Author Topic: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?  (Read 10838 times)


Offline Peter B

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2015, 12:53:53 AM »
Socially beneficial?

Possibly.

But consider that if ISIS is looking for red mercury because of its alleged efficacy, maybe they're also looking for other material with similar efficacy. Imagine the effect if ISIS let off a radiological weapon that made the central square kilometre of any major Western city uninhabitable for several years. Or a mass chemical or biological attack...

Offline ka9q

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2015, 01:15:07 AM »
Well yes, there's been talk about "dirty bombs" for years.

But isn't there something vaguely reassuring that these clowns are so scientifically illiterate?

Offline raven

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2015, 01:25:43 AM »
You don't need to be very scientifically literate to make a dirty bomb.
Radioactive material+ordinary bomb= dirty bomb. With the additional  knowledge of the existence of nuclear material and a supply, say from a hospital, you could make that with literally Middle Ages tech.
I wonder if 'Red Mercury' is where the Star Trek reboot movie got the idea for 'Red Matter'.

Offline ka9q

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2015, 08:29:53 AM »
Not every kind of medical radioisotope would be useful for a dirty bomb. Those administered to patients usually have short half-lives for a fairly obvious reason: you want to minimize the dose to the patient and those around him. Examples would include Tc-99m and F-18 (used in PET scans). I-131, used for thyroid ablation, is one of the longer-lived medical isotopes with a 8-day half life. (It's also an important short-term threat from nuclear reactor accidents.)

The longest-lived medical radioisotopes would generally be found inside radiotherapy machines, e.g., for cancer treatment, and would be contained in massive shields.

A few of those machines have fallen into the hands of people who didn't know better, leading to a couple of pretty nasty radiological emergencies. I'd have to read up on this but I suspect that the current trend for radiotherapy machines is away from radioactive materials and toward particle accelerators of various kinds.

Offline Al Johnston

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2015, 04:47:38 PM »
I wonder if 'Red Mercury' is where the Star Trek reboot movie got the idea for 'Red Matter'.

Possibly, a more proximate ancestor is JJ Abrams Alias series.
"Cheer up!" they said. "It could be worse!" they said.
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Offline Northern Lurker

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #6 on: November 28, 2015, 04:02:14 PM »
AFAIK the problem with dirty bombs is that if the radioactive material is safe to handle it doesn't make much of a dirty bomb. If the material is lethally radioactive either the terrorists need lots of expendable manpower to acquire materials, assemble the bomb and transport it to target. If the material is sufficiently shielded the bomb will be large and heavy thus hard to move and place inconspicuously.

Lurky

Offline ka9q

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #7 on: November 29, 2015, 06:00:22 AM »
A significant amount of a "hot" radioisotope could be carried in a reasonable amount of lead or tungsten shielding. Look at the Cs-137 radiotherapy sources that were abandoned and then stolen and opened by salvagers. Very nasty incidents.

Offline Northern Lurker

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #8 on: November 29, 2015, 06:41:59 AM »
A significant amount of a "hot" radioisotope could be carried in a reasonable amount of lead or tungsten shielding. Look at the Cs-137 radiotherapy sources that were abandoned and then stolen and opened by salvagers. Very nasty incidents.

Goiânia accident comes to mind. Very nasty incident indeed but not very efficient. After two weeks of exposure in different locations it managed to kill only 4 people in Ferreira scrap yard. If dispersed around several city blocks it would cause evacuation, chaos and slow and costly clean up but I doubt any radiation poisonings would occur.

Preparedness plans are not public but I'd guess fire brigades would measure radioactivity after any bomb blast and start evacuation if necessary.

