Missing radioactive material found dumped in south Iraq

[Lodestar]

Source: Reuters

A "highly dangerous" radioactive material that went missing in Iraq has been found dumped near a petrol station in the southern town of Zubair, environment ministry spokesman Ameer Ali said on Sunday.

Ali said it had not been damaged and there were no concerns about radiation from the material, the loss of which raised concerns it could be used as a weapon if acquired by Islamic State militants.

Reuters reported last week the material had been stolen in November from a storage facility belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford near the southern city of Basra.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-radioactive-idUSKCN0VU0JY

[Helen Borg]

1. Were there skeletons nearby?

You know, the dumb guys who stole it?

[FailureToCommunicate]

2. Whew. The device is used to test pipeline flaws...

"The material, which uses gamma rays to test flaws in materials used for oil and gas pipelines in a process called industrial gamma radiography, is owned by Istanbul-based SGS Turkey, according to the document and officials."

[DhhD]

3. Gamma Radiation is electromagnetic radiation-light, faster than the visible light range of colors.

Cold gamma radiation is also used to sterilize objects.
http://www.sterigenics.com/Sterilization_Technologies/Gamma_Irradiation.php

[daleo]

4. Not actually faster

Shorter wavelength, thus much higher energy. All electromagnetic radiation travels at the same speed in a vacuum.

[NNadir]

5. This is pretty typical of reporting when the word "radioactive" is used.

Immediately it jumps to terrorism.

This a portable radiation source. It's not going to make much of a terrorist weapon.

We've had access in this world to highly radioactive materials for more than half a century. Other than that Russian spy who Putin killed, exactly how many nuclear terrorist events actually taken place?

If one can identify any, how do they compare to oil terrorism at the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City?

One of the problems we face in the world is that many people who majored in journalism never bothered to take a science course.

[trillion]

6. Yep, the RW Iraq war supporters are going to use this as WMD proof for the rest of their

lives. Wonder what the left wing ones will do. Someone should ask Hillary. Oh wait, she flip flopped when she had to run as a progressive and now her newly found progressive campaign would start talking about all those women and children who got killed and how she wouldn't let that happen and she'll stop people who cause that.

[NNadir]

7. Um...this is not really about Bernie vs. Hillary, but since you've chosen to make it so...

...let me offer my opinion that it's disturbing how many people jump on anything and everything to attack the former Senator and Secretary of State.

She's hardly perfect, but as one of her supporters, I now feel the need to say this:

From my perspective Bernie Sanders is completely illiterate when it comes to nuclear issues. In his state, they shut their nuclear plant because a bunch of totally scientific illiterates made a hullaballo about a few tritium atoms. The result is that even though Vermont had a record for several decades of not dumping a single atom of carbon dioxide into the planetary atmosphere, it now dumps lots of it into the planetary atmosphere. The state now features greasy trucks clearing mountain top forests to make access roads for the installation of greasy wind turbines that will be lucky to last 20 years before coming landfill bait.

This means the state of Vermont is now dependent on fracking. Here's a link to an article from the primary scientific literature addressing the science to determine what fracking does with respect to radiation: Matrix Complications in the Determination of Radium Levels in Hydraulic Fracturing Flowback Water from Marcellus Shale (Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett., 2014, 1 (3), pp 204–208).

Here's some text from that paper:

For example, concentrations of ²²⁶Ra and ²²⁸Ra in FBW from the Marcellus Shale formation in the United States (underlying New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio) have been reported in peer-reviewed studies to be as high as 626 and 96 Bq/L, respectively.4 Although these levels are not sufficient to cause acute radiotoxicity, the large volumes and high ionic strength of FBW can overwhelm wastewater treatment facilities,6 giving rise to radioactive contamination downstream of wastewater treatment plant discharges. For example, a recent peer-reviewed report documents ²²⁶Ra contamination of approximately 200 times background in sediments downstream of a wastewater treatment plant in Pennsylvania.7

Nuclear energy saves lives according to a widely read scientific paper by one of the world's most important climate scientists:

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute, 2880 Broadway, New York, New York 10025, United States, (Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895))

If Sanders is elected President - and I will hold my nose and vote for him if he's the nominee, even if he isn't a Democrat - I expect a further outburst of contempt for science, not less.

