The second story featured some comments from my former thesis adviser, Dr. Tom Hess of the University of Maine Department of Physics and Astronomy,
The Bangor Daily News reported this week that authorities seized a number of potentially hazardous materials, including uranium and thorium, from the man's home on Dec. 9, 2008, the night he was killed. He also had literature on how to construct dirty bombs.However, the article ended up being a little unsatisfying because it did not address specifically the availability of the much more powerful dirty bomb materials: cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60.
"If you have a University of Maine invoice, I suppose it's very easy to get materials," said C. Thomas Hess, a physics professor. "But most materials, particularly anything that is made by some sort of chemical reaction [such as uranium], is strictly regulated."
When I worked with Dr. Hess in the 80s, we could get small amounts of solutions containing these radionuclides quite easily. The folks who tested the roofs of University buildings for leaks had even stronger solutions containing cesium-137. According to the reports, Cummings did not actually possess these powerfully radioactive fission products (i.e. nuclear waste material), but rather much-less-radioactive samples of the heavy elements uranium and thorium. I guess that's comforting.
My question for Dr. Hess is, is it now harder to obtain samples of fission products that would make a vastly more powerful and "disruptive" dirty bomb?
Update: Something kinda obvious that should have occurred to me is that to make a really strong "dirty bomb" using enough fission product to cause a lot of trouble, the device would have to be heavily shielded prior to detonation. Otherwise it would be a problem for the bomber, and everyone along the line who might handle the material. You need some sort of "cask" to ship that stuff.
Posted by The Owl at 11:32. Filed under: Wingnuttia
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