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Radioactive Material Stolen In Iraq Raises Security Fears (reuters.com)
mdsolar writes with a link to a Reuters report that begins: Iraq is searching for 'highly dangerous' radioactive material stolen last year, according to an environment ministry document and seven security, environmental and provincial officials who fear it could be used as a weapon if acquired by Islamic State. The material, stored in a protective case the size of a laptop computer, went missing in November from a storage facility near the southern city of Basra belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford WFT.N, the document seen by Reuters showed and officials confirmed. A spokesman for Iraq's environment ministry said he could not discuss the issue, citing national security concerns.
They're typically used in wireline logging (real-time collection of down-well data, used for measuring the mineral content of strata being drilled through - this is how they're able to tell there are hydrocarbons present). They also use them to measure flow rate.
This Wikipedia article is reasonably good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"As of 2003 the isotopes Antimony-124, argon-41, cobalt-60, iodine-131, iridium-192, lanthanum-140, manganese-56, scandium-46, sodium-24, silver-110m, technetium-99m, and xenon-133 were most commonly used by the oil and gas industry because they are easily identified and measured.[3][5] Bromine-82, Carbon-14, hydrogen-3, iodine-125 are also used.[3][4]"
He's Jesus, for Christ's sake.
It's half life is approx 73 days so it should be 1/2 gone by now. It's a beta & gamma emitter so good for a dirty bomb as you really don't want to inhale/ingest those beta particles.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
It has a half life of 73.8 days (Ir-192). So already it is half as radioactive as it used to be. While it would take a long time (4 years) for the sample to fully decay, the exponential nature of radioactive decay means that most of those 4 years are spent going from a very small amount of radioactivity to zero radioactivity thanks to diminishing returns. Also if you bear in mind that with a bomb you would be spreading this material over a very large area (because terrorists like to think big, so they would probably go for as spectacular an explosion as they could manage), a depleted sample would not provide much more than background radiation after a few half-lives. If you're going to build an effective dirty bomb you really want to steal something with a much longer half-life.
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The actual seed source is about as big as a pencil eraser, maybe a little smaller. Thus, it would be hard to repurpose as a dirty bomb - it's a lump and all it would do is fly somewhere else in an explosion.
Radioactive sources are lost all the time. This website from the NRC keeps a log of all lost sources. While losing a source like this in Iraq is unfortunate, it's not uncommon.
"Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound