Nov 29 2006
Polonium 210 for $70 Plus Shipping & Handling
Only in the US could one buy non-traceable, ‘no questions asked’ Polonium 210 over thi internet and shipped to the location of your choice in the US (where it can be then transported anywhere). I kid you not. It is the ‘no questions asked’ part that gets me.
I hope this is either a spoof or an intelligence agency sting operation.
Actually, we calculated this out on JOM–and it’s hard to see how one could obtain a lethal dose this way and, in any event it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for each lethal dose.
A proliferation primer; nuclear proliferation Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists June, 1993
June, 1993
Albright, David
“Many of these activities would be difficult or impossible to detect outside the program. But two indicators of a weaponization program are extensive high-explosive testing and the production or evidence of neutron initiator materials such as polonium 210 or tritium. Export monitoring might reveal a secret program if it showed that a country was trying to acquire special testing and diagnostic equipment, certain types of machining and inspection equipment, and high-speed electronic components.”
Iran accused of lying over secret nuclear research The Times (London) February 25, 2004, Wednesday
The Times (London)
February 25, 2004, Wednesday
SECTION: Overseas news; 20
LENGTH: 626 words
HEADLINE: Iran accused of lying over secret nuclear research
BYLINE: Michael Evans, Defence Editor
“In September last year, IAEA inspectors became aware that undeclared uranium irradiation had taken place and noticed from available records that bismuth, a naturally radioactive metallic element, had been irradiated. Although bismuth is not nuclear material, its irradiation produces polonium-210, an intensely radioactive alpha-emitting radio- isotope that could be used in designs of nuclear weapons.”
Iran’s nuclear weapons plan divulged The Irish Times February 4, 2005
The Irish Times
February 4, 2005
SECTION: World; Other World Stories; Pg. 13
LENGTH: 779 words
HEADLINE: Iran’s nuclear weapons plan divulged
BYLINE: Lara Marlowe in Paris
“Their main problem is getting enough enriched uranium,” Mr Mohaddessin explained yesterday. Tehran needs three things to produce nuclear weapons: nuclear explosives, launching systems and a neutron detonator to trigger a fission chain-reaction.
In London in December, the NCRI claimed that Tehran has a top-secret Ghadr missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Yesterday, it said that the Islamic Republic has tested neutron detonators in laboratory conditions and will soon be able to produce about one dozen industrially.
Mr Mohaddessin said the regime has transformed bismuth metal into polonium-210 by irradiating it. Polonium-210, when combined with a toxic metal called beryllium, creates a neutron detonator for nuclear bombs.
Tehran has imported small amounts of beryllium from Britain, which was reported to the IAEA, Mr Mohaddessin said. But the Foreign Purchase Directorate of the Ministry of Defence, headed by Brig Gen Mahmoud Tourani, last year imported about 20 kg of beryllium from another country, and hid that transaction from the IAEA.
SBD
Its also comforting to know the guy who runs the company selling the stuff is Bob Lazar the guy who talked about working with UFOs at Area 51.
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003017.html
United Nuclear is run by Bob Lazar, who, some 20 years ago, claimed to have worked on alien spaceships on a secret military base in Nevada… [That’d be Area 51 –ed.]
OK add Iran to the perp list – might as well throw in China and N. Korea too
What if the polonium-210 was actually traveling in the other direction? Rather than coming from Russia, it was being sent to Chechynia along with beryllium to create a neutron detonator for nuclear bomb so it could be detonated.
SBD
SOVIETS LEFT 20 NUCLEAR WARHEADS OFF NAPLES’ The Independent March 19, 2005
Global News Wire – Europe Intelligence Wire
The Independent
March 19, 2005
LENGTH: 421 words
HEADLINE: SOVIETS LEFT 20 NUCLEAR WARHEADS OFF NAPLES’
BYLINE: Peter Popham in Rome
BODY:
ITALY HAS an unwanted legacy from the Cold War in the form of 20 nuclear warheads on the seabed in the Bay of Naples, left there by the Soviet navy 25 years ago, it has been claimed.
A specialist on Soviet-era intelligence, Mario Scaramella, has sent a memo confirming the existence of the missiles to Guido Bertolaso, the head of Protezione Civile, Italy’s civil defence agency.
“On 10 January 1970,” the memo reads, “a submarine of the November class detached itself from the Fifth Squadron (Mediterranean) of the Soviet navy with orders … to place an imprecise number of tactical atomic torpedoes in the Bay of Naples. The submarine was armed with 24 nuclear torpedoes of two different types, for anti-aircraft carrier and anti-submarine use. They were used to mine the area used by the American Seventh Fleet.”
The Bay of Naples, with the volcanic cone of Mt Vesuvius in the background, is one of the most famous beauty spots in Italy, as well as a busy commercial harbour. The city of Naples which wraps round the bay is the headquarters of Nato command for southern Europe. The whole region is also one of the most seismically active in Europe.
According to Mr Scaramella, the Soviet submarine in question sank months afterwards with only four nuclear torpedoes on board, leading analysts to conclude that it had laid 20 torpedoes on the sea floor.
A naval specialist, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was highly unlikely that the torpedoes would explode. “It’s much harder to make a nuclear weapon explode than a conventional one,” he said. “Every single element has to perform perfectly. But the torpedoes would be a potential source of contamination. And the longer they stay on the sea bed, the greater the corrosion and the higher the risk they represent.”
Mr Scaramella said that rumours of nuclear minefields on the seabed had been reported in 2001 in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s “Tecdoc-1242: Inventory of accidents and losses at sea involving radioactive materials”.
“The document includes the marginal note not confirmed’,” he added, “to indicate that the Soviet Union had not been able officially to confirm the episode. But it was not denied.”
Mr Scaramella told The Independent yesterday that in 2004 the placing of the torpedoes had finally been confirmed by former Soviet officials.
Mr Bertolaso told the news weekly L’Espresso: “I have been assured by the armed forces that they are studying the matter. They said they have known of it for a long time but have lacked confirmation.”
LOAD-DATE: March 19, 2005
SBD
BINGO, SBD. Almost. I don’t believe any beryllium would have been sent, only polonium. I believe the source is Iran or Pakistan and the path is via Russia.
And it took a detour from Moscow to London? Pshaw!
The sources referenced in the very misleading article, are very low activity check sources. Amounts of radioactive material in such sources are so low, that they are not regulated by the NRC.
Check this link.
http://www.unitednuclear.com/isotopes.htm