wapd (01/20/83)
Another non-atom-bomb way to use radioactive material is to simply disperse it using a regular (conventional, TNT, whatever) bomb. I believe that a threat of this kind was received a few years ago by police in a large northeastern city (my memory says Boston, but who knows ?). The threat was : "I have stolen 10 pounds of uranium, a few grams at a time, from a power plant. If I am not given XXX dollars, I will attach it to 100 pounds of dynamite and blow it up in the middle of Boston (?)". This is essentially equivalent to the "poison" approach, but requires even less subtlety. Dynamite is apparently easy enough to come by, and the radioactive material could be ore or waste or low-grade processed material. Bill Dietrich houxj!wapd
soreff (01/21/83)
There is no need for terrorists to handle radioactives if they merely want to poison a city. Nickel carbonyl [Ni(CO)4] for instance, is exceedingly poisonous, can be easily made by the ton if need be, is volatile and easily dispersed, and does not irradiate the would be terrorist, unlike radioactives. -Jeffrey Soreff (hplabsb!soreff)
bcw (01/22/83)
From: Bruce C. Wright @ Duke University Re: Cosmos A-Bomb Whether radioactive substances can be used by terrorists actually has very little to do with how easy such substances are to disperse and so forth. A great many people in this country (and probably elsewhere) are sufficiently disturbed by the "radioactive" label that that alone would be sufficient for widespread panic, which is of course what the terrorist is aiming at anyway... Bruce C. Wright @ Duke University
jfw (01/22/83)
Re: the poisonosity of plutonium. It is entirely unnecessary for it to be "poisonous" for it to have effect. Consider the mass hysteria when it is announced that there is radioactive plutonium in the city water supply. There are relatively few people informed enough to understand that such a low concentration is probably utterly without harm, and most of the rest have been scared by hysteria salesmen who wish to make their name through radiation-mania. Indeed, the denials by experts that there would be noticable danger would be taken by many as "proof" that there is critical danger. Someone desiring to extort money could quite easily dribble a small solution of Uranium Oxide* on the concrete next to the water reservoir, and announce that if $M is not paid in DELTA-T, another few gallons will be dumped into the supply. *Drop Uranium into water. It is about as reactive as sodium, and will replace the hydrogen in water, thus skittering about the surface of the water in a flaming jet until it is used up. Fun to watch, at least with sodium. John Woods, ...!genradbo!mitccc!jfw
leichter (01/22/83)
As several people have pointed out, the use of the word "radioactive" would probably be enough to cause a panic if a terrorist group claimed to have added such material to a water supply, for example. This is true, and it's exactly because of such unreasoning reactions that it's important to look at the reality. People have become so irrational on this subject that they are ready for panics - or witchhunts. Consider that radio- active materials OTHER than those useful for making bombs are actually quite easily available. For example, Cobalt-60 is widely used as a gamma-ray source in industry & medicine. Any terrorist group that wished could easily steall \\\steal it in large quantities. As a powerful gamma-ray emitter, it would actually be much more dangerous than some uranium or even plutonium. Given this inevitable vulnerability, it's essential that we try to explain to people who haven't looked at it what the actual dangers actually are and are not, and where our safety comes from, such as it is. -- Jerry decvax!yale-comix!leichter
sjb (01/23/83)
Dropping alkali metals into water should not be taken so lightly. A couple years ago around here, a couple kids stole 1 or 2 pounds of potassium from the chemistry lab in school and threw it into a local creek while still in the jar (with lid open though) -- the resultant explosion killed both of them.
mmt (01/24/83)
--------------------------------- From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhtsa!alice!sjb Dropping alkali metals into water should not be taken so lightly. A couple years ago around here, a couple kids stole 1 or 2 pounds of potassium from the chemistry lab in school and threw it into a local creek while still in the jar (with lid open though) -- the resultant explosion killed both of them. --------------------------------- It's not surprising that the explosion killed the kids if they were still in the jar. But seriously, folks, this alkali metals in water business should indeed not be treated lightly. When I was a kid, my father usually celebrated the visits of a special but rarely seen friend with what he called "The sodium ceremony". The two of them would don cloaks and other mysterioso gear, prepare a bucket full of warm water and soak the lawn with water. They would take what memory says must have been about 100g of metallic sodium, wrap it with a sheet of potassium, and throw it in the bucket, ensuring everyone else was WELL clear. At first, nothing would happen, then there would be the purple potassium glow (I guess the delay was because both the potassium and the sodium were kept under oil). The ball would skitter around, popping a bit, on the water, with at first the purple flame and then the yellow sodium flame. After an indeterminate time, the whole thing would explode in a big sodium-yellow flare, sending bits all over the lawn (maybe a 10-meter diameter), where they sparkled as they hit the wet grass. Afterwards, the lawn was thoroughly soaked, and there were always more unexploded bits of sodium to sparkle. It never seemed to do the grass any harm, though. (I should have added that the ceremony was always at night, preferably moonless, and all the house lights were turned out.) I hate to think what 1 kilo of potassium in a jar would do. A kilo unconfined would probably do no more harm than a pile of gunpowder. Potassium is so reactive that it seems to have a sort of Leidenfrost (?) effect, keeping a shell of (?) steam between itself and the water. Sodium, on the other hand, goes BANG. In the ceremony, I think the potassium wrapping served to heat the sodium before the water got to it. Martin Taylor
sjb (01/25/83)
I wouldn't want to walk barefoot on the lawn after that!
ost (01/26/83)
For those interested in the use of radioactive material as a poison, Robert Heinlein published a pre-WWII story with that theme entitled Solution Unsatisfactory. It is contained in THE WORLDS OF ROBERT A. HEINLEIN. Neil Ostrove cbosgd!ost