Someone chose the wrong truck to steal.

[feralkid]

Another incident involving cobalt-60 pellets from a scrapped radiation therapy device in Mexico; just for an interesting read:

"December 6, 1983 – Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. A local resident salvaged materials from a discarded radiation therapy machine containing 6,000 pellets of cobalt-60. The transport of the material led to severe contamination of his truck. When the truck was scrapped, it in turn contaminated another 5,000 metric tonnes of steel to an estimated 300 Ci (11 TBq) of activity. This steel was used to manufacture kitchen and restaurant table legs and rebar, some of which was shipped to the U.S. and Canada. The incident was discovered months later when a truck delivered contaminated building materials to the Los Alamos National Laboratory drove through a radiation monitoring station. Contamination was later measured on roads used to transport the original damaged radiation source. Some pellets were actually found embedded in the roadway. In the state of Sinaloa, 109 houses were condemned due to use of contaminated building material. This incident prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Customs Service to install radiation detection equipment at all major border crossings."

Creepy...

 

[IronWing]

How is it that the container was not emblazoned with this:

And how is it that anyone wouldn't know what that was?

Holy crap! The Headless Snow Angel!

 

[Ichinisan]

Another incident involving cobalt-60 pellets from a scrapped radiation therapy device in Mexico; just for an interesting read:

"December 6, 1983 – Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. A local resident salvaged materials from a discarded radiation therapy machine containing 6,000 pellets of cobalt-60. The transport of the material led to severe contamination of his truck. When the truck was scrapped, it in turn contaminated another 5,000 metric tonnes of steel to an estimated 300 Ci (11 TBq) of activity. This steel was used to manufacture kitchen and restaurant table legs and rebar, some of which was shipped to the U.S. and Canada. The incident was discovered months later when a truck delivered contaminated building materials to the Los Alamos National Laboratory drove through a radiation monitoring station. Contamination was later measured on roads used to transport the original damaged radiation source. Some pellets were actually found embedded in the roadway. In the state of Sinaloa, 109 houses were condemned due to use of contaminated building material. This incident prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Customs Service to install radiation detection equipment at all major border crossings."

Creepy...

Amazing how the danger can spread without the help of explosives.

Just imagine how much harder it would be to control if the radioactive material was deliberately "distributed" instead of simply being found in a container.

...and someone here thinks that cleanup from a dirty bomb would be "easy."

 

[feralkid]

Amazing how the danger can spread without the help of explosives.

Just up imagine how much harder it would be to control if the radioactive material was deliberately "distributed" instead of simply being found in a container.

...and someone here thinks that cleanup from a dirty bomb would be "easy."

Here's a more detailed version.

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/accidents/juarez.htm

 

[uclaLabrat]

Have they found the guy yet? Should be easy after the sun goes down....

 

[Kaido]

I recently learned that there are over 100 (one hundred) missing nuclear bombs in the US alone.

I laughed off that season of 24 where the nuke gets through to LA. I am not laughing anymore 🙁

 

[NoTine42]

Yeah was reading that story a while ago too, pretty crazy.

I also did not realize radioactive stuff actually glowed, I thought that was just something from TV.

There was this room in the basement at the hospital I used to work in and it had a huge radio active sign. I was always intrigued at what was in there but did not dare go in as I was not sure how contained any of the stuff was. It said nothing about requiring PPE so I'm going to guess it was well contained.

You probably didn't want to work on the floor above that. I heard a story about a local hospitals maternity nurses getting cancer at above average rates...radiology was below them. For some reason, lead-lined walls and doors don't stop radiation from going up.

 

[Kaido]

I came in to post this. Had no idea what it meant until this thread 😀

 

[Kaido]

Here's a more detailed version.

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/accidents/juarez.htm

Ooooooh my gosh, what a horror story 😱

 

[disappoint]

How is it that the container was not emblazoned with this:

And how is it that anyone wouldn't know what that was?

That symbol isn't in the bible.

 

[Colt45]

trefoil is deprecated on hazardous stuff as people apparently can't figure it out.

