tres-b Posted November 2 Report Share Posted November 2 This is scary stuff, no matter who you are voting for....MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian atomic scientist surrendered eight containers filled with arms-grade nuclear material to police Tuesday after keeping it in his garage for eight years, Russian media reported.Leonid Grigorov found the 14 ounces of plutonium-238 in a heap of rubbish at his laboratory near Russia's border with Kazakhstan, Itar-Tass news agency said.Interfax news agency said the lab, looted after the Soviet collapse in 1991, was eventually closed and deserted.Grigorov decided to hide the material, which could theoretically be used to make a "dirty bomb," in a box and only handed it in to local police after a newspaper offered a reward to anyone who surrendered weapons."As an expert, I knew that I had to (hide it) to avoid tragic consequences," Grigorov was quoted as saying.Russia, with its huge nuclear arsenal, is under pressure to prevent dangerous atomic material from falling into the hands of extremists after the Soviet collapse left many nuclear facilities under-protected.There is also speculation that individual nuclear scientists, underpaid since the Soviet collapse, may be secretly transferring sensitive technology to what Washington calls "rogue" states for cash. Russia denies such activity.In a separate incident, 97 pounds of radioactive scrap metal was discovered in Chelaybinsk, Tass reported Tuesday.The region is heavily polluted with radioactive material from its nuclear reactor and plants producing plutonium for atomic bombs. The local Mayak nuclear complex dumped 2.68 billion cubic feet of highly radioactive waste into a river between 1949 and 1956 and suffered an explosion in 1957, showering radiation over the southern Urals mountain region.Tass said the discovery was the second such find in a week, although it did not say how big the earlier find was.Experts said Grigorov's plutonium-238 is normally used to generate heat but, if mixed with other materials, could be used in a nuclear explosive device. It is much more radioactive than plutonium-239, a radio-isotope normally used in atomic bombs.Security at hundreds of Russian nuclear sites became a big issue for the West after this year's discovery of a global nuclear black market run by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that supplied technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tres-b Posted November 2 Author Report Share Posted November 2 Is this scary to you b/c it scared the hell out of me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vicman Posted November 2 Report Share Posted November 2 how the fuck did this guy keep all that shit in his garage? wtf! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tres-b Posted November 2 Author Report Share Posted November 2 how the fuck did this guy keep all that shit in his garage? wtf!That was one of the many questions that I came up with. Incredible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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