Is there an heightened radioactive risk in Kogi State?

You have heard of the "atomic bomb" and its powers.  It is the general believe that at inauguration, every president of the United State is given access to the nuclear codes that can "destroy" any country.  Well, that is not the only way we are exposed to radionuclides as humans .  We are also exposed to cosmic radiation and terrestrial radiation.  Terrestrial radiation have been reported to vary according to location, soil type and activities carried out at a particular location. 

What is this "nuclear" or "atomic" bomb?  There is this "football" we make as kids.  Our toy involves pieces of balloons together.  We always have a solid "ball" at the beginning but our "ball" begins to fall apart as it gets larger.    Elements with relatively number of small electrons are stable but as the number of electrons get larger, the elements become unstable.  There are elements that are naturally unstable such that they disintegrate on their own or when "stimulated".  These elements are called radioactive elements.  Radioactive elements are useful in several areas such as treatment of cancer, etc.   Exposure to radionuclides above recommended values can pose great danger to people living in that area.

Dr(Mrs) Usikalu and her collaborators, with support from the Centre for Atmospheric Research, CAR, National Space Research and Development Agency, undertook to study the radioactive risks in Kogi State, Nigeria.  They studied three (3) radionuclides ²³²Th, ²³⁸U and ⁴⁰K because they have long half lives.  Two hundred (200) soil samples were taken from different areas of the State, processed using international best standards and analyzed using an Hyper Pure Germanium detector. From their results, the authors reported that

The radiological parameters estimated for most of the locations compared well with world average values, except for Odogba-okaba, Salem University, Forest, Nepa, Gerugu, Niger Bridge, Igaliwu, Ijeke-ogane, Bagana, and Abegikolo villages, whose values exceeded the recommended limit.

To get an overview of the health implication of the results obtained, the effect of radiation on the sensitive body cells such as bone marrow, gonads, skin i.e. gonadal equivalent dose was computed.  It was observed that "nearly all the villages have AG values higher than the recommended limit, with highest value obtained in Igaliwu Omala area. The high concentration may be as a result of the presence of monazite in the area and exploitation of coal and limestone in the area. This could pose a threat to sensitive cells like gonads and bone marrow in the dwellers and workers in these areas."

Spatial maps of radiological parameters for Ajaokuta LGA

There is the urgent need for the Kogi State government, if the interest and well-being of the citizen is important to them, to check the mining activities in the area.  There is also the urgent need to investigate the radionuclide risks in food and water consumed by indigenes of the state. 

References

M. R. Usikalu, I. A. Fuwape, S. S. Jatto, O. F. Awe, A. B. Rabiu & J. A. Achuka (2017) Assessment of radiological parameters of soil in Kogi State, Nigeria. Environmental Forensics, 18:1, 1-14 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15275922.2016.1263898

Is Solar energy predictable?

If you start a journey from point A at time T₁ and get to point B at time T_n. We say the "system" is linear if the arrival time is a function of the start time e.g. If you start at T₁₊₁, you get there at time T_n+1 or generally, if you start at T_a+1 you arrive at T_n+a.    Not all journey are smooth, there might be delay due to traffic and other unforeseen circumstances.  Let's call the addition of all possible delay on the route d.  If you take off  at time T₁, your arrival time due to delay on the route will be T_n+d.   We refer to this "system" as a stochastic system.     However, if the arrival time cannot be predicted based on the take off time T₁ due to conditions around the starting conditions, we say the "system" is chaotic.  Long term prediction of chaotic system is not possible.  Chaos in this case does not mean random or disorder but sensitivity to initial starting conditions.

Chaos is aperiodic time-asymptotic behaviour in a deterministic system which exhibits sensitive dependence on initial conditions (http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node57.html).

 

Initially, studying chaos was limited to complicated differential equations but in recent times, natural phenomena has been investigated for chaos.   Many systems such as menstrual period (Derry and Derry, 2010), rainfall (Sivakumar, 2001), temperature (Fuwape et al, 2015), stock market (Fuwape and Ogunjo, 2013) have been found to be chaotic.  To investigate chaos, tools such as correlation dimension, Lyapunov exponent, and other tools have been developed.  Is chaos good or bad?  This will be the subject of another post.  In light of current agitation for use of renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, there is the need to study the predictability of the proposed energy systems.  

Ogunjo, Adediji and Dada from the Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Akure investigated if solar radiation available at Akure, Southwestern Nigeria for a period of two years.   The researchers found that the solar radiation at Akure during the dry season is more chaotic than during the wet season.  This means that it is easier to predict the solar energy available in the location during the wet season than during the wet season of the year.  

Figure 1:  Phase space reconstruction of solar radiation data from Akure  (Source:  Ogunjo et al. 2014)

The Nigerian government is currently on a drive to provide off-grid power based on solar energy. From the results presented by the researchers, it is imperative that the chaotic nature of solar energy over Nigeria be investigated and taken into consideration before large scale deployment.  There is the need to further study the variation of incident solar radiation in different parts of the country for the most cost effective and reliable solar energy solution.  For instance, further studies will give insight into the feasibility of combining solar energy with wind or other forms of energy for better reliability.  Also, the possibility of solar panels that can track the rising and setting of the sun need to be investigated.

References

Derry, G., & Derry, P. (2010). Characterization of chaotic dynamics in the human menstrual cycle. Nonlinear Biomedical Physics, 4(1), 5. http://doi.org/10.1186/1753-4631-4-5

Fuwape, I. I. A., & Ogunjo, S. T. (2013). Investigating Chaos in the Nigerian Asset and Resource Management (ARM) Discovery Fund. CBN Journal of Applied Statistics, 4(2), 129–140. article.

Fuwape, I. A., Ogunjo, · S T, Oluyamo, · S S, Rabiu, · A B,  (2016). Spatial variation of deterministic chaos in mean daily temperature and rainfall over Nigeria. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, In Press. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1867-x

Ogunjo, S. T., Adediji, A. T., & Dada, J. B. (2015). Investigating chaotic features in solar radiation over a tropical station using recurrence quantification analysis. Theoretical and Applied Climatology. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1642-4

Sivakumar, B. (2001). Is a chaotic multi-fractal approach for rainfall possible? Hydrological Processes, 15(6), 943–955. http://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.260