Jan

15

NRC Loosens Libya Controls

Posted by at 12:39 pm on January 15, 2007
Category: NRC

General Qaddafi and his new American smoke detectorSix months after the State Department removed Libya from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission got around to changing its regulations to reflect this removal. In a Federal Register notice issued Friday the NRC amended its rules and changed Libya’s status from an “embargoed country” under 10 C.F.R. § 110.28 to a “restricted country” under 10 C.F.R. § 110.29.

The effect of that designation is that certain nuclear materials for which general export licenses are available under NRC rules may now be used to export those materials to Libya. For example, small quantities of americium-241 may now be exported to Libya under the general license provided in § 110.23.

Although exporting americium-241 sounds rather sinister, you should realize that small amounts of americium-241 are used in certain industrial applications such as equipment used to measure the rate of production of oil wells. Tiny amounts (less than 37 kBq) of americium-241 are also used in the ionization chambers of many residential and commercial smoke detectors. Ionization smoke detectors are, in fact, the principal use of americium-241.

People in Tripoli, however, shouldn’t expect to be getting American smoke detectors anytime soon. Under § 110.23 americium-241 can be exported under the general license to restricted countries such as Libya only when “contained in industrial process control equipment or petroleum exploration equipment.” I suppose we are still concerned that Qaddafi might dismantle a hundred million or so smoke detectors, extract the americium-241 and make a dirty bomb or two.

I suppose I should acknowledge that a terrorist cell that couldn’t shoot straight did try to make a dirty bomb from smoke detectors. A recently declassified intelligence report to Congress contained this statement:

British authorities announced the August 2004 arrest of members of an Islamic terrorist cell in the UK that may have attempted to produce an RDD [radiation dispersal device] using a radioactive isotope of americium taken from smoke detectors. The knowledge base and competence of this cell was low.

Uh, yeah. Do the math on how many smoke detectors it would take, at 37 kBq of americium-241 per smoke detector, to make a useful dirty bomb and saying that the competence of this cell was low is an understatement.

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Copyright © 2007 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
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One Comment:

[…] In an earlier post about Nuclear Regulatory Commission controls on the export of americium-241, the isotope used in smoke alarms, we discussed a group of competency-challenged terrorists who were planning on building a dirty bomb from smoke alarms. In an excellent article in this week’s New Yorker, Stephen Coll provides more details on the not-so-alarming plot: Charles Ferguson. . ., a former nuclear submarine officer trained in physics, . . . co-wrote an unclassified report titled “Commercial Radioactive Sources: Surveying the Security Risks.” About two years later, F.B.I. agents . . . asked to meet with him. They brought a document showing that some of his report had been downloaded onto the computer of a British citizen named Dhiren Barot, a Hindu who had converted to Islam. Barot, it turned out, had been communicating with Al Qaeda about a plan to detonate a dirty bomb in Britain, and he had used a highlighting pen on a printout of Ferguson’s study while conducting his research. […]

Comment by ExportLawBlog » How Not to Make a Dirty Bomb on March 9th, 2007 @ 9:13 am