Sorry, I know y\'all are probably getting a lot of questions re: Fukushima, but

Question

Sorry, I know y'all are probably getting a lot of questions re: Fukushima, but I had a very specific one and no-one has been able to answer it.

I am specialised in medical radiation, and have been explaining the risks to workers in this accident, but I need to know what are the rough proportions of alpha, beta (+/-) and gamma radiation flying around.

If I have this right, most of the decays in the uranium cycle are alpha or beta+ and beta-. Some isomeric transitions (and obviously the beta+ decays) will release gammas. Obviously there will be a small amount of xrays too, from Bremsstrahlungs and such.

But what are the percentages of this in general uranium fuel material (I guess 'spent' fuel is the real problem here, not fuel undergoing chain reaction)? Is 50% of the radiation alphas? Is 80% gammas?

It makes a huge difference from a biophysics perspective as alphas are easy to protect against (for the workers) but gammas are unshieldable. Beta- decays are in between, pretty easy to deal with.

Anyone know the uranium fuel cycle well enough to give a rough estimate here?

EDIT: Added some thoughts in my response to Bars, who helped a lot. Any other thoughts that follow on from those insights?

Explanation / Answer

Te-132 - beta
I-132 - gamma
I-131 - betta & gamma
Zr-95 & Nb-95 - beta
Ba-140 & La-140 - beta

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