Posted on 06/14/2002 1:38:49 AM PDT by ex-Texan
Edited on 06/29/2004 7:09:17 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Science and military experts disagreed on Monday on the impact of a radiological weapon, like the kind accused al-Qaida operative Abdullah al Mujahir was allegedly plotting to explode.
Some see only a "minuscule" rise in cancer rates, while others predict that huge sections of New York or Washington would become uninhabitable if such a bomb were ever to go off.
(Excerpt) Read more at wired.com ...
They'd be stupid. Most of this article emphasizes 137Cs contamination. KI only helps limit uptake of the radioactive forms of iodine. It will do nothing if you've got 137Cs around.
The radioiodine contaminant of concern is 131I. It has a half-life of about eight days. That means you have to have a "fresh" source. The source of 131I is fission of 235U. That means either a research-grade uranium target freshly irradiated in a research reactor, or relatively fresh used nuclear fuel, or fuel actually in the core of a reactor. A uranium target from a medical isotope processing facility would be a lousy source for a terrorist weapon because it has relatively small specific activity for the isotopes of interest. You'd need a boatload of those things to get you up into the kilocurie range wherein a dispersion bomb becomes really effective as a terrorist device.
As for used and in-core fuel assemblies, well, in spite of what the anti-nuke kooks and lamestream media and some here on FR contend, getting to that stuff is not easy. And, even if you can get to it, taking it away and then working with it is no mean trick either.
Widespread contamination from radioiodine is most likely in two scenarios. First, a major nuclear plant accident involving significant fuel damage and a large-scale breech of the containment. Check the estimates of probability of this in the WASH-1400 report on power reactor safety. Here's a preview: you've got more of a chance being killed by a falling meteor than you will from this kind of accident.
The second is a nuclear explosion. While some on FR have expressed concern about this given the India-Paki situation, its important to keep in mind that the fundamentals of the ALARA concept, time, distance, and shielding, work in this scenario as well. If the explosion is far away, it takes time for the fallout to reach you. There, the eight day half-life helps you. Secondly, the further away the source is, the more removal mechanisms come into play. Iodine is a relatively reactive element from a chemical viewpoint. It combines with things like, for example, water, which causes it to wash or settle out of the dispersion plume. You might say, well, that's bad, too, because it then gets into the water supply and you can injest it. Yes, that's true, but the pathway then becomes different than airborne contaminants. The time constants are different. Once out of the air, the dispersion of the material through the biosphere is slowed down, and, again, the radiological half-life helps you.
Thanks
So, what do you do? First, restrict access so you don't spread it around more than necessary. Second, restrict traffic in products or artifacts from the area, again to limit spread. You might prohibit sales of foodstuffs produced in the area (milk, veggies, etc.).
Cleanup means collecting the particles as best you can. If surfaces are contaminated, you wash them off, and control the runoff in some way. Chelating agents are often helpful here. If water supplies are contaminated, you filter the water. If the material has worked its way into the soil, you may have to remove the very top layer of dirt from an area. Depending on the nature of the release, that may or may not be practical. For limited contamination, it is eminently practical. In fact, many of the DOE sites formerly used in weapons production are undergoing restoration and this techniques is used quite frequently.
At some point in the decontamination process, you have to call it quits. You're not going to scavenge every single radioactive atom. You have to say "this is good enough". What is good enough? Generally, when sites are decommissioned the criteria is that the doses a person might receive in those areas decontaminated must be about equal to that they would get from the natural environment. The theory is that if a person lives in the natural radioactive environment and experiences no ill effects, they should likewise experience no deleterious effects from the decontaminated environment if the dose is comparable. If you can't get down to those levels, you can't use that area until either radiological half-life has worked its magic, or dilution into the surrounding environs has reduced exposure rates. This has been the fate of some of the areas surrounding the Chornobil site. But a radiological dispersion weapon will not produce the kinds of contamination that Chornobil did (for reasons related to the physics of the process).
The article is correct in that 137Cs is one of the more mobile radioactive forms. Cesium tends to get around in the biosphere. It has a relatively long half-life (about 30 years) and a reasonably-penetrating gamma emission (about 662 KeV). So if you disperse a lot of 137Cs over a large area you would complicate the cleanup. But for the same reasons that make 137Cs a problem, it is also difficult to work into a radiological dispersion weapon. You need to get a lot of it (hundreds or thousands of curies of activity) and package it into the weapon. That is a tricky handling problem. You just aren't going to go out and slap some ingots of cesium around a few sticks of dynamite using your hands. You'd not survive that attempt.
And that's why a radiological dispersion weapon capable of producing the kinds of wild-a$$ scenarios being bandied about in the media and on discussion boards (billions of fatalities and trillions of square miles of territory rendered unhabitable for the next few billion years) is somewhat speculative. To really produce a lot of contamination you need a lot of dispersive agent. If its radioactive material, you're talking about one hot tamale. It may kill you and your whole gang before you have a chance to set it off. OTOH, that may be a good way to get rid of some of these scum...
Can you say BOGEYMAN?
I believe that, statistically, the chances of an average person getting cancer in an average lifespan is about 1 in 4 - without the dirty bombz. Furthermore, how many people live in a five block area in your city? 200? So what would it take to get one cancer death? 5 bombz in 5 neighborhoods? Seems to me that people have much more to fear from sunshine and hydrocarbon pollution.
IMO the Government and the Terrorists are taking full advantage of our fear of the "unknown", each for their own purposes. Basically, they each want complete control of our money, minds and bodies, and are willing to kill us, if necessary, to get it.
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