Lurky

Offline ka9q

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #9 on: November 29, 2015, 02:07:49 PM »
Goiânia accident comes to mind. Very nasty incident indeed but not very efficient. After two weeks of exposure in different locations it managed to kill only 4 people in Ferreira scrap yard. If dispersed around several city blocks it would cause evacuation, chaos and slow and costly clean up but I doubt any radiation poisonings would occur.
Yes, that's the one I had in mind. But in Goiânia the Cs-137 got out through ignorance; a dirty bomb would get it out by intent, and probably much more efficiently.
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Preparedness plans are not public but I'd guess fire brigades would measure radioactivity after any bomb blast and start evacuation if necessary.
Yes. Cs-137 has a 30-year half life. That's too long to simply wait for it to decay but still short enough to be very radioactive. What makes it especially dangerous is its water solubility, like all the alkali metals.  But that also allows it to wash away and/or sink into the soil. Over decades Cs-137 is the most problematic isotope from both nuclear weapons tests (e.g., Bikini, Eniwetak) and nuclear reactor accidents (Chernobyl, Fukushima) so we now have some experience with its behavior in the environment.

Fortunately, there seems to be a trend away from radioisotopes such as Cs-137 in medical and industrial applications to less mobile and/or shorter-lived isotopes and to particle accelerators, so hopefully there will be less of it around to steal and/or misplace. Unfortunately, Cs-137 exists in large amounts as an otherwise useless fission product, and that made it attractive to those who didn't fully consider the risks. There are (or were) quite a few abandoned Soviet-era radioisotope generators using it, and some of it also got out when found and scavenged by people who, as in Goiânia, didn't know what it was.

Offline Northern Lurker

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #10 on: November 29, 2015, 03:14:51 PM »
Goiânia accident comes to mind. Very nasty incident indeed but not very efficient. After two weeks of exposure in different locations it managed to kill only 4 people in Ferreira scrap yard. If dispersed around several city blocks it would cause evacuation, chaos and slow and costly clean up but I doubt any radiation poisonings would occur.
Yes, that's the one I had in mind. But in Goiânia the Cs-137 got out through ignorance; a dirty bomb would get it out by intent, and probably much more efficiently.

Wouldn't further spreading of radiological material increase the number of affected persons but also reduce individual doses?

Preparedness plans are not public but I'd guess fire brigades would measure radioactivity after any bomb blast and start evacuation if necessary.
Yes. Cs-137 has a 30-year half life. That's too long to simply wait for it to decay but still short enough to be very radioactive. What makes it especially dangerous is its water solubility, like all the alkali metals.  But that also allows it to wash away and/or sink into the soil. Over decades Cs-137 is the most problematic isotope from both nuclear weapons tests (e.g., Bikini, Eniwetak) and nuclear reactor accidents (Chernobyl, Fukushima) so we now have some experience with its behavior in the environment.

Most propable targets for dirty bombs would be large cities where thankfully most of surfaces are hard and easy to wash. Parks would need soil replacement though. I know that clean up would be dangerous, slow and expensive and would disrupt living and working in affected area until cleanup would be done. But apart of getting caught in the blast, I'm not afraid of dying because of dirty bomb.

I couldn't find how much caesium nuclear tests released but Goiânia release was 50.9 TB of caesium-137, Fukushima between 17,500 and 20,500 TBq of caesium-137, 370 times more and Chernobyl 85,000 TBq of caesium-137, 1600 times more. So no comparison between dirty bomb and reactor accident.

Fortunately, there seems to be a trend away from radioisotopes such as Cs-137 in medical and industrial applications to less mobile and/or shorter-lived isotopes and to particle accelerators, so hopefully there will be less of it around to steal and/or misplace.

Let us hope so.

Lurky

Offline smartcooky

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #11 on: November 29, 2015, 11:54:45 PM »
AFAIK the problem with dirty bombs is that if the radioactive material is safe to handle it doesn't make much of a dirty bomb. If the material is lethally radioactive either the terrorists need lots of expendable manpower to acquire materials, assemble the bomb and transport it to target. If the material is sufficiently shielded the bomb will be large and heavy thus hard to move and place inconspicuously.

Lurky

Well Islamic terrorists don't seem to have any shortage of this.

My main concern would be someone detonating a dirty bomb in a area where there are a lot of people; a football stadium, a shopping mall etc, and immediately exposing large numbers of people to radioactive material in the vicinity of the blast.

