Wal-Mart's glow-in-the-dark mystery

Wal-Mart's glow-in-the-dark mystery

www.thestar.com

"I'm sure thousands of them would create a credible dirty bomb," says Norm Rubin, director of nuclear research at Energy Probe in Toronto. "Most experts think the main purpose of a dirty bomb is to cause panic, disruption and expensive cleanup rather than lots of dead bodies. A bunch of tritium, especially if oxidized in an explosion, would probably do that job fine."

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
news.yahoo.com

Sixteen thousand tritium exit signs (20% of their inventory)are unaccounted for or missing from Walmart stores all across the US. That must merit the attention of people slightly above store security. As the snippet says, it could glow something up real good.
Could the wrong hands be gathering them?
Perhaps Ossamy is very conscious of occupancy bylaws as they pertain to caves and needs well marked 'exits' in case of fire.

www.thestar.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 21-2-2009 by gypsychology909]

[edit on 21-2-2009 by gypsychology909]

The signs contain tritium gas, a radioactive form of hydrogen. Tritium glows when it interacts with phosphor particles, a phenomenon that has led to the creation of glow-in-the-dark emergency exit signs.

So - what are we doing using this stuff for exit signs in the first place?
Boy do we have some big lessons ahead of us.
I sure hope we live though them.

Edit to add -

How can 16,000 of anything go missing??!!!


[edit on 21-2-2009 by spinkyboo]

Could be petty theft also, wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet?
Second line.

Originally posted by Republican08
Could be petty theft also, wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet?
Second line.

Agreed - and likely is - but why use this kind of material anymore for anything.
Radioactive signage? It's just so (fowardly) backward.

reply to post by spinkyboo

How can 16,000 of anything go missing??!!!

Ask the United States Military there good at losing things in large numbers.
Guns cash you name it they lose it pretty good.

wonderful,.... thanks wally world

normally im against fear mongering, but nice spot, this is something we should worry about

it pretty much adds up, it achieves devastation that terrorists would want, and it would be achieved through walmart

walmart is pretty much a icon of the U.S. and to destroy part of the U.S. through walmart would be a pretty big statement from terrorists

it would also change a lot of the ways we operate



we should definitely look farther into this

hi , to answer the ` wht tritium ` question - simply because it is the only truely maintainence free system with a garunteeded service life and zero fail rate - the only means of failure = physical damage

why are they missing - IMHO , embeszlement for profit @ middle management level - they cost > $300 per unit - thats 4.8milion .

stealing 16 thousand tritium signs to make a dirty bomb is the dumbest thing i have haerd of , stop and think for just one sec - and IF you insist on using tritium for your bomb ask yourself the question :

where do tritium signs come from ?

the sinide answer is the tritium sign factory - where GASP they have a cylinder of the stuff its a licenceed user only material - subject to stringent security measures - but not insurmountable

there are literaly HUNDREDS of places that you would find a more potent cache of radio isotopes than stealling then stripping down 16 thousand tritium signs

like i say - the simplest solition is usually the most likley - and at $300 each - its an item worth stealing

talk of ` dirty bombs ` is just silly scare mongering

Originally posted by JBA2848
reply to post by spinkyboo

 

How can 16,000 of anything go missing??!!!

Ask the United States Military there good at losing things in large numbers.
Guns cash you name it they lose it pretty good.

Boy that is for sure!
They are constantly losing things... .
Scary things!
Dead Mice with anthrax ....

reply to post by ignorant_ape


I agree completely with ignorant_ape. It just sounds like petty theft. It's something easily stolen, next to an exit and worth money. If terrorist wanted to make a dirty bomb they would save themselves a hell of a lot of time just buying some radioactive material on the black market.

Also, I doubt a terrorist would want to be caught on camera stealing EXIT signs from Walmart and foil his plans for mass destruction

Yeah, the Tritium dirty bomb concept is just silly, there are far easier and more effective ways to make dirty bombs than to attempt to draw tritium out of exit signs.

