Alaskan Cyclotron - Not in My Backyard!

j-beda writes "Wired reports that "Albert Swank Jr., a 55-year-old civil engineer in Anchorage, Alaska, is a man with a mission. He wants to install a nuclear particle accelerator in his home." To be used to create medically useful isotopes, and even though some of the neighbours are supportive, opponents "compared potential damage from a cyclotron mishap to the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident" though an expert says "Probably the worst thing that could happen with small cyclotrons is that the operator might electrocute themselves." It looks like the Anchorage Assembly plans to hold an public hearing on December 20 to determine whether Swank will be permitted to install the device."

(What do you care about the subject for?)

[shobadobs]

This is just people being stupid. Also the reason they dropped 'Nuclear' from NMRI.

NIMBY!

[QuantumPion]

While obviously a cyclotron can't compare to a commercial nuclear power plant, I wouldn't want my neighbor building one. Aside from self-electrocution, they can release high energy photons which could reach other people, if improperly shielded. There is also the issue with any radioactive waste he may produce. The risk may be miniscule, but people generally shy away from non-controllable risks. While the guy is a civil-engineer, TFA doesn't say whether he has training or experience in nuclear technology or health physics either.

That said, I think it would be awesome to have a back-yard cyclotron. Imagine all the cool things you could do, activate pennies, evil radioactive monsters, become THE HULK, etc.

Re:Could you clarify your joke ?

[farnz]

"NMR" pronounced as three individual letters sounds similar to "enema". When hospital staff are underpaid, overworked, or just plain rushed, there's a high risk that they'll misidentify your need and you'll get something you didn't expect [wikipedia.org].

Re:It cant be any more dangerous

[Liam Slider]

Easy access to guns lead to more gun use. Simple as that. This goes for police, civilians and criminals.

Sure, it's a lot easier for me to shoot the bastard who's shooting at me, if I have easy access to a gun. And easy access to a gun sure leads to a lot of gun usage during target practice, or out hunting.

I guess that if the US would try to improve on the huge loss of firearms to criminals every year, the NRA would freak out and go to Capitol Hill chaning the second amendment. I don't see anywhere that the second amendment calls for moronic storage of their firearms? I'm a bit scared when I read bout civilians storing 10+ firearmsin their home, just locking them in a closet. Here, that is punisable because you don't want to give the thieves an edge.

What about kitchen knives? Stabbings are far more common than shootings, even in this country. Way more common than shootings. And accidents with knives are far more statistically common than accidents with firearms. So why no cry to restrict knives, or to keep all civilian knives locked in heavily secure, expensive, vaults in the home? They are far more dangerous! And what if someone broke into your home, stole one of your knives, and killed someone with it! That would be your fault for not locking them up!

At least, it's a comparable argument to yours about guns.

And have you considered the economics? The poor have rights as well in this country, including the right to bear arms. Many poor families rely heavily on hunting in order to afford food. Hunting isn't just an entertainment for the upper classes here. Do you think these people can afford large, expensive, hidden vaults in their homes in which to store guns?

Re:Three Mile Island

[weiserfireman]

I was a Nuclear Power Technician in the US Navy. The week I arrived in Idaho for prototype training at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, scientists and nuclear engineers arrived from around the world to recreate TMI. INEL has about 200 nuclear reactors of all sizes and ages. They were all built for research purposes. They had one that they felt was similiar enough to the TMI reactor for their purposes. They recreated the conditions of TMI and let the reactor go to see just how bad it could have gotten. The result? As predicted, the nuclear reaction stopped when all the water was gone, there was some core damage due to residual heat. But that was it. No catastrophic melt down. No failure of the primary reactor vessel, no breach of secondary shielding. No measurable (ie higher than natural background) radiation levels were ever measured outside the fence at Three Mile Island. I don't minimize the emotions of the people who lived in the area at the time. Their fears were real. But those fears were a result of purposely inadequate education of the general public about nuclear science by the Government. It is much easier to protect a "secret" if no one understands what you are talking about.

Re:Reaction to the word "nuclear"

[Anonymous Coward]

"I get the distinct impression that the residents don't really understand what a cyclotron is. They just see the word "nuclear" and freak out."

I don't know about that. People know about and understand pesticides and chemicals and use them everyday (treat lawn, kill insects, etc), but you can't store oil barrels full of them on your property can you?

I don't know that is so much the "nuclear" word as the size and function of the device.

"Tip off residents that someone has ordered and installed a nuclear device called a magnetron in their home. Watch what happens..."

Well, that is a COMMERCIAL device that has passed a whole number of safety and health tests and assumably went through some sort of regulation.

The problem is that this is a 20 ton piece of INDUSTRIAL equipment being used and stored in a residential area; not regulated under the same conditions of a COMMERCIAL device.

