God of Sarcasm zaps Cleophus with lightning bolt
Waht was the name of the kid whp scavanged radioactive material from smoke detectors, watches, etc…they came to his house in special suits to remove it. ANyone know a cite?
Try this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=74933
Does too. Just not very much of it.
Oh, I just carry it. 
So check out these websites and see if your backyard is listed under “Uranium ore deposits–United States”.
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/branner/information/ore.html
http://minerals.usgs.gov/product.html
Me, I have a life. 
And here I go, getting on with it…
There is a brand of pottery called Bybee. Up until the forties, there was a line of glazes used that was a caramel color, and was HEAVY in naturally occuring uranium, dug out of a hill in central Kentucky. About a year before the start of the war, the U.S. Government came and mined all there was.
These pieces set off a Geiger counter like mad, and my father owns quite a few (stored on a HIGH shelf).
O
… actually, don’t smoke detectors have a small amount of Uranium 235? If so, I guess you can go down to the Home Depot and pick some up.
Muad’Dib
Whassamatta, family atomics in hock?
-Rav
-[sub]Baron Harkonnen was my role model…[/sub]
For current bulk prices, try here:
http://www.uxc.com/top_review.html
You will need a licence for transport, handling and storage of radioactive material. Not sure how hard they are to get hold of - universities, labs, hospitals, non-destructive testing plants and smoke-detector factories have them. With a bit of determination, I’m sure you can get hold of 20lbs quite legally. Hell, they used to make watches and bookends out of the stuff. What you’re going to do with it is another matter. It’d be quite useful for propping doors open, I suppose.
If you found a nice rich vein of uranium ore in your backyard, by all means dig it up and put it in your basement. If you have the money, acquire the permits and licences and set up a processing plant to produce yellowcake uranium. The EPA, DOT and other regulatory bodies are going to be far more interested than the FBI.
To get up to any serious mischief with your uranium, you’re going to need an enormous separation plant to extract the fissile isotopes, and you need a lot more than 20lbs of weapons-grade uranium to make a decent bomb. Or you could go the other way and set up a reactor to make plutonium - a carefully designed reactor can run on non-enriched uranium. Extracting the plutonium from your radioactive-as-hell fission waste is a bit of a problem, and then you are limited to the technologically-challenging implosion-triggered bomb. Good luck!
Twenty pounds of thallium, now, that’s something I hope you don’t get your hands on…
Why?
Religious purposes…
crickets
…what?
…nobody saw “Bowfinger”?
Last time I checked, they used Polonium.
[B}Muad’Dib**: “Why?”
It’s quite poisonous, is all. Maybe I should have said “twenty pounds of arsenic.”
“Ah just like to feel the power between my legs.”
-Billy “Sackless” Bob
Derleth, Baron of Fake References
Ummm. This is largely wrong.
Gamma radiation (very short-wave electromagnetic radiation) will not induce radioactivity (activate materials). Neutrons will activate materials, but a lump of unenriched uranium will emit neutrons only from the occasional spontaneours fission of a [sup]235[/sup]U nucleus. Common uranium isotopes are otherwise alpha-emitters; that cardboard box will indeed block them.
[sup]238[/sup]U has a half-life of about 4.4x10[sup]9[/sup] years. [sup]235[/sup]U has a half-life of 7x10[sup]8[/sup] years. Although sleeping on a slab is not a good idea, refined uranium is often used as a radiation shiield due to its density.
Uranium is a chemical poison, as is any heavy metal. ISTR that the biological half-life is about 20-50 years, depending on what tissues it’s deposited in. MSDS state that the principal radiation hazard is from inhaled particles in the lungs, whilst the principal chemical hazard is to the kidneys from soluble uranium compounds. A five-year exposure to uranium at 5 mg/m[sup]3[/sup] did not result in perceptible kidney damage; however, a concentration of not more than 2 mg/m[sup]3[/sup] is recommended.
You might have to check again next time. Because every single source I can find for home smoke detectors uses Americium 241. It is also an interesting nonsequiter to note that in my searches I came across a couple sites that listed tobacco leaves as a source of Polonium. :eek:
Just checked my smoke detector. Would you believe, Americium? :eek:
Woops, I guess you would. Teach me not to read to the end of the thread.
After acquiring the mineral rights from your state, and paying them royalties on every pound you mine. On the plus side, in some jurisdictions (I know this is true in British Columbia), if you’re building a mine, you can put roads, buildings, etc. on other peoples’ property without their permission!
MrDeath, posting from a province with 30% of the world’s known uranium reserves (not B.C.)