posted 01-07-2002 01:26 PM            

Here are my calculations:

quote:

---

In January, 2001, BEE did some calculations to figure what the atmospheric particle density would be if 250,000 pounds of a substance were sprayed over 30 minutes at 2000 meters from one stationary KC-10 tanker. She concluded that this would give a maximum concentration of 0.76 micrograms/cubic meter of air at 3.5 billion meters downwind. [My comment: This length of plume seems a little odd. Perhaps it implies uniform mixing throughout the atmosphere.]

BEE said, "To put these concentrations into perspective, the lowest allowable exposure level for workers I could find was for strontium chromate at 0.5 micrograms/cubic meter." BEE cited factors which would cause the true concentration of sprayed material to be even lower than her calculations and concluded, "There is simply no way physically for anything sprayed at the height at which contrails (or supposed chemtrails) are observed to reach any kind of concentration on the ground which would have any affect on people whatsoever." http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum9/HTML/000033.html

Just for fun, I asked the question, "What if the substance being sprayed is 250,000 pounds of pollen, or a similar allergen?"

I found an article stating that the tree Alnos japonica, or Japanese alder, has pollen grains which have an average radius of 12 micrometers and which have a density of 1.350 grams per cubic micrometer. (That's the density of an actual pollen grain, which was of interest for the study in question.) Here's a text file of the study:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cac he:UHwSwtthEV8:www.imamod.ru/jour/conf/ECCOMAS_2000/PDF/758.pdf+pollen+weight+-loss+-control+density&hl=en

Let's assume that the pollen grains are spherical. The volume of one grain would be 4/3 pi r-cubed, or (4/3)x(3.14)x(12 microns to the third power). That comes out to a volume of 7.23 times 10 to the -15 cubic meters per pollen grain.

The weight of one pollen grain would be the volume of the pollen grain times the density of the pollen grain. So a single grain of Japanese alder pollen would weigh 9.77 times 10 to the -9 grams.

Another reference I found says that a moderate level of an allergen will cause many individuals who are sensitive to it to experience symptoms. A moderate level of tree pollen is 15-90 grains per cubic meter of air. Let's call it 50 pollen grains per cubic meter of air. Reference: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/weather/pollencount/

To find the weight of a moderate level of Japanese alder pollen in a cubic meter of air, multiply the weight of one grain times 50. Therefore, the amount of Japanese alder pollen necessary to produce symptoms in moderately allergic people would be 0.145 micrograms of pollen/cubic meter of air. If 250,000 pounds of Japanese alder pollen were sprayed over 30 minutes at 2000 meters from one stationary KC-10 tanker, it would produce five times the level of allergen necessary to produce allergies in moderately allergic people. In other words, it would be theoretically possible for a single tanker to disburse enough of an allergen to make moderately allergic people notice symptoms at ground level. These calculations do not prove that the purpose of the putative spraying is to make people sick, but they do show that spraying large quantities of particulate matter could make susceptible people sick as an unintended consequence.

---