Imagine what a massive bomb built into a merchant vessel could do if terrorists sailed it into a large city harbour and detonated it... actually, you don't have to imagine....The Texas City Disaster (1947) when a ship carrying fertiliser exploded, will give a fair idea...

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=texas+city+disaster&biw=1600&bih=706&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwituPa2qrfJAhVnXaYKHTdeBJ0Q_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=%22texas+city+disaster%22

567 killed, over 5,000 injured. Over 500 homes destroyed and hundreds more damaged, leaving 2,000 homeless. The seaport was destroyed and many businesses were flattened or burned. Over 1,100 vehicles and 360 freight cars destroyed. Property damage estimated at $100 million (about $1.06 billion in 2015 money.

A 1.8-metric-ton anchor from the ship was hurled 1.6 miles and found in a 10-foot crater. It now rests in a memorial park. The other anchor, 4.5-metric-tons, flew 1⁄2 a mile. Burning wreckage ignited everything within miles, including dozens of oil storage tanks and chemical tanks. The nearby city of Galveston, Texas, was covered with an oily fog which left deposits over every exposed outdoor surface.

Now, try to imagine this as a dirty bomb!!
   
If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline ka9q

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #12 on: November 30, 2015, 01:54:39 AM »
The damage from a dirty bomb would not be as much physical or even physiological as economic and psychological. People have a largely irrational deathly fear of radiation for reasons that are still unclear to me. You might think it's because people have a special fear of cancer, but the same people shrug their shoulders at the ubiquitous California Prop 65 warnings or at newspaper reports on eating bacon. Some are even smokers, though those numbers are fortunately decreasing.


Offline ka9q

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #13 on: November 30, 2015, 02:44:32 AM »
Wouldn't further spreading of radiological material increase the number of affected persons but also reduce individual doses?
Not necessarily, because in accidents like Goiânia most of the caesium was still in one place. There was no systematic attempt to spread it over a given area.

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Most propable targets for dirty bombs would be large cities where thankfully most of surfaces are hard and easy to wash. Parks would need soil replacement though. I know that clean up would be dangerous, slow and expensive and would disrupt living and working in affected area until cleanup would be done. But apart of getting caught in the blast, I'm not afraid of dying because of dirty bomb.
Same here.
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I couldn't find how much caesium nuclear tests released but Goiânia release was 50.9 TB of caesium-137, Fukushima between 17,500 and 20,500 TBq of caesium-137, 370 times more and Chernobyl 85,000 TBq of caesium-137, 1600 times more. So no comparison between dirty bomb and reactor accident.
This doesn't tell the whole story of a reactor accident because the radioactivity of caesium-137 becomes significant only a few hundred days after reactor shutdown. Before then, shorter lived and therefore much more intensely radioactive isotopes dominate the picture, especially I-131 because of its mobility (it's both water soluble and volatile) and its affinity for the thyroid. So by the time the Cs-137 becomes important the overall hazard has already dropped considerably. For example, Fukushima released somewhere between 100-500 PBq (petabecquerel; peta = 1015) of I-131, much more than the 6-20 PBq of Cs-137 but it's highly doubtful that even one atom of I-131 from Fukushima still exists anywhere on earth today. On the other hand, about 90% of the Cs-137 still exists.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2015, 02:46:50 AM by ka9q »

Offline ka9q

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Re: Red Mercury: a socially beneficial conspiracy theory?
« Reply #14 on: November 30, 2015, 07:02:26 AM »
By the way, I found a reference (in a NYT article published shortly after Chernobyl in 1986) that the fission yield of all uncontained nuclear weapons tests was about 217 MT, which released about 34 MCi or 1.26 EBq (E = exa = 1018) of Cs-137. If Fukushima released 20 PBq (high end estimate), that's about 2% of that released in weapons tests. True, weapons were tested in remote deserts and oceans but their more volatile and water-soluble fission products were spread worldwide.