My concern, as it always has been with these signs, is how they get disposed of. Animals and water tables near dumping sites can be contaminated by this stuff over time...

But dirty bomb? Give me a break.



A little background on Tritium, EXIT signs used to use Radium in order to maintain luminescence, Radium however is a direct cause of bone cancer.
Tritium has been used in EXIT signs for decades, as it was decades ago that Radium was banned in most countries.

... so just be glad it's Tritium in those signs and not Radium.

Last month Wal-Mart disclosed that about 15,800 of its exit signs – a stunning 20 per cent of its total inventory – are lost, missing, or otherwise unaccounted for at 4,500 facilities in the United States and Puerto Rico.

Source: www.thestar.com... (emphasis mine)

OK, so considering that the average dollar store has less than $200,000 worth of inventory, and realizing that the average WalMart store has many times that amount (well in excess of $1,000,000), how exactly is maybe 20 signs at a generous $500 each ($10,000) equal to 20% of their inventory?

Yeah, it's a small slip-up, but a telling one. This is just a play on fear. Or perhaps a signal that a dirty bomb will be allowed to go off somewhere?

Maybe we should be alert for such a bomb... not from tritium signs, but from other sources. This could easily be something being set up to blame it on...

TheRedneck

Originally posted by spinkyboo
The signs contain tritium gas, a radioactive form of hydrogen. Tritium glows when it interacts with phosphor particles, a phenomenon that has led to the creation of glow-in-the-dark emergency exit signs.

So - what are we doing using this stuff for exit signs in the first place?
Boy do we have some big lessons ahead of us.
I sure hope we live though them.

Hello? There were 16,000 of these before they would make a difference.

You do realize that enough apple seeds create a cyanide like poison don't you? I mean, what is nature doing making seeds out of poison?

Maybe the nuclear boyscout is building a new reactor? He did use glow in the dark clocks in his previous one

I believe the article meant 20% of its total inventory of exit signs.

This is not a one line post, because it addressed a question raised by another member. I'm sure I'll get points docked anyways, just because my life sucks in every way.

Totally off topic, the second line crap is annoying. If you read the rules and whatnot, it pretty clearly states that a one line post is perfectly acceptable so long as it is contributing something to the thread.

I personally take that to mean that "bump" posts or one sentence of nonsense posts are the ones to be avoided. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

Anyway, back to you, people posting about the actual subject.

just a point of clarification , to address the ` where did 16 thousand signs - each measuring 310mm * 250mm and weighing 1kg go ` ?

the answer , if the embezzelment theory is correct is :

that they only ever existed on paper

i am not an accountant - so this description may contain flaws

in summarry - a dishonest walmart employee orders the signs from a dishonest employee at the factory where they are made - and an invoice sent , but the signs NEVER leave the factory - because the order is not processed through ` normal chanels ` - when the FAKE invoice for the signs arrives - the dishonest walmart emoployee rubberstaps it as valid - and orders accounting to pay it - they do - but the payment is intercepted by the crook at the sign company and diverted to a private bank account . both crooks split the profit , there never were any signs

thats probally the worst explaination of this type of crime EVAR but hey i am not an acountant or LEO

and lastly - the 15800 signs is a total for the entire walmart operation in north america

some will simply hsave been stolen - others broken by negligence - and not reported [ to avoid discipliniary action for breaking a 300 dollar sign ] etc etc - but i still believe that the bulk was embezzeled by accounting fraud

reply to post by gypsychology909


This made me think about how smoke detectors have small amount of radioactive material in them. I really dont think that someone is stealing the exit signs to make a dirty bomb but i guess that it is a possiblity. Now if a bunch of smoke detectors go missing maybe we should start to be concerned.

I was a little confused after reading the thread. So I did some research.
In particular, I wanted to know more about tritium used as "self-powered lighting" for watches and other consumer goods.