Re:I can understand the hold

[Overzeetop]

1. People fear that which they do not understand.
2. Nuclear Physics is hard* (apologies to Barbie(R))
3. People fear Nuclear Physics

*Definition: Hard: "Cannot be completely understood by any human based on common adult eduction methods**."
**Definition: Adult Education Methods: "a 3 minute news story delivered on television in a sensationalized manner by a non-technically educated reporter."

I think my sig is rather appropriate today...

Ahh... My Hometown...

[moorley]

I'm still getting used to living in the states, but there are times I do miss Anchorage. The folks there are... unique ;-)

West Anchorage Highschool was a place of many tales as well. Underground bunkers that students from all over the district would try to sneak into the ductwork and access ways to go see. I even remember seeing a bunch of them down through an access plate in Junior Hall a good 20 feet down. Underground newspapers and pranks. But that's another tale.

If you ever get the chance to visit Anchorage it's a fun town. Nothing like living at the biggest town at the tip of the Western United States expansion. I wouldn't trade my youth there for anything.

Folks who never even *took* science in jr. high

[whitroth]

... or maybe slept through it in elementary school. Hell, my *high* *school* had a cyclotron, and this was the early-to-mid sixties. (If you're wondering, Central High, in Philly.)

But that's like the idiot article that a friend passed along to me, who's worried about the plutonium-powered RTG on the Pluto mission "polluting space with radioactivity" (I'm not making this up!)

                mark

They have no clue.

[doit3d]

I work in medicine. A cyclotron is just simply a big circular magnet. Electrocution from the power driving the magnets is the most dangerous thing possible, IMHO. Sheilding in the area where the drugs are bombarded by the machine to create the isotopes is quite adequate. Handeling procedures in place for these drugs and machines used in their production by the FDA, NRC, & other medical oversite organizations is very extensive. Here are just a few drugs off the top of my head that are used commonly that have short useful working span: Technetium-99m has a half-life of 6 hours. Fludeoxyglucose has a half-life of 109.8 minutes. C-11 methionine has a half-life of 20 minutes. ...and the list goes on. Many drugs used in diagnosis & treatment of cancers & other ailments require an on-site cyclotron because of the short half-life. It is not possibly to make these drugs in the lower states & fly them to Alaska in a timely mannor for them to be effective for dianosis and/or treatment. What this gentelman wants to do is needed & I commend him for trying to help others.The people who are against him building this thing are not very well informed.

Re:Back Yard science

[phlegmofdiscontent]

You can't really build a nuclear reactor with the radioisotopes in smoke detectors. Yes, you can collect the Americium-241 found in smoke detectors, but you won't get much. You could even collect quite a bit of it, if you collected, say, several tens of thousands of smoke detectors, but it would be useless. The isotope is found in an oxide form. Those oxygen atoms would act as neutron absorbers, immediately damping any reactions. One would have to purify the element, something that's beyond the abilities of a kid. Even then, you wouldn't get enough neutron emission to create a chain reaction. You'd just have a pile of stuff emitting low level gamma rays and alpha particles.

I read the link and it is very obviously fake. I mean, come on, the kid had the same last name as one of the discoverers of nuclear fission, Otto Hahn. And really, with the steps outlined in the article, you'd only get a few grams at most of any of the materials. Certainly not enough for a reactor.

Re:I can understand the hold

[arfonrg]

"Radiation treatment kills LIVING cells, in particular bacteria and viruses and so on... stuff that makes you sick.

You need a constant influx of bacteria and viruses in order to keep our immune system strong. If you "cleanse" your immune system you'll end up getting whipped out by a flu or the common cold.

It doesn't "cleanse" your immune system, it keeps it active (the old "if you don't use it" rule) and you'll get a steady supply of bacteria and viruses from plenty of other sources. It's also an argument of WHICH bacteria and viruses you get. Some are worse than others.

Irradiation is the second best thing that has happened to food supply with canning being the first.

Re:They have no clue.

[AK Marc]

For medical use, the best place to set it up would be on the UAA campus. Get the state to pay for it for research and educational purposes, then let the hospitals use it for making such drugs. UAA is central to all the hospitals (well, Alaska Regional is farther than the other two, but not unreasonably far), has available land, isn't in a residential area, and would benefit from the new research opportunities.

And it is certainly more reasonable than his home, which as of 1/1/2005 was on 10th, still considered part of downtown (and a small lot of 7000 sq ft).

Re:They have no clue.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, a cyclotron is a simply a big magnet that accelerates electrons over 30kev into a target and thus makes X-rays.

SciAm published an article about how to make a linac in your basment and recommended taping photgraphic film all over the room to find out where all the secondary x-ray emissions were so you wouldn't stand in them by accident.