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Beryllium
(Pronounced ber-il' le-um) - Beryllium was discovered in 1797 by Vauquelin in Paris. Pure beryllium is a hard grayish metal. In nature, beryllium can be found in compounds in mineral rocks, coal, soil, and volcanic dust. Two kinds of mineral rocks, bertrandite and beryl, are mined commercially for the recovery of beryllium. Very pure gem quality beryl is better known as either aquamarine (blue or blue-green) or emerald (green). Beryllium is present in a variety of compounds.

Beryllium and beryllium alloys are used in electronics components, fiber optics components, nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, aircraft-satellite-space vehicle structures, X-ray transmission windows, mirrors, ceramics, bicycle frames, golf club heads, and as an additive in solid propellant rocket fuels.

U.S. companies have produced beryllium and some beryllium compounds commercially since the 1940s and beryllium oxide since 1958.

Black Lung
Black lung disease, also known as coal miners' pneumoconiosis, is caused by long exposure to coal dust. Since dust that enters the lungs can neither be destroyed or removed by the body, it remains, causing inflammation and scarring (fibrosis). The most usual symptom is shortness of breath; it can also lead to emphysema and heart failure.

It is a common affliction of coal miners and others who work with coal, similar to silicosis from inhaling silica dust, and to the long term effects of tobacco smoking.

CDC
Center for Disease Control

DOE
Department of Energy

DOL
Department of Labor

DOJ
Department of Justice

EPA
Environmental Protection Agency

EEIOCP
Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program

FUSRAP
Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program

NACOSH
National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health

NABER
National Advocates for Beryllium Education and Reform

NIOSH
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

OSHA
Occupational Safety & Health Administration

Part E
Amendement to EEIOCP

Plutonium
Plutonium was discovered in 1941 by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Edwin M. McMillan, J. W. Kennedy, and A. C. Wahl by deuteron bombardment of uranium in the 60-inch cyclotron of the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, but the discovery was kept secret. It was named after the planet Pluto, having been discovered directly after neptunium (which itself was one higher on the periodic table than uranium), by analogy with the ordering of the planets in the solar system. During the Manhattan Project, large reactors were set up in Hanford, Washington for the production of plutonium, which was used in two of the first atomic bombs (the first was tested at Trinity site, the second dropped on Nagasaki, Japan).

Large stockpiles of plutonium were built up by both the old Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War—it was estimated that 300,000 kg of plutonium had been accumulated by 1982. Since the end of the Cold War, these stockpiles have become a focus of nuclear proliferation concerns. In 2002, the United States Department of Energy took possession of 34 metric tons of excess weapons grade plutonium stockpiles from the United States Department of Defense, and as of early 2003 was considering converting several nuclear power plants in the US from enriched uranium fuel to MOX fuel as a means of disposing of these.

Radiation Exposure
The act or state of being subjected to energy flows strong enough to ionize atoms thereby posing a threat to human health or the environment.

Uranium
The discovery of uranium is credited to the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth who in 1789 found uranium as part of the mineral called pitchblende. It was named after the planet Uranus, which had been discovered eight years earlier. It was first isolated as a metal in 1841 by Eugene-Melchior Peligot. In 1850 the first commercial use of Uranium in glass was developed by Lloyd & Summerfield of Birmingham England. Uranium was found to be radioactive by French physicist Henri Becquerel in 1896, who first discovered the process of radioactivity with uranium minerals.

During the Manhattan Project, the wartime Allied program to develop the first atomic bombs during World War II, uranium gained new importance on the world political scene. Before the discovery of plutonium, only uranium was considered for the development of an atomic bomb, though the process of enriching it to applicable levels required gargantuan facilities (see Oak Ridge National Laboratory). Eventually enough uranium was enriched for one atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. The other nuclear weapons developed during the war used plutonium as their fissionable material, which itself requires uranium to produce. Initially it was believed that uranium was relatively rare, though within a decade large deposits of it were discovered in many places around the world.