On February 15, 2007, two bodies—the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)—jointly announced the adoption of a new ionizing radiation warning symbol to supplement the traditional trefoil symbol. The new symbol, to be used on sealed radiation sources, is aimed at alerting anyone, anywhere to the danger of being close to a strong source of ionizing radiation.

trefoil -> waves -> dead or gtfo. maybe a little more effective than a bitchin' looking symbol, if you are somehow backwater enough to have never seen one / learn what it means.

 

[Printer Bandit]

looks harmless

 

[Broheim]

How would anyone even know it was a dirty bomb initially?

NEST have early detection sensors in all metropolitan areas in the US, they're so sensitive even medical patients can set them off. Nest would know about the presence of radioactive materials before any radiological incident occurred.

 

[Carson Dyle]

You would shield the dirty bomb during transport, wouldn't you? Not only to escape detection, but to keep from killing yourself.

 

[Jeff7]

trefoil is deprecated on hazardous stuff as people apparently can't figure it out.

trefoil -> waves -> dead or gtfo. maybe a little more effective than a bitchin' looking symbol, if you are somehow backwater enough to have never seen one / learn what it means.

"Oh no, the three sun slices will cause giant four-legged skulls to come to life and chase me off that way! Maybe the container with the label on it was built to protect me from them!"

 

[Triumph]

That symbol isn't in the bible.

Neither are dinosaurs. That's why they didn't actually exist.

 

[OverVolt]

Isn't that an emblem in call of duty? Wonder what it means.

- Average criminal :awe:

 

[Broheim]

You would shield the dirty bomb during transport, wouldn't you? Not only to escape detection, but to keep from killing yourself.

the shielding needed to completely conceal enough highly radioactive material for an effective dirty bomb would probably make it pointless to use dirty bombs, you'd get much better results with an conventional bomb of similar weight, or better yet, several smaller bombs.

the smallest and lightest transport units for spent nuclear fuel weighs like 25 tonnes, and they're not even meant to conceal the fuel, just make it safe (of course a good portion of that is also to ensure structural integrity during a crash).

neutron radiation is the hardest to conceal, because lead has little effect on it, you need a hydrogen rich neutron shield (Or boron but that's probably going to be harder to come by in sufficient quantities than the radioactive material itself), and the absorption of neutrons usually cause gamma radiation in itself so you also need to account for that in your shielding. Basically making it undetectable is going to be a pain in the ass.

I'm not a nuclear physicist so much of this is probably going to turn out to be uneducated speculation but my guess is making an undetectable dirty bomb most likely isn't worth it.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Yeah, I see what you're getting at, but all the explosion needs to do is destroy the container and spread the mess around. Surely the container wouldn't be bomb proof.

 

[lxskllr]

I found a little container of nuclear medicine on the side of the road once. It was a container in a lead tube. I opened it, looked at it, then decided I probably didn't want it, and put it back :^D It was too long ago to remember what it was. Either the label was worn, or I didn't understand what it said.

 

[OverVolt]

Uhhhhh... if it could shield a dirty bomb its probably bomb proof.

 

[Broheim]

Yeah, I see what you're getting at, but all the explosion needs to do is destroy the container and spread the mess around. Surely the container wouldn't be bomb proof.

I think the shielding could severely limit the radioactive spread of the bomb if the explosives where completely separate to the radioactive material. So you would either have to shield the entire bomb or have a primary charge big enough to completely breach the shielding inside the shielding complimented by a larger secondary charge that would then further increase the spread, either way drastically complicates the design of the bomb.

 

[Broheim]

oh and btw, the NSA is now going to be pretty fucking busy watching everybody in this thread.


'sup big brother

 

[Fritzo]

How is it that the container was not emblazoned with this:

And how is it that anyone wouldn't know what that was?

That old trick? That's what you put on chests full of gold to throw people off! :biggrin:

 

[SunnyD]

trefoil is deprecated on hazardous stuff as people apparently can't figure it out.

trefoil -> waves -> dead or gtfo. maybe a little more effective than a bitchin' looking symbol, if you are somehow backwater enough to have never seen one / learn what it means.

Mmm... Trefoils...