[ RadSafe ] Dirty Bomb Material Crosses Border

[John R Johnson]

Stewart et al

The Th-Nat progeny (Tl-208) also has a high energy gamma emission (2.6 MeV)
which makes Th-Nat easy to monitor for and identify. Tl-208 is the progeny
of Th-224 and therefore it decrease with time after the seperation of Ra-228
to about 0.3 of the value for Th-232 before ingrowing back to  unity. For
more details see

THORIUM METABOLISM AND DOSIMETRY; J. R. Johnson, A. Birchall, R.L. Hill, and
N. Jarvis Presented at Commission of the European Communities (CEC0 Health
Effects of Internally Deposited Radionuclides Conference April 18-22 (1994);
pp. 27-31 in Proceedings EUR 15877 EN; World Scientific Publishing.

John
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-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl]On
Behalf Of Stewart Farber
Sent: March 28, 2006 8:52 PM
To: BLHamrick at aol.com; Cehn at aol.com; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Dirty Bomb Material Crosses Border


Anyone can walk into any welding supply business and walk out with 50 or 500
pounds of  Thoriated welding rods [2% thoria by weight which can equal many
pounds of  thorium oxide in 500 pounds of welding rods]. Thoriated welding
rods can also be purchased on eBay.  The activity of this much Thorium oxide
is a real concern.

>From a reference: "The compounds of thorium are very active.[26] Thorium
oxide surpasses even metallic uranium in activity." Of concern in this
regard for ThO2:  No control on purchase. A totally exempt isotope, and the
potential for significant contamination. And people are worried about a few
exempt quanity check sources? Bizarre.

Stewart Farber
radproject at optonline.net
===========
----- Original Message -----
From: <BLHamrick at aol.com>
To: <Cehn at aol.com>; <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 9:16 PM
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Dirty Bomb Material Crosses Border


>
> I don't believe the isotope or activity has been released, but you can
read
> between the lines in the report.  They purchased exempt quantities (so
likely
> in the multi-microcurie range), they told the business it was to
"calibrate"
> radiation pagers, and they "focused only on the procedures for
[detecting]
> gamma radiation," so it appears this was a gamma-emitting  isotope,
commonly
> used for calibration....Hmmm...what could that be?...................

>
> Senator Coleman was "alarmed" that radioactive material was available for
> commercial sale.  Why, he'd absolutely FLIP if he knew how much free
> radioactive material I have for the taking in my backyard soil.
>
> Someone really needs to put a halt to this insanity.
>
> Barbara L. Hamrick, CHP, JD
>