

The Nanda Devi mystery – Plutonium lost on India’s second highest mountain - mknits
http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/3QfYqLadggrbnrn41H0mAJ/The-Nanda-Devi-mystery.html

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imglorp
As for missing RTG's, it would not be at all surprising if they grew legs.

Maybe not the locals, but I would think most educated modern people, if they
found the equipment, would have a large clue what was inside. There are not
too many things you can put in a box on an isolated mountain top that would
make it stay hot. It's not batteries, and it's not a engine.

In the late sixties, there were a dozen governments that would pay handsomely
for such a box.

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CHY872
Yes, but how many people are well educated? The USSR made many similar
devices, for powering lighthouses etc, and most of them are rusting away. A
number of people have died after trying to steal the casing for scrap.

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anoncow
>Takeda quotes McCarthy: “I saw the sherpas fighting over who got to carry
(the SNAP),” adding: “They had no idea of what it was. They’d put the thing in
the middle of their tent and huddle around it. I guarantee none of them are
alive now.”

I wonder if they themselves knew about the risk involved.

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Tuna-Fish
If they fully knew the risks, they would have probably used the device to warm
up themselves. The plutonium-238 used in the SNAP devices is notable for not
having any significant decay modes other than alpha. So long as the device
remains intact, a sheet of paper is sufficient for radiation shielding.

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hga
I've always read the outer layers of your skin are sufficient; just avoid
ingestion or inhalation and you're fine.

This is a very sloppy and/or fear mongering article, e.g. when it talks about
the device being 1/2 the size of the Hiroshima bomb, which was a uranium gun
assembly design. It never points out you can't make this isotope of plutonium
go boom, or the much fuzzier probability that a breach of the containment
wouldn't likely cause a widespread contamination problem.

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rpenm
Reactor-grade plutonium in the headwaters of the Ganges, which supplies
millions of people. Probably better if it was stolen than lost.

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kiers77
THE REAL QUESTION OF DESIGN: How much WATTAGE/POWER would a 56kg package of
Guru Rinpoche (made of plutonium) be able to generate?

any scientists care to comment?

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tarre
Curiosity has a battery of 5 kg and it delivers 2 kW thermal and 125 W
electric power.

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qnaal
so- if the mountain wasn't magical before, it is now

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throwaway_97
Did they find it?

