Cobalt 60 Production Without Accelerator - Terrorist Threat?

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--A friend of mine gave me an audio version of "The Making Of The Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. I was surprised to learn that, apparently, Cobalt 60 can be produced without recourse to a linear accelerator (which is the way it is usually produced). See below link for a look at page 238 discussing this.

http://books.google.com/books?id=aSgFMMNQ6G4C&pg=PA238&lpg=PA238&dq=break+up+beryllium+with+hard+x-rays&source=bl&ots=Jw3nERXK02&sig=l-Dt_7mkykGNpWMZ2YapSu6EV4Q&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3ob5TuSUF82ItwfDsrCSBQ&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=break%20up%20beryllium%20with%20hard%20x-rays&f=false

--From what I can make out from the sketchy amount of information available, Cobalt 60 can be produced by knocking one or more protons out of a nucleus of a higher number, using hard X-Rays produced by something called a "Surge Generator" which uses a "Capacitive Discharge Tube".

--Do we need to worry that some terrorist organization could produce the makings of a "Dirty Bomb" using this obsolete technology, or is the physical plant so large and expensive as to make it highly impractical? Maybe it would be easier for them to just steel the nugget from a radiation therapy machine or an irradiation sterilizer. I know one of these machines was discarded in a dump in Brazil not too long ago, and there were casualties, including deaths from unknowing people playing with the glowing ball.

--I do not mean to depress or frighten anyone, but I am not at all sure we can depend on our governments to think of everything. Your comments are humbly solicited.

--I highly recommend "The Making Of The Atomic Bomb". It gives a very detailed and interesting history of Nuclear Physics as well as fascinating side lights; like how the production of acetone for the manufacture of the explosive Cordite managed to propitiate the Balfour Declaration.  Read some of the sample from the link above, you will see, it is a fascinating book for the scientific or engineering minded person.

"We turned the switch, saw the flashes, watched for ten minutes, then switched everything off and went home. That night I knew the world was headed for sorrow."
Leo Szilard 1898 - 1964

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[EEVblog]

--I highly recommend "The Making Of The Atomic Bomb". It gives a very detailed and interesting history of Nuclear Physics as well as fascinating side lights; like how the production of acetone for the manufacture of the explosive Cordite managed to propitiate the Balfour Declaration.  Read some of the sample from the link above, you will see, it is a fascinating book for the scientific or engineering minded person.

I'm a big fan of Richard Rhodes, currently reading his latest in the saga, The Twilight of the Bombs.
Other excellent ones in the series are Arsenals of Folly, and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb.
He won the pulitzer prize for The Making Of The Atomic Bomb.

Also, the new doco Countdown to Zero is a must watch.
http://www.takepart.com/zero

Dave.

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--I look forward to seeing the the new documentary "Countdown To Zero", as recommended by our gracious host. Now that the the "Nuclear Freeze" movement is not receiving millions of dollars (possibly from the KGB), in order to leave Europe vulnerable to nuclear blackmail, I find nuclear disarmament to be a more palatable subject.

--Certainly, in many cases nuclear weapons prove to be to big of a hammer, and are a security problem. Whether we can ever successfully let go of the dragon's tail remains to be seen. But the sooner we get rid of them, the sooner the Antiwar folks can start working their way down to outlawing the Bow and Arrow.

--I will wait and see "Countdown To Zero" before making a pronouncement, but, inasmuch as the producer was "Lawrence Bender", who also produced "An Inconvenient Truth", which was replete with over-simplifications, misstatements, and outright attempts to deceive, I am not sanguine with regard to its prospects. I would expect intellectual honesty from Mr. Bender about as much as I would expect Richard Dawkins to start smart-mouthing Muslims in addition to Christians.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"
Carl Sagan 1934-1996

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[AntiProtonBoy]

--From what I can make out from the sketchy amount of information available, Cobalt 60 can be produced by knocking one or more protons out of a nucleus of a higher number, using hard X-Rays produced by something called a "Surge Generator" which uses a "Capacitive Discharge Tube".

Interesting. Obviously I'm not an expert in this field, but I'd imagine the technique would be a highly inefficient process? To harvest sufficient number of isotopes, the energy costs could be huge, not to mention the complexity of the purification process. I mean X-Ray sources are horribly inefficient to begin with, and the % of energy utilised for isotopes production would be a small fraction. I'd love to see some figures illustrating how feasible the technique is.

