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Re: response to Dirty Bomb
sorry for the lateness in the response, but I have a couple of questions...
1. if natural background radiation is so harmful...why are people living longer lives??
2. and just how many people do you think have been killed because of Chernobyl?? If you read the news reports, you notice, that the numbers that are reported are all the people who have died since Chernobyl.. well gee whiz, people die every day.. so show me the numbers that are deaths above the "normal" death rate.
3. and does Greg know anything about science?? maybe he should take a physics course or two , to understand just what he is talking about.
>>> Norman Cohen <ncohen12@comcast.net> 05/16/02 11:08PM >>>
Froom another list, but permisssion was granted to post here. Thought you;d be
interested in Greg's opinions.
norm
Greg Wingard wrote:
> Dear friends of all things nuke:
>
> Usually in planning for disaster, you look at the worst case scenario. For a
> radiological "dirty" bomb terrorist attack, a 100 millicuries source is not
> it. Indeed it is amusing to see anyone say that is a credible example.
>
> Let's try again with something a little more realistic than a high school
> stunt, which is essentially what the previous post described.
>
> Terrorist hijack, or incapacitate a truckload of high level nuclear waste on
> its way from a nuke plant or weapon facility to say Nevada. They have a van
> with drums full of fertilizer mixed into a sludge with diesel. After
> incapacitating the truck, and any armed security traveling with the truck
> (assuming all nuke shipments will have armed escorts), a couple people place
> shaped charges on the nuke waste containers. Others place the drums under the
> trailer the waste is on. The drums are set to go off a fraction of a second
> after the shaped charges. Timing devices with the degree of precision to do
> this are not that hard to come by. As long as the people pulling off the
> attack don't care that they aren't going to make it out of the scene, other
> than in the form of non identifiable component parts, the logistics are
> probable. Let's say the truck was on the way from a nuke plant just up river
> from New York.
>
> Want to run your numbers again?
>
> Also, just from scanning reports around the globe, it seems that more cobalt
> sources are stolen and opened, usually by people out to sell the shielding for
> its scrap metal value. These non terrorist incidents have exposed large
> numbers of people to hazardous levels of radiation, including lethal, with no
> explosive to spread the radiation around.
>
> Having looked through a lot of shipping manifests, it also seems that there is
> a large amount of radioactive cobalt shipped around the world, in the
> commercial market, making it a target as well. Maybe you should run your
> numbers based on things Americans could relate to. Given X pounds of various
> radioactive substances (run the numbers for all the ones that are accessible
> due to transport, as well as storage), and a credible explosive force (say the
> Timothy McVeigh bombing), what would the result be?
>
> That would be a credible way to approach the topic. To put the previous post's
> chosen scenario in perspective, it is like saying that you don't have to worry
> about terrorist using mercury, because if a terrorist blew up a thermometer in
> a shopping mall the resulting exposure would not be significant. Like the 100
> millicuries example given in the previous post, the only thing remarkable about
> such an attack would be that there are any terrorists stupid enough to waste
> their time, and most likely their lives on pulling such an ineffectual stunt.
>
> I think that such posts are a good measure of how desperate the minions of
> nukes are to push their golden calf, their modern Molak (sorry for the
> misspelling, I did not have a bible handy for the reference to the primitive
> god that mid eastern cultures sacrificed their children to by immolation) on
> society.
>
> There are a number of ways that the industry seeks to lull the populace into
> compliance.
>
> Deny that there are any radiation or chemical releases from the plant. I had
> the opportunity to catch the Trojan nuke plant operators at this red handed.
> They were on a TV show where they took people, including a camera crew on a
> tour of the plant. Pointing at the steam coming out of the cooling tower the
> spokes dude said that is absolutely pure H2O. As it worked out, I was
> interviewed for a program that aired immediately after the one with the tour.
