Source: Stolen cobalt-60 found in Mexico; curious thieves likely doomed - The Washington Post Works for me. Bob Wilson
60Co decays into 60Ni. That big NIMH battery in your car is 1/4 60Ni. A bit of a stretch but this is almost maybe sorta Prius linked. Meanwhile, yeah sure we expect the perpetrators to have overdosed on gamma. But if Lucha Libre turns up a new wrestler called "El Cobalto", don't bet against him...
There should have been tighter controls on this radioactive material; it is a good thing it did not fall into wrong hands!! ( DIRTY BOMB ) Nobody needs another 9 - 11 ?
The two thugs, that beat the driver and his companion that were delivering the radioactive materials to a secure facility, will likely die soon in a slow and painful way that radiation poisoning has been proved to do, without any real hope for their survival, because of the dose they no doubt received after they opened up the protective container. Personally... I say good. Two less mexican thugs now to attack others that were just trying to do their job.
Concur....but my CinC's team has more than enough on their plate (!!) as it is now, without adding Presidente Nieto's pile to the list. Besides....from what I've been 'splainiated Cobalt-60 is a poor candidate for that use, and as the 2 cretins that lifted it are now fully aware, it's a little dangerous to work with. Let Mexico deal with it. The US hasn't impressed me lately with its ability or efficiency in dealing with ferin affairs.
There have been a number of 60C 'misplacements', some of which got all the way into recycled steel. I don't know if the post-medical handling is more lax than other radioisotope users but it begins to look that way. Reading up on 60Co I find that it is the isotope of choice to make a dirty radiological bomb, whether 'disassembly' is by fission or plain old high explosive. Also, it can be made in any old nuclear power reactor (like boiling-water) you just but in a few rods made out of copper instead of 5% 235U fuel. I find that to be the worrying part. Anybody with a reactor can do it. And no, I am not revealing anything here that bad guys don't already know. But it makes me wonder whether 'reactors for everybody' is the ideal solution for future energy needs.
There's a great Film Noir movie from the early 1950s, Kiss Me Deadly, in which the Macguffin is a box full of radioactive material. Careful how you open it! Skip in to 1:36:20 and start watching there.
...yes...remember that recent PBS show about Trash disposal? The guys from MIT were putting GPS in the trash so they could see where the heck the trash was going...although the MIT guys could have just given me a call.. I would have told them about the Trash Train that brings NYC trash down to my back-yard.
The specifics on the reactor come into play here. The modular 'micro' reactors are sealed up after the fuel is installed and never opened again.