[Time]

A surge generator is just a power supply that produces high current pulses (pulsed power supply).  A capacitive discharge tube is essentially just a thyratron.

You use the surge generator to create a large pulse of high energy electrons and slam these into a dense target.  When the electrons experience heavy deceleration due to their collisonality in the dense target they produce a spectra in the X-ray range.  This is called bremsstrahlung radiation.  It is not a novel method for producing X-rays nor is it obsolete.

[westfw]

I'm pretty sure that making dangerous amounts of radioactive substances requires remarkable amounts of energy.  Particle accelerators aren't that difficult a project either; Scientific American has published accounts of amateurs building them back in the 60s and 70s.  Capable of generating neutrons, and thus all manner of interesting isotopes.  Theoretically.  I think would-be terrorists would be better off refining naturally available radioactive minerals.

Of course, sub-dangerous amounts may still be useful as terror weapons.  Total XXX killed by car bombs is less than total XXX killed by cars "accidentally" (at least in the US, and I suspect for nearly any country.)

[wkb]

I'm pretty sure that making dangerous amounts of radioactive substances requires remarkable amounts of energy.  Particle accelerators aren't that difficult a project either; Scientific American has published accounts of amateurs building them back in the 60s and 70s.  Capable of generating neutrons, and thus all manner of interesting isotopes.  Theoretically.  I think would-be terrorists would be better off refining naturally available radioactive minerals.

Or, alternatively, raid your local cancer treatment or (food/medical tools etc) sterilisation facility.  Co-60 is used in both.  OK, your life expectancy after removing said Co-60 from its container or water pool is drastically reduced but this hardly will deter these idiots / terrorists...

And: radioactive materials are not always treated with sense after (say) a radiotherapeutic facility shuts down.  Just Google a bit for plenty of horror stories. It is not just for fun that most major steel scrap yards have Geiger counters in their 'incoming material' process.

The more you know about this the more you go scratch your head..

[G7PSK]

I think that the power required to produce cobalt 60 via this rout would soon come to the attention of the authorities,apart from anything else the power lines would show up from space. It is also possible to make uranium 233 from thorium (this was used in one of the first atomic bombs) by bombarding it with neutrons In theory one could make all that was needed from old crt's but it would be a very large project indeed.

[Time]

Cheap 5 dollar ionizing smoke detectors contain Am-241.

[G7PSK]

Anothe good book on the history of the atom bomb is, Men and Atoms by William L. Laurence. He was the science writer for the New York Times at the start of the war, He was recruted as the official historian of the Manhattan project in order to shut him up as much as anything else for the duration of the war as he knew to much and kept publishing stories. He also put to much into his book which is why at one point the AEC tried to gather up all the copies. He also talks about the Hydrogen bomb as well mentioning the requirement of Lithium 6 which is the light isotope of Lithium the rest mostly being Lithium7. The Hydrogen for fusion comes from the breakdow of Lithium deutride or tritide (lithium and Deuterium or Tritium) Lithium1, deuterium2 or Lithium1 Tritium2. I guess that having made your atom bomb it is fairly easy to turn it into a Hydrogen bomb, the atom bomb is required as a trigger.

[wkb]

Anothe good book on the history of the atom bomb is, Men and Atoms by William L. Laurence. He was the science writer for the New York Times at the start of the war, He was recruted as the official historian of the Manhattan project in order to shut him up as much as anything else for the duration of the war as he knew to much and kept publishing stories. He also put to much into his book which is why at one point the AEC tried to gather up all the copies. He also talks about the Hydrogen bomb as well mentioning the requirement of Lithium 6 which is the light isotope of Lithium the rest mostly being Lithium7. The Hydrogen for fusion comes from the breakdow of Lithium deutride or tritide (lithium and Deuterium or Tritium) Lithium1, deuterium2 or Lithium1 Tritium2. I guess that having made your atom bomb it is fairly easy to turn it into a Hydrogen bomb, the atom bomb is required as a trigger.

   It is apparantly easier to create a yield-enhanced fission bomb using a deuterium/tritium mixture than it is to create a full-blown thermonuclear device.

Anyway, I better stick to simple electronics