> On that show I held up the results for the camera, which the plant operator had
> signed under threat of perjury, on the concentration of isotopes coming out of
> the cooling tower. Needles to say it was'nt "pure H2O". When the owner of the
> nuke plant found out that the shows were going to air consecutively, they tried
> to force the station to cancel the show(s). Seems that they had some objection
> to their official spokes person being caught out as a liar.
>
> Deny that security is faulty. This one is obvious. Look at how many plants
> have failed the infiltration exercises they used to hold. I understand that
> there is pressure to stop such excersizes, or at least the public reporting of
> them.
>
> Deny that the plants are getting old, and that their original predicted life
> expectancy failed to even consider a number of problems that have come to light
> since the safety, and life time predictions were made for the plants. Prior to
> its closing, the Trojan nuke plant had an increasing number of its heat
> exchange system, steam tubes, plugged with stainless steel corks, because of
> corrosion cracking, and stress cracking. The company tried to claim that this
> was no problem, but were unable to get around the fact that heat exchange
> efficiency is a key component of reactor safety. Each tube you plug reduces
> the efficiency of heat exchange, thus decreasing safety. This is only one
> example of wear and tear failures experianced by nuke plants. The fall back
> claim, of course, is that we have multiple, redundant systems. They of course
> fail to mention that the original safety projections were based on all of the
> multiple redundant systems working at optimum conditions, or at least design
> specifications.
>
> Deny that radiation in the environment is a problem. This takes two main
> paths. The first is revisionist. A great example is Chernobyl, where the
> minions of nukes claim that it is paranoia that killed people around the plant,
> and that the release and resulting exposure has caused no lasting harm. The
> second tact is the so called sun shine unit approach. Everyone is exposed to
> "background" radiation, which is "natural". Any additional exposure is
> minimized, (many times by fraud, like the replaced "clean" milk samples
> downwind of NTS during testing), and then compared to "background" as if the
> exposure, if it is less than background must be safe. This is a kind of suck
> it up and take your dose argument. Since the people in Denver are getting much
> more radiation at their elevation, it must be OK to make sure that people at
> Hanford get just as much. Complain and you are a nuke wimp, and idiot that
> just doesn't understand that radiation is everywhere.
>
> The truth is somewhat different. Radiation, in terms of natural background is
> most likely a large factor in aging and health problems experianced on a global
> level. Radiation doses are not discrete separate events. The impacts are
> cumulative, and anything over background is going to be harmful. Recent
> studies at Cheranobyl are a good example. Turns out that there are a large
> number of genetic anomolies showing up from radiation exposure. The leading
> spin is that such changes do not prove life threatening conditions. When you
> combine additional radiation exposure with constant chemical insult which most
> of us in the developed world are exposed to, the result is even worse.
> Radiation doses are also target specific, in other words, the dose you get from
> iodine, may be more harmful than radioactive xenon out of a cooling tower.
> Likewise if you are exposed to radon, and it all happens to be very "young" you
> will breathe most of it back out, thus a no harm, no foul situation. If,
> however, you breathe in radon, and its daughter products, and some portion of
> the radon turns into radioactive metal particles in your lungs, the scenario is
> a little bit more grim. Of course the powers that be assume that all radon
> breathed is only radon, no daughter products, and it is all "new", ie, not
> going to change to metal particles in the lung.
>
> There is a reason that atmospheric nuclear tests were stopped. It was because
> of the concern of setting off a world wide epidemic of radiation induced
> disease at a level that would make it obvious what the source of the problem
> was. World leaders, including Kennedy, figured out that people might become a
> little hard to handle if this information came out. Hence an agreement among
> parties who were not the best of friends. So we cut our losses, wrote off the
> down winders both civilians, and military, and buried the facts as much as
> possible. As more of the facts have come out, the goal has shifted to the same
> one employed with much success by the asbestos folks. Hold them off until they
> are all dead. The dead do not collect damage payments.
