Scientist kept plutonium in garage

[dplax]

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- A Russian atomic scientist surrendered eight containers filled with arms-grade nuclear material to police on Tuesday after keeping it in his garage for eight years, Russian media reported.

Leonid Grigorov found the 400 grams (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, 44 kg (97 lb) of radioactive scrap metal was discovered in Chelaybinsk, Tass reported on 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 76 million cubic meters (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.

[Azred]

Well, I'll give him a plus for keeping the Pu out of everyone else's hands, but a minus for keeping an element that is both radioactive and highly toxic in his garage.

[Aerich]

That's what I was thinking, Azred. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I was also thinking "he hid it in a box!? Was it lined with lead?

[philip]

In a magazine over here called 'kijk' there was an article about a lot of not defended nuclear plants with the stuff still in it in some countries that belonged to Russia before they got independent.

I'm not surprised nobody noticed it though. Who's going to keep that stuff in a garage, surely as scientist you should know the dangers.