These guys may have tapped into a couple of otherwise hidden energy sources ~ the Weak Nuclear Force or "the vacuum" where there are all these virtual particules bopping around going in and out of reality just waiting to be actualized. In neither situation would you get much hard radiation although you might quickly figure out how to open a portal to another dimension where they've got a planetary scale landfill operation working and there goes the neighborhood at this end of our galaxy.
Iranians hoping to bring in the Mahdi?