead & Bismuth.Wells in upstate NY have up to 1,000 Bq/L (27,000 pCi/L of Radon-222, but the Abstract doesn't address this issue. In America cancer is big business today, in part, because EPA & FDA officials conspired to defeat Nixon's War on Cancer by excluding Radon-222 from the Radionuclides Rule of 1976. (I hope your Australian health officials are less corrupt.)     Best regards,Carmine

Radioactivity in Drinking Water Supplies in Western Australia by M. Walsh, G. Wallner* and P. JenningsSchool of Engineering and Energy, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Western Australia*Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Vienna, AustriaAddress correspondence to M. Walsh, Murdoch University,90 South Street, Murdoch, Western Australia 6150.Telephone: 61 417 961 533. E-mail: maurice.walsh.ems at bigpond.comAbstract(from: https://www.academia.edu/19091353/Radioactivity_in_drinking_water_supplies_in_Western_Australia)Radiochemical analysis was carried out on 52 drinking water samples taken from public outlets in the southwest of Western Australia. All samples were analysed for Ra-226, Ra-228 and Pb-210.Twenty five of the samples were also analysed for Po-210, and 23 were analysed for U-234 and U-238. Ra-228 was found in 45 samples and the activity ranged from < 4.000 to 296.1 mBq L-1. Ra-226 was detected in all 52 samples and the activity ranged from 3.200 to 151.1 mBq L-1. Po-210 was detected in 24 samples and the activity ranged from 0.000 to 114.2 mBq/L. These data were used to compute the annual radiation dose that persons of different age groups and also for pregnant and lactating females would receive from drinking this water. The estimated doses ranged from 0.001 to 2.375 mSv y-1  [0.1 to 237.5 mrem/yr] with a mean annual dose of 0.167 mSv y-1 [16.7 mrem]. The main contributing radionuclides to the annual dose were Ra-228, Po-210 and Ra-226. Of the 52 drinking water samples tested, 94%complied with the current Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, while 10% complied with the World Health Organisation’s radiological guidelines which many other countries use. It is likely that these results provide an overestimate of the compliance, due to limitations, in the sampling technique and resource constraints on the analysis. Because of the increasing reliance of the Western Australian community on groundwater for domestic and agricultural purposes, it is likely that the radiological content of the drinking water will increase in the future. Therefore there is a need for further monitoring and analysis in order to identify problem areas.Highlights·         Mean doses from Ra-228, Po-210 and Ra-226 were 0.121, 0.026 and 0.019 mSv y-1. ·         The total dose was between 0.001 to 2.375 mSv y-1. ·         94% of the drinking water samples complied with the current Australian guidelines.·         10% complied with the WHO’s radiological guidelines for drinking water.·          6% complied with the US EPA radiological guideline for drinking water

From: solardan26 at gmail.com
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2016 13:42:35 -0700
To: greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Heat pump HWS

There are also gas heated solar-assisted tanks that would be a good fit for off-grid applications. 
On Apr 24, 2016, at 12:23 PM, Jake jakaitis <futureship0000 at hotmail.com> wrote:Thank you gentlemen for your thoughts. My understanding from this
Thread is to provide solar thermal panels as the primary heating source for the hot water storage tank. PV panels are added to supplement the solar thermal when needed.  My conclusion is that 
For ideal off grid energy efficiency is that hot water usage should be timed for optimal (least energy demand). My work with energy efficient upgrades found that homeowner habits 
Must be managed to obtain the benefits of any work we do. Long hot showers need to be managed too ... Admittedly this is my personal habit that I am working on to make more efficient.On Apr 24, 2016 12:48 PM, Antonioli Dan <solardan26 at gmail.com> wrote:
If you’re off-grid I agree that an electric hot water heater is not the way to go unless you want to invest a whole lot of money in a large pv array. 

On Apr 24, 2016, at 9:30 AM, Nick Pyner <npyner at ihug.com.au> wrote:

> As I have said, I think this is a bad idea. If you must go this route you need to research where you stand with the inverter.. You could find yourself having to replace it with a bigger one when you add panels.
> 
> 
> On 24/04/2016 9:51 PM, Jake jakaitis wrote:
>> . My idea is to focus on getting
>> 
>> My hot water energy to net zero first.  I will add panels and other
>> Modifications until I do get it right.  I follow the "divide and conquer" testing rule.
<snipped>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20160427/83e405d3/attachment.html>