Radiological threats

Fear of dirty bomb threat as U.K. ships plutonium to France
Sellafield had an ambitious, £473 million plan: Make new nuclear fuel out of mixture of plutonium and uranium oxides recovered from used fuel; the plan flopped, and the company had to turn to its chief competitor, French firm Cogema, to fulfill its orders for the fuel material; trouble is, shipping the material to France on an unarmed ferry is dangerous, as the material could easily be used to make a dirty bomb
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TSA tests ferry radiation sniffer at Galveston
Tests began last Thursday; equipment was able to find small amounts placed in TSA vehicles; each sniffer costs $150,000, and are sensitive enough to detect the radiation in someone who has been injected with radioactive dye for a medical procedure two weeks after the injection
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Study of U.K. nuclear power plants employees reveals radiation risks
More than 65,000 individuals were employed between 1946 and 2002 at nuclear power plants operated by British Nuclear Fuels plc and its predecessors; a team of researchers studied the health histories of these individuals, and found evidence for an association between mortality from noncancer causes of death, particularly circulatory system disease, and external exposure to ionizing radiation
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New material can find a needle in a nuclear waste haystack
Nuclear power has advantages, but it also comes with a big problem: Nuclear waste; making nuclear power viable long term requires discovering new solutions to radioactive waste disposal and other problems
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Colombia: Seized FARC documents show group's interest in dirty bomb
Colombian forces launched an incursion into Ecuador, killing a leading FARC figure and sixteen of his associates; Colombian government says seized documents show FARC’s interest in obtaining radioactive materials
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Canberra shows Falcon 5000 portable radiation detector
The company has more than four decades of experience in radiation measurements of all kinds; the Falcon 5000, a portable radionuclide identifier for first responders, determines whether there is a radiation source present, the location of that source, and which isotopes are emitting the radiation
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Study: U.S. needs better ways to evaluate radiation detection systems
Current radiation detectors placed at U.S. ports cost about $82,000 each and have a high false-alarm rate; DHS wants to buy 800 new detectors, at a cost of $360,000 each, but lawmakers and experts say that before this money is spent, there should be a better way to evaluate the effectiveness of the new systems
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IAEA: More nuclear sleuths needed
Two U.S. scientific associations recently concluded that the number of U.S. nuclear smuggling experts is dwindling to a point at which U.S. national security would be affected; the IAEA says the same is true for the world as a whole
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New U.K. nuclear plants to fund eventual decommissioning
New U.K. nuclear power station operators will be required to set aside money for their eventual decommissioning and waste costs
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Scientists urge U.S. to stop using caesium-137, a dirty bomb ingredient
About 1,300 machines at U.S. hospitals and universities used for irradiating blood for transplant patients and other purposes contain caesium-137; individuals or groups eager to detonate a dirty bomb in a U.S. city could steal this caesium chloride and combine it with conventional explosives such as dynamite to produce a dirty bomb or radiological dispersal device
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U.K., U.S. in tighter collaboration on nuclear threats
United Kingdom invests an initial £2 million to secure high-risk nuclear and other radioactive materials and combat their illegal trafficking
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Uranium smugglers caught on India-Nepal border
Indian police arrests six individuals trying to smuggle low-grade uranium from India to Nepal;
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Analysis // by Ben Frankel: U.S. still fighting for sanctions on Iran, but with a weaker hand
The Bush administration shot itself in the foot by releasing a confusing and partially misleading intelligence assessment of Iran’s nuclear weapon activities; the administration dealt a near-fatal blow to the effort to intensify economic sanctions on Iran, instead creating a situation in which the world will either have to accept a nuclear-armed Iran or go to war to stop it
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Diminished strategic focus caused lax Air Force nuclear security
Last year, six nuclear-tipped missiles were flown by mistake from North Dakota to Louisiana; it took more than thirty-six hours for the Air Force to discover the mistake, or even realize that nuclear missiles were missing
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Defending cities against dirty bombs is difficult
DHS efforts to develop technologies for detecting dirty bombs run into criticism of the feasibility of the technology and questions about the cost-benefit analysis used to justify the deployment of the systems
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