He is incompetent to address environmental issues, that's very clear. As I recently pointed out in this space, today in fact, the situation is deteriorating faster than ever, and his tiresome rote rhetoric is not working and will not work: It's looking very bad these last few weeks at the Mauna Loa carbon dioxide observatory.

I was against the war in Iraq, and marched in New York during one of the coldest days of the year to try to prevent it, albeit uselessly, and again in April that same year in nicer weather. I was not happy that Ms. Clinton voted for the war, and I'm not happy about a lot of things she's done. But for me, the single most important issue there is is the environment. It trumps everything else, because I know, whether anyone else knows it or not, that air pollution on this planet kills 7 million people per year. This means that every 7 years, 8 years in possible Presidential office time, air pollution kills more people than World War II. This makes Iraq small potatoes.

Any fool who will allow things like this to occur because he can't look at experimental results or doesn't bother to do so, is not worthy to be the President of the United States.

I'm not sure if Ms. Clinton will be great on environmental issues; I expect she won't, but she did have a lot of exposure in the early years of the Obama administration to the fellow who first served as Obama's energy secretary, Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize winning scientist. One Dr. Chu's proudest achievements was getting the first nuclear plant to be started on its build in decades in this country. This plant will save human lives in the future, while experience suggests that Senator Sanders energy history as exposed in the recent past will cost lives, and not just in Vermont. I think Ms. Clinton is smart and has a feature that I think will serve a President well: She's no ideologue, but rather a person with a flexible mind. (She can also take a punch, as attacks on her from the far right and the far left have shown.) I think she will draw the correct conclusions on climate issues, and I have no faith whatsoever that Senator Sanders is equally capable in this regard.

Have a nice evening.

[trillion]

8. First of all, can we agree that you are saying you are against fracking?

Because there is so much wrong with what you posted.

You do understand the the Kochs are the biggest natural gas company and are behind fracking, right?

Wind over nuclear is a big deal. And it only leads to fracking when the Koch's fight wind power(they spend a lot of money fighting it) and sell the state on fracking.

And since Hillary is the biggest seller of fracking in the world, why on earth would you act like Hillary would have a better environmental record if you are AGAINST fracking? Because Hillary has supported fracking and the Key Stone XL it's nearly impossible not to see the Koch industry lobbyists got to her.

I think you need to re-look up what happened to your state and to google hillary and the word fracking.

"One Dr. Chu's proudest achievements was getting the first nuclear plant to be started on its build in decades in this country. "

Okay that it's. You're on your own here. But really when you went for how awful wind turbines are (I'm in a state with lots of them) ya already pretty much showed your agenda.

[NNadir]

9. I am against all fossil fuels. Everyone on the planet is involved.

Last edited Mon Feb 22, 2016, 10:00 AM - Edit history (1)

I don't have little special demons like the Kochs. Of course I despise those assholes, but they wouldn't have any power at all if peopkle didn't buy their products, and people do.

One of the new customers for dangerous natural gas is electricity plants in um, Vermont.

Wind turbines have a extremely low mass to energy ratio, are extremely dependent on mining vast amounts of metals, many of them rare and others toxic. If you're happy with wind turbines, you're part of the problem, which is clear enough, since you['re agenda is also very clear: To me it's disastrous. My agenda is addressing climate change; yours is running with a herd without looking into anything on a deeper level

And...if the general election comes down to Trump v. Sanders, or Cruz v. Sanders, or Rubio v. Sanders, this may prove to be the worst electoral choice in American history since James Buchanan ran against John C. Fremont.

