Coming to a neighborhood near you: NUCLEAR CAR WASH

[John Jacobus <crispy_bird@YAHOO.COM>]

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-----Original Message-----

From: physnews@aip.org [mailto:physnews@aip.org]

Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 2:05 PM

To: Jacobus, John (NIH/OD/ORS)

Subject: Physics News Update 684





PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE

The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics

News

Number 684 May 6, 2004  by Phillip F. Schewe, Ben

Stein

                                                      

                 	

NUCLEAR CAR WASH.   To address the threat of smuggled

nuclear materials being brought into the U.S., a

Lawrence Livermore National Lab research program is

developing a scanner which would examine cargo

shipping containers, which now carry up to 90% of the

world's trade.  Six million such containers enter the

U.S. each year, the bulk arriving through 10 ports,

the top three being Los Angeles, Long Beach, and New

York-New Jersey.  A parcel of radioactive material,

intended as part of a terrorist bomb, would presumably

be shielded inside the cargo container, precluding

passive detection. The Livermore scanner would work in

the following way: the container, on a moving

conveyor, would slide past and be exposed to a neutron

beam.  The neutrons would irradiate all the contents

of the container, but would especially activate such

dangerous materials such as uranium-235 and

plutonium-239.  These radioactive species, perturbed

by the neutrons, would fission, resulting in the

emission of characteristic gamma rays detectable in

arrays located downstream of the neutron beam.

Speaking at this week's meeting of the American

Physical Society (APS) in Denver, Thomas Gosnell

(gosnell1@llnl.gov) said that the goal of the

Livermore research is the development of a scanner

capable of locating 5 kg of highly enriched uranium or

1 kg of plutonium with a false-positive or

false-negative rate of 1% or less.  He expects a

prototype "nuclear car wash" device would be working

within a year and be deployed on a trial basis in a

port, such as Oakland, California, a year after that.



. . .



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+++++++++++++++++++

"We cannot escape danger, or the fear of danger, by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads."

-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt



-- John

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist

e-mail:  crispy_bird@yahoo.com





	

		

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