Re: Nova - Dirty Bombs - London Scenario question/critque

[Stewart Farber <farbersa@optonline.net>]

2/26/03 2:19:16 PM, Stewart Farber <farbersa@optonline.net> wrote:



>Hi all:

>

>I listened to the NOVA "special" last night and found it remarkable how 

>sensationalistic it was. It seemed their intent was to maximize public panic if 

>and when anyone sets off a bomb involving any amount of radioactivity, no matter 

>how trivial. 

==============



An afterthought on the scenario of someone driving around a city like London with 

a 2,000 Ci [74,000 GBq] Cs-137 source in their auto. I recall doing a background 

radiation survey [short duration High Pressure Ionization Chamber readings of 

total gamma background], the better part of a mile from the Bath Iron Works in 

Bath, Maine just as Maine Yankee was going operational. 



During the readings at a substation a location for routine TLD monitoring, 

background levels jumped about 50% for a few minutes and then returned to normal, 

followed by a series of jumps of similar magnitude and then return to background.

I called the RSO at the Bath Iron Works to ask if they had been doing any 

industrial radiography at certain specific times I specified.



After a long pause, he asked how I could know this since I was offsite at a 

distance he could not imagine my being able to get a reading.



The point is, I was able in 1974 to be aware of an industrial radiography source 

being removed from its shield [despite local shielding used by the users of the 

source taking the shot] at a distance of almost a mile, due to skyshine from the 

source.



Isn't it rather trivial to set up even rather crude real time radiation sensors 

around any major city that could track the presence and movement [of a gamma 

source at least] into or near a city quite easily such that the source could be 

intercepted before it gets to the heart of a city? A helicopter with a radiation 

sensor could pinpoint the location of any vehicle carrying a substantial 

unshielded source [like that hyped in the NOVA program] in a matter of minutes 

and it could be intercepted by authorities before it might be exploded.



Stewart Farber, MS Public Health

email: farbersa@optonline.net

[203] 367-0791

=====

>







************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.

You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/