>
> The example given in the previous post provided data on the amount of source
> material, but provides no information on the size, type of dispersion, i.e.,
> how big a blast, or with what kind of explosive. The model provided thus lacks
> rigor, is not conservative, and fails to provide the necessary values for
> others to confirm, or replicate the results claimed, a basic tenant of
> scientific method.
>
> Nice try for a piece of propaganda, but does not cut it for science, which it
> pretends to be.
>
> Regards,
>
> Greg
>
> Jim Hoerner wrote:
>
> > [Fwd from RadSafe, not by JH who found it interesting.]
> >
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Reality Check - "dirty bombs"
> >
> > Comments continue to circulate about the possibility for terrorists to
> > explode a 'dirty bomb' or a radiological bomb'. Indeed, even Warren
> > Buffett, the 'Sage of Omaha' has the other day been reported as saying that
> > a radiological attack is not a question of 'if', but of 'when'.
> >
> > There is however very little written about just what the possible health
> > impact of such an action might be.
> >
> > It is not difficult to make some very general estimates of what the
> > radiation consequences might be, and the findings that I here present
> > indicate that the health effects would probably be very small, although the
> > disruption and the cleanup task might be a serious cost.
> >
> > Let us assume that a stolen source wrapped with explosives has been
> > detonated in a large office block or shopping mall. There would certainly
> > be serious damage from the explosive, and injuries resulting from flying
> > debris, building collapse and so forth.
> >
> > But I thought I might try to estimate potential radiation doses and hence
> > health risks from such a release...
> >
> > So, here's a little calculation of possible doses to emergency responders or
> > to members of the public who might remain trapped in the building:
> >
> > Example 1.
> >
> > Assume a stolen Cs-137 source of Activity 100 millicuries (= 3.7 GBq).
> >
> > Assume it is exploded and all the caesium disperses into a building of
> > volume 500,000 cubic metres as a fine respirable powder.
> >
> > This implies an in-air concentration of about 8000 Bq/m3.
> >
> > IAEA BSS (Safety Series 115) Tables II-III and II-VII indicate dose per
> > unit activity by inhalation for Cs-137 is in the order of 5 * 10-9 Sv/Bq.
> >
> > So a person breathing the contaminated air for 1 hour without respiratory
> > protection will incur about (1 m3 * 8000 * 5 * 10-9 ) Sv or 40
> > microsieverts.
> >
> > This amount is essentially trivial in this context.
> >
> > Example 2.
> > Assume that an Iridium-192 source of Activity 1 Terabecquerel (approx 30
> > Curies) is dispersed in the same building.
> > The airborne activity concentration will then be 2 * 106 Bq/m3 and the total
> > activity breathed in in one hour will be approx 2 * 106 Bq.
> > This will incur (using data from IAEA BSS as above) a dose of (2 * 106 * 5
> > * 10-9) = 10 mSv, which is about equivalent to a 'CAT scan'. In other
> > words, not that much.
> >
> > Please note that in actual fact, it will be quite difficult to get all of
> > the radioactive material into the air in respirable form: it will want to
> > plate out on its surroundings. So the above calculations are almost
> > certainly unduly pessimistic, and exaggerating the actual doses that would
> > be incurred.
> >
> > So we can say that any injuries or deaths will be from the explosive blast,
> > mechanical injury, or any resulting fire, or from the panic, eg in hasty and
> > ill-disciplined (not to mention ill-advised) evacuation traffic accidents)
> > rather than from the radiation dose.
> >
> > Responding emergency agencies should be informed beforehand, i.e., NOW, that
> > dose control requirements are thus NOT an overriding issue, but rather the
> > control of panic. Responders should be reassured, NOW, that 'moonsuits are
> > not required', but rather, that first aid and fire control are the essential
> > requirements.
> >
> > [MS]
> >
> > --
> > Hold the door for the stranger behind you. When the driver a
> > half-car-length in front of you signals to get over, slow down. Smile and
> > say "hi" to the folks you pass on the sidewalk. Give blood. Volunteer.
> >
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> >
> >
> >
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