Air Force monitoring increased Iodine-131 in Europe

My bet is on Zaporozhia Power Plant. Those crazy Ukrops are doing with it what should not be done ... For example experiments with Westinghouse fuel.

a reply to: Deny Arrogance

If you read the article, they bring it up to dismiss it. A lot of people think "radiation pills" help for generic radiation exposure but they're only for reducing absorption of I131. The article you cite states that it's not really applicable for dirty bombs since they won't contain or emit any.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Just to put this spanner in the thread.......
I posted about this, in fact I linked your thread over on my FB page.
I have a work colleague who's partner is in the USAF.......his partner (who holds a position that would be informed of this plane) has said this plane has not been deployed to the UK and has not landed at Mildenhall or any other US base in the UK

Rainbows
Jane

a reply to: angelchemuel

From what I've heard they're flying out of a base on the continent, not the UK. Possibly out of Norway, but there are quite a few options available outside the UK.

a reply to: Zaphod58

OK, thank you. So might have just done a quick stop over here then

Rainbows
Jane

Somewhat more briefly than normal from my phone, I131 is chiefly a byproduct of uranium or plutonium fission in the wild. For medical use, you transmute tellurium.

It's not a great choice for a dirty bomb for several reasons.

One, because it's primarily a beta emitter. You won't have a lot of effects unless it's inhaled. But I131 wants to stick to stuff and sit there. With a nuke or a reactor accident, it's generally boiled off pretty thoroughly and dispersed as molecules, so it stays an aerosol longer. But if you've got a block of I131 crystal, it's pretty much just going to make pretty purple crystals on the ground. It's a low level gamma emitter as well and it will sublimate in the sun a bit but it's pretty easy to clean up and stays put for the most part.

Two, it's got a really short half life. Like 8 days. You could just abandon the area for 90 days and your troubles are over.

What you want for a radiological weapon is an agent that's really hot, disperses well, is tough to clean off, is persistent and maybe a chemical poison as well as a radiotoxin.

a reply to: Bedlam

ugh i just wanted to write what you just said so i'll let you say it better.

if i were going to make a dirty bomb it would be a cobalt or polonium isotope. And the nice thing about polonium, no gamma rays so unless they have alpha detectors and you play it off like a normal explosion.........well let's just say it wouldn't be pretty

a reply to: Bedlam

That's why I'm thinking this is reactor related. If they're still picking it up enough to send a WC over, it has to be still being emitted or it would have simply dissipated after it's half life.

a reply to: Bedlam

What you want for a radiological weapon is an agent that's really hot, disperses well, is tough to clean off, is persistent and maybe a chemical poison as well as a radiotoxin.

Polonium 110 for instance .

. One gram of 210Po could thus in theory poison 20 million people of whom 10 million would die.

Yup, polonium, americium or cobalt are your go-to dirty bomb materials. Cobalt you could just get if you don't mind dying for the cause.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Bedlam

That's why I'm thinking this is reactor related. If they're still picking it up enough to send a WC over, it has to be still being emitted or it would have simply dissipated after it's half life.

Most likely.

Thanks so much, folks.

That's the stuff of nightmare, really.

How hard is it to get this stuff? Please tell me really. As in really hard, not really easy...

I suspect that some few of you are some of the folks paid to prevent this sort of thing, or were, or in a related field. I am, you might say, a deeply interested, somewhat concerned ignoranimous where this is concerned. If, indeed, you are in the field, generalities will suffice, I don't want anyone gettin' in trouble.

a reply to: Bedlam

i remember reading a story about a guy who was making his own reactor out of americium for a project for boy scouts or school or something, his shed and house are now a superfund cleanup site.

years later he was arrested with visible radiation burns. He was being charged with theft of.......smoke alarms......

a reply to: seagull

Mexico has lost some high level sources recently......

in south america in a scrap yard a man found a cobalt source and contaminated his whole village killing him self in the process. he thought the glow was neat and made him self and kids jewellery out of it.

almost every hospital has the stuff to make a nasty bomb

a reply to: seagull

How hard is it to get this stuff? Please tell me really. As in really hard, not really easy...

I suspect Bedlam is the go to person to answer that question . Below is an idea about Polonium production .

The largest batch of the element ever extracted, performed in the first half of the 20th century, contained only 40 Ci (1.5 TBq) (9 mg) of polonium-210 and was obtained by processing 37 tonnes of residues from radium production.[44] Polonium is now usually obtained by irradiating bismuth with high-energy neutrons or protons.[15][45]

a reply to: seagull

You'd be surprised at the sources laying around your house. In tiny amounts, granted, but they used to use tritium to make watch faces glow.

a reply to: seagull

Americium and polonium are tough to get in large quantities. Cobalt 60, well, like I say, you could come up with useful amounts any day of the week, but it's hard to handle and transport. Your procurement team would likely die in the attempt.

That means you have to either convince them or delude them, and use a throwaway group, which might not be a bad idea anyway.

a reply to: penroc3

In Japan, they melted some cobalt 60 into some structural steel and made apartments out of it.

Did a sort of impromptu experiment on radiation hormesis.

a reply to: Bedlam

Did you know about this .I certainly didn't .

Polonium was administered to humans for experimental purposes from 1943 to 1947; it was injected into four hospitalised patients, and orally given to a fifth. Studies such as this were funded by the Manhattan Project and the AEC and conducted at the University of Rochester. The objective was to obtain data on human excretion of polonium to correlate with more extensive data from rats. Patients selected as subjects were chosen because experimenters wanted persons who had not been exposed to polonium either through work or accident. All subjects had incurable diseases. Excretion of polonium was followed, and an autopsy was conducted at that time on the deceased patient to determine which organs absorbed the polonium. Patients' ages ranged from 'early thirties' to 'early forties.' The experiments were described in Chapter 3 of Biological Studies with Polonium, Radium, and Plutonium, National Nuclear Energy Series, Volume VI-3, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1950.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: Bedlam

lol i think i'd rather have a cold.