The point is that the tritium could be used in a dirty bomb.
SNIP* CRACKPOT DHIREN BAROT: Redacted evidence provides riches of embarrassment
http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2007/02/crackpot-dhiren-barot-redacted-evidence.html
In other words, one is asked to believe that a dirty bomb can be made from thousands of smoke detectors.
However, making a dirty bomb from a lorry full of the household items wasn’t Barot’s only wish. He also fiddled with other really stupid ideas.
One involved used exit signs as a weapon of terror. In the United States, exit signs containing a very small amount of tritium, a radioisotope of hydrogen, have been smashed in buildings and thrown into landfills (broken and leaking) for years. It’s thought to be a slight hazard but no one really cares about the issue as the danger is negligible.
One of Dhiren Barot’s dirty bomb plots proposed the throwing of exist signs into the middle of rooms.
Tritium readily forms water when exposed to oxygen. As it undergoes radioactive decay, tritium emits a very low energy beta particle and transforms to stable, nonradioactive helium. Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years.
Current treatment of landfill leachates do not remove tritium.
As with all ionizing radiation, exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer. However, because it emits very low energy radiation and leaves the body relatively quickly, for a given amount of activity ingested, tritium is one of the least dangerous radionuclides. Since tritium is almost always found as water, it goes directly into soft tissues and organs. The associated dose to these tissues are generally uniform and dependent on the tissues’ water content.
Barot also dallied with getting tritium for a dirty bomb from wristwatches.
Further explained in EPA fact sheet and/or search:tritium exit signs, etc.
More at: http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/tritium.html
“... could be used in a dirty bomb.”
Just how would it be used .. and what is the result of such use ..??
Inquiring minds want to know.