Wind is not, and never will be a competitor of nuclear energy, nor will it ever be as clean as nuclear energy. The capacity factor of wind is very lucky to reach 40%, and much of this capacity is only available when the energy is not required. The capacity factor of nuclear plants in the United States is generally close to 100%.

When the wind doesn't blow, and when the sun doesn't shine, they burn gas. Why does this simple fact seem so mysterious? The world will never stop using gas if it depends on so called "renewable energy" which is, because of the mining requirements and the requirements for increasingly rare materials, not, in fact, really "renewable" at all.

Again, Vermont, when the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant was operating obtained all of its electricity without burning a single molecule of natural gas, whether produced by the Kochs or not. That's no longer true.

[trillion]

10. These energy companies were massivly refusing the wind companies energy in Vermont -I had googled

after your post. You are posting a lot of the anti green rhetoric that has been dispelled. The wind blows one is dispelled because it averages out over time and with batteries the wind charges to use when it's not blowing. that said, I'm on my way to work or would google links for you.

[NNadir]

11. I have spent the last 5 years scanning every issue of the scientific journals...

Last edited Mon Feb 22, 2016, 06:04 PM - Edit history (2)

...Environmental Science and Technology, one of the most important environmental journals in the world, Nature, Nature Climate Change , Industrial Chemical Engineering Research, Energy and Fuels, the new journals ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering and Enviromental Science and Technology Letters, and have accessed thousands of other papers relating to the subject of Energy and Environment, which is, in fact, the most impassioned issue in my life.

I have been appalled for many years on the state of affairs that my generation, the awful clueless Baby Boomer Generation, of which Senator Sanders is definitely a representive member, is leaving for future generations

You may feel entitled to lecture me on what is and what is not "green rhetoric" but I assure you that after several decades of dedicated study of this topic, I am very, very, very, very, very confident that you are out of your league, and are thus addressing the most serious issue before humanity with a healthy dollop of cluelessness.

The mere fact that you mention batteries shows for one thing that you are not a scientist, and have no concept, whatsoever of the second law of thermodynamics and what it means.

It is entirely unsurprising that you are prone to glib statements and simplistic rhetoric of the type that is consistent with the idea that Bernie Sanders has an environmental clue.

By the way, I also did some lazy assed googling today about the Koch brothers, the little bogeymen who you seem to think are solely responsible for climate change, even though the real people responsible are simply the few billion richest people on this planet who refuse to look in the mirror. It appears that Charles Koch has written about how he agrees with Bernie Sanders on some issues:

Charles Koch: This is the one issue where Bernie Sanders is right

The point is not that Koch is being honest or honorable. The point is that it is very easy to talk.

Bernie Sanders, like Koch, sure can talk. The question is can he do? Everything I see and hear about the guy suggests that he doesn't even know the first base questions on what must be done when the environment is concerned.

He's clueless.

I have written at length, including a good deal about ethics and energy, while including significant references to the primary scientific literature, which I suspect you have never accessed, about my moral views on energy and it's distribution.

Current World Energy Demand, Ethical Energy Demand, Depleted Uranium and the Centuries to Come

I suspect you will not access this writing, nor care about the contents therein, but I assure you that my idea in spending the weeks of research that went into preparing it, I was aiming to address the class I suspect you represent, the bourgeois class of people who pretend to care about the environment, so long as they don't have to think too hard about it, or learn anything about it.

We just sank two trillion bucks in the last ten years into wind and solar energy, this on a planet where two billion people lack access to basic sanitation. Combined, those two industries don't produce even 5 of the 560 exajoules of energy humanity generates and consumes each year. The result is that 2015 was a disaster for increases in carbon dioxide, and that coal and gas are the fastest growing sources of energy on the planet.

Thanks for your revealing comment that further reifies my impression of the dire state represented by some partisans in this awful election before us. Bash Ms. Clinton all you want, but I assure you that doing so has no relevance whatsoever to the environmental tragedy before us.

Have a wonderful evening.