[thepoodlebites]

“One Curie (Ci) is 37 billion dps, so we’re talking about 2*10E+6/37*10E+9 = 54 uCi. But there is no mention of surface area, 54 uCi/?, m^2?”

OK, was finally able to watch the video, it was 54 uCi/m^2. My estimate of 120 mRem/h is very generous. The dose rate is most likely much lower, 120 mRem/h is an upper limit. Using 10,000 cpm/mRem/h gives 1.2 mRem/h, depends on the isotopes. I used a very rough estimate.

[Errant]

A milliSievert is one milliJoule of energy diluted into one kilogram of tissue. As such it would not distinguish between warming yourself in front of a fire and eating a red hot coal. It is the local distribution of energy that is the problem. The dose from a singly internal alpha particle track to a single cell is 500mSv! The dose to the whole body from the same alpha track is 5 x 10-11 mSv. That is 0.000000000005mSv. But it is the dose to the cell that causes the genetic damage and the ultimate cancer. The cancer yield per unit dose employed by ICRP is based entirely on external acute high dose radiation at Hiroshima, where the average dose to a cell was the same for all cells. - Chris Busby, Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk