Dirty bomb ingredients go missing from Chornobyl monitoring lab | Hacker News Reader

Dirty bomb ingredients go missing from Chornobyl monitoring lab

science.org

33 pointssohkamyung9 comments

"Nosovskyi has lost contact with the lab, he says, so “the fate of these sources is unknown to us.”

Missing is hyperbolic headline writing. What's happened is the site had gone off-line to international review. Has anything "gone missing" or not? We don't know.

Nobody thinks Russia is short of neutrons. These things are valuable to the oil industry and manufacturing. Sure, They can make dirty bombs but they can make money too.

Do people realise insecticide factories can make CBW? Do people reaize ammonia factories can make explosives? Sure! Or, they can sell ammonia fertiliser for desperately needed foreign currency.

As the very fine article (/s) does point out, almost any FSU economy has disastrously bad chain of custody over radiological materials.

Look, I'm scared too. Can we stop with hyperbole and stick to facts please. The international atomic regulatory body is concerned its not allowed to talk openly to people in Chernobyl and cannot formally account for a lot of radioactive materials in wartime. That's the story. Not "dirty bombs". Dirty bombs is a risk, sure.

I agree with most of what you wrote here, but the article discusses two separate labs, one of which was looted and is now missing some radioactive material.

There’s not much detail as to specific materials and quantities, and it seems like the other lab that’s no longer being monitored has more dangerous materials. But still, they are saying that the looted material could be used to build a dirty bomb, so it’s not clear to me that the headline is just pure hyperbole. My guess is the calibration standards and waste that is mentioned as missing are not enough to make a meaningfully dirty bomb, but I don’t really know

Another possibility is that the russians have taken radio-active material out of a war zone, which in this case would be the responsible thing to do. Or could be a clueless solider who stole it. God knows.

Anyone sane can logically calculate that Russian does not have any needs to loot dirty bomb materials. They have plenty enough themselves or capability to manufacture any amount more they need.

Do dirty bombs have a fingerprint that could be traced to a Ukraine source?

Yeah, absolutely. The radioactive signature is highly traceable. IIRC, they were able to pinpoint the source of the polonium that Russia used to murder Alexander Litvinenko in the UK.

Unless they need the world to see that the radioactive stuff came from Ukraine.

Like if the world wasn't aware Chernobyl is under Russian control?

If Russia is responsible for the missing materials it could easily be part of a propaganda campaign. This specific scenario has been discussed a lot in the last few weeks

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