Bogus Company Obtains Nuclear License

i_like_spam writes "As reported in the NY Times, undercover investigators from the Government Accountability Office set up a bogus company and received a license to purchase dirty-bomb nuclear materials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The GAO's investigation shows that the security measures put in place after 911 are not sufficient for protecting the American people." From the article: "Given that terrorists have expressed an interest in obtaining nuclear material, the Congress and the American people expect licensing programs for these materials to be secure, said Gregory D. Kutz, an investigator at the accountability office, in testimony prepared for the hearing."

Dirty Bomb?

[fatphil]

Does anyone actually still believe that myth?

It's just another piece of government propaganda to keep the population scared.

One of the reading rooms of the university library (previously a chemistry lab) was way more dangerous - both mercury and asbestos. I bet near any highway in the average metropolis there's way more carcinogenic shit in the air than from any mythical 'dirty bomb'.

Protection from what exactly

[Timesprout]

Investigations into the dirty bomb theory have concluded that there was likely to be little damage or loss of life from a dirty bomb other than that caused by the explosion itself and that the effects of the radioactive material would be highly localised and negligible if the area is cleaned quickly. Of course as soon as the T word gets used in conjunction with dirty bombs they are one step away from Armageddon.

Re:Law not sufficient

[networkBoy]

metal detectors don't nuke you.

as to the americium, did you hear of the boy scout that made a working breeder reactor largly from old smoke detectors and coleman lantern mantles?
http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html [dangerousl...tories.org]
-nB

Another day at NRC

[SchmellsAngel]

NRC has a big job keeping track of radiation sources and do a good job overall IMHO, but their feet still need to be held to the fire. See http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/even t-status/event/2007/20070302en.html [nrc.gov] for the nuclear errors reported in the US for one day this year. There are LOTS of licensed radiation sources out there, and many of them get lost/damaged/misused. Every day.

Re:The GAO Application

[donscarletti]

Covertly refining yellow cake uranium with a heated gas filled centrifuge spinning at the speed of sound so that the isotope U235 separates from the heavier U238 therefore making the core of the dirty bomb

Actually, if you refined the uranium it wouldn't likely be a "dirty bomb" but would be actually the better known A-Bomb (well, after rearranging the insides a bit). The reason for the dirty bomb panic is that they use raw, unrefined fissile material, making them easier for terrorists to theoretically obtain. The problem with dirty bombs however is that the aformentioned raw, unrefined fissile material isn't overly dangerous unless in huge quantities. This is since it's too old and stable for many of the freaky-dangerous isotopes to exist since they have tiny half lives. Only the fallout from a REAL nuclear blast or some very fresh waste from a poorly designed reactor is potent enough to be dangerous in the thin spread you get from explosive dispersal. I guess enrichment, with its higher u235 count would be more effective, though U235 does not have the same zing as some of the crazy stuff you could get if you just made it reach critical mass.

Re:The GAO Application

[stonecypher]

Sigh. Dirty bombs aren't unrefined uranium; they're refined and seperated as heavily as any other bomb. Dirty bombs are salted bombs, not bombs that were made poorly. Using the wrong uranium isotope would have a tremendous impact on the bomb's ability to blow up in the first place (or were we confused about why the uranium deposits in the ground don't blow up on their own?)

Citing Wikipedia, the world's primary repository of half-knowledge, the apparent traditional list of salts for a bomb is this: americium-241, californium-252, caesium-137, cobalt-60, iridium-192, plutonium-238, polonium-210, radium-226 and strontium-90. I can tell you from personal knowledge that p238 is an extremely poor choice for a salt due to its half life (hundreds of thousands of years - we do want to colonize Russia after we're done nuking it back into the stone age.) It's also interesting that they misspelled cesium.

Cobalt 60 is the canonical bomb salt (hence "cobalt bomb.")

Next time you want to converse about nuclear physics, think real hard; if you learned it from Anne Coulter or Action Comics, chances are you'll look smarter staying quiet.

Re:MOD parent UP

[SatanicPuppy]

Wired ran an article about that just today...Briefly, Terrorism is ineffective at accomplishing most goals (though it works well at getting people the hell out of your country) because, as people, we associate terrorist attacks with attacks on ourselves, not with big abstract policy goals.

Al-Qaeda blowing up a building doesn't change the US policy toward the Jewish state; all it does is provoke a counter attack, and the sense that someone out there wants to kill us for no reason.

Re:Bin Laden determined to strike in the US?

[fatphil]

The theoretical effectiveness of a dirty bomb was studied in my home country 4 decades ago.
They decided that it would be cheaper and more effective to just replace the nuclear part of the payload with more conventional explosive.

So you're not just ignorant, you're 4 decades out of date.

"most free", sheesh, you are full of it.