42
5 How Radiological Weapons Work
Fig. 5.1 Radiation-emitting device example. From US Health and Human Services (https://www.
remm.nlm.gov/red.htm)
Another approach to an RED became known to the public in 2016, when the
American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested mechanic Glendon Scott
Crawford; Crawford was attempting to sell a “death ray” device that would be used to
mow down Muslim on-lookers as a truck or van carrying the device drove past [21].
While the engineering and design details of the device Crawford was attempting to
build have not been released to the public, it must be noted that here, too, it would
be necessary to generate a beam of sufficiently high dose rate to produce a lethal
dose of radiation in a short period of time, and that the inverse square law applies to
this device as well. To produce a radiation exposure of 5 Gy (500 rad) in 5 s would
require a dose rate of 1 Gy/s, or 3600 Gy/hr in the beam, and would require that a
person remain in the beam at a distance of 1 m for 5 s. It is also worth noting that
high dose rate x-ray beams are typically produced by linear accelerators that require
several kilowatts of energy; such devices are large and they require a large power
supply in order to produce dangerous radiation dose rates at any distance greater than
a few meters. While such a device is not impossible, the logistics of its use suggest
that this, too, is not an effective way to produce massive numbers of deaths from
radiation exposure—especially not for a device mounted on a moving vehicle.
5.2.2 Radiological Dispersal Device
In the last section we saw what a radioactive source can do if it is used to cause
the highest radiation dose possible; we should also explore the other extreme—what
happens when the radioactivity is spread far and wide to contaminate the largest
area possible. This would be accomplished by use of a radiological dispersal device
5 How Radiological Weapons Work
Fig. 5.1 Radiation-emitting device example. From US Health and Human Services (https://www.
remm.nlm.gov/red.htm)
Another approach to an RED became known to the public in 2016, when the
American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested mechanic Glendon Scott
Crawford; Crawford was attempting to sell a “death ray” device that would be used to
mow down Muslim on-lookers as a truck or van carrying the device drove past [21].
While the engineering and design details of the device Crawford was attempting to
build have not been released to the public, it must be noted that here, too, it would
be necessary to generate a beam of sufficiently high dose rate to produce a lethal
dose of radiation in a short period of time, and that the inverse square law applies to
this device as well. To produce a radiation exposure of 5 Gy (500 rad) in 5 s would
require a dose rate of 1 Gy/s, or 3600 Gy/hr in the beam, and would require that a
person remain in the beam at a distance of 1 m for 5 s. It is also worth noting that
high dose rate x-ray beams are typically produced by linear accelerators that require
several kilowatts of energy; such devices are large and they require a large power
supply in order to produce dangerous radiation dose rates at any distance greater than
a few meters. While such a device is not impossible, the logistics of its use suggest
that this, too, is not an effective way to produce massive numbers of deaths from
radiation exposure—especially not for a device mounted on a moving vehicle.
5.2.2 Radiological Dispersal Device
In the last section we saw what a radioactive source can do if it is used to cause
the highest radiation dose possible; we should also explore the other extreme—what
happens when the radioactivity is spread far and wide to contaminate the largest
area possible. This would be accomplished by use of a radiological dispersal device