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2002-12-13 East/Subsaharan Africa

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Posted by Fred Pruitt 2002-12-13 12:03 pm|| || Front Page|| [10 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Unless it's pure 235 (which I very much doubt), "Raw" uranium isn't that radioactive. If they bothered to listen to the news, or read LGF, they'd know Cesium is the stuff to go after: OPen a can, and the stuff blows like fine dust.

Posted by Ptah 2002-12-13 13:44:16|| 2002-12-13 13:44:16|| Front Page Top

#2 True Ptah, but given enough time, it'd be nice to store the ore they have with the prisoners - I'd bet they'd sing like canaries ~~in a coal mine~~ after a while

Posted by Frank G 2002-12-13 18:55:11|| 2002-12-13 18:55:11|| Front Page Top

#3 Quite true, Frank. If they think it's the real bad stuff...

Posted by Ptah 2002-12-13 21:13:48|| 2002-12-13 21:13:48|| Front Page Top

#4 U-235 has a half-life of 700 million years and thus hardly qualifies as "highly radioactive". It's primary decay is through alpha particle emissions; alpha particles (helium nuclei) can usually be stopped by a sheet of notebook paper. Also, given the expense of enriching it, only a damn fool would use U-235 for the much-discussed and highly overrated dirty bomb. Dirty bombs are much more likely to made of something like Cobalt-60, which has a half-life of 5.2 years and is noted for its energetic gamma emissions. Co-60 is what is typically used in sterilizing equipment.

Posted by Dreadnought 2002-12-13 21:42:52|| 2002-12-13 21:42:52|| Front Page Top

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