Self-powered lighting is primarily used in things like watches and gun sights. Self-powered lighting involving Tritium (also called a Gaseous Tritium Light Source or GTLS) is pretty simple. This is basically how it works.. A glass tube is lined with a "Phosphor". The phosphor is a fine powder made up of a "host material" and an "activator". Tritium in gaseous form is introduced into the tube. The electrons emitted by the tritium then cause the phosphor to "fluoresce". The tube is then cut/fused with a laser to create tubes of a desired length and seal the tritium gas inside.

By using different kinds of hosts and activators in the phosphor powder, manufacturers can produce light tubes with varying colors and brightnesses. The tritium gas within the tube is the only thing that doesn't change.

en.wikipedia.org...

the commercial demand for tritium is 400 grams per year.

From what I've read, the health risk of tritium is extremely low. Even if the capsule/tube is fractured, the health risk is extremely small even if the gas becomes inhaled or otherwise ingested (It cannot even penetrate intact human skin). And usually, when you think about it, the gas is going to immediately disperse anyway unless you are deliberately trying to retrieve the gas inside for whatever reason in a controlled environment.

Hypothetically, the only way to do anything in the form of a covert attack using commercially produced tritium lighting (like what is in exit signs from wal-mart) would be to first accumulate tritium gas from these small tubes into a larger secondary vessel of some kind (At least in somewhat of a controlled room without drafts and/or wind from the outside) and then either use it to produce a "dirty bomb" using explosives to disperse the tritium gas within the vessel or simply a "chemical weapon" in the form of the vessel breaking and being blown downrange by winds. But to even try to make a "dirty bomb" using tritium gas does not make any sense.

The tritium gas from all these different tubes is always going to have the same properties. Even if it becomes inhaled or otherwise ingested it is not going to do anything especially harmful. The only really bad thing that could potentially happen is someone could get low-dose radiation sickness if they inhale alot of it (which is not lethal). It doesn't make sense to spend all that time and effort trying to elude authorities and construct such a weapon (if you could call it a weapon) if it isn't even going to have any detrimental effects.
Any tritium that could be used in a dirty bomb is immediately going to disperse and become even less harmful unless the bomb is detonated in an underground area or indoors where there is bad ventilation. So, if there is a plot to detonate such a weapon, that would be the obvious target. The gas could sit in one area that way, so that would make more sense from a hypothetical standpoint.

IMO, The only way for anyone to justify going through all this trouble to create a dirty bomb out of exit signs from wal-mart would be to extract the gas, accumulate it in a secondary vessel, and then somehow increase the potency of the gas by refining it. That would make a low health-risk tritum gas a pretty serious chemical/dirty bomb that could actually do some damage to people within a small, confined area.

Look, I worked in Air Force munitions for over 6 years. We were all well-trained in biological/chemical/nuclear warfare, how they work, and how you can protect yourself from such attacks..
The point of a dirty bomb is to use the explosives to disperse the agent and at least try to maximize the overall area of effect. If a terrorist is already using a low-health risk agent in the bomb, like tritium gas from exit signs, that means dispersing a low-potency agent would make the agent even less likely to cause physical harm.. It defeats the purpose of creating a dirty bomb in the first place.. IMO, It would seem more likely that if this really is an effort of some extremist or terrorist group to create a dirty bomb then it is probably extremely likely that they've found a way to refine or otherwise increase the potency of the tritium gas.

If I were the FBI I would start doing some digging. If there really is some
way for extremist whackjobs to make the tritium gas more potent in this fashion, then what the FBI would likely see is more and more stolen and/or purchased products containing tritium light tubes. I just hope they're already on it for our sake. After doing this research it seems that exit signs would be the easiest way for such extremist groups to obtain the tritium gas since exit signs have some of the most tritium gas per unit product of any product out there.

Watches.. Probably not..
Gun Sights.. NO and too hard to steel anyway.
But Exit signs? Yes. They're Probably the easiest Tritium lighting product to get away with steeling and it also probably has the most tritium gas per unit product.. It makes sense. I just hope we're all running in circles and there isn't anything to worry about in the first place.

-ChriS

[edit on 22-2-2009 by BlasteR]