Cobalt bomb

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A cobalt bomb is a type of "salted bomb": a nuclear weapon designed to produce enhanced amounts of radioactive fallout, intended to contaminate a large area with radioactive material. The concept of a cobalt bomb was originally described in a radio program by physicist Leó Szilárd on February 26, 1950. His intent was not to propose that such a weapon be built, but to show that nuclear weapon technology would soon reach the point where it could end human life on Earth, a doomsday device. Such "salted" weapons were requested by the U.S. Air Force and seriously investigated, but not deployed. In the 1964 edition of the U.S. Department of Defense book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, a new section titled radiological warfare clarified the "Doomsday device" issue.

The Russian Federation has allegedly developed cobalt warheads for use with their Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System nuclear torpedoes. However many commentators doubt that this is a real project, and see it as more likely to be a staged leak to intimidate the United States. Amongst other comments on it, Edward Moore Geist wrote a paper in which he says that "Russian decision makers would have little confidence that these areas would be in the intended locations" and Russian military experts are cited as saying that "robotic torpedoes could have other purposes, such as delivering deep-sea equipment or installing surveillance devices."

The Operation Antler/Round 1 test by the British at the Tadje site in the Maralinga range in Australia on September 14, 1957, tested a bomb using cobalt pellets as a radiochemical tracer for estimating yield. This was considered a failure and the experiment was not repeated. In Russia, the triple "taiga" nuclear salvo test, as part of the preliminary March 1971 Pechora–Kama Canal project, produced relatively high amounts of Co-60 from the steel that surrounded the Taiga devices, with this fusion generated neutron activation product being responsible for about half of the gamma dose now (2011) at the test site. This high percentage contribution is largely because the devices did not rely much at all on fission reactions and thus the quantity of gamma emitting caesium-137 fallout, is therefore comparatively low. Photosynthesizing vegetation exists all around the lake that was formed.

Mechanism

A cobalt bomb could be made by placing a quantity of ordinary cobalt metal (⁵⁹Co) around a thermonuclear bomb. When the bomb explodes, the neutrons produced by the fusion reaction in the secondary stage of the thermonuclear bomb's explosion would transmute the cobalt to the radioactive cobalt-60 (⁶⁰Co), which would be vaporized by the explosion. The cobalt would then condense and fall back to Earth with the dust and debris from the explosion, contaminating the ground. 

The deposited cobalt-60 would have a half-life of 5.27 years, decaying into ⁶⁰Ni and emitting two gamma rays with energies of 1.17 and 1.33 MeV, hence the overall nuclear equation of the reaction is: 

⁵⁹
₂₇Co
+ n → ⁶⁰
₂₇Co
→ ⁶⁰
₂₈Ni
+ e⁻ + gamma rays.

Nickel-60 is a stable isotope and undergoes no further decays after emitting the gamma rays. 

The 5.27 year half life of the ⁶⁰Co is long enough to allow it to settle out before significant decay has occurred, and to render it impractical to wait in shelters for it to decay, yet short enough that intense radiation is produced. Many isotopes are more radioactive (gold-198, tantalum-182, zinc-65, sodium-24, and many more), but they would decay faster, possibly allowing some population to survive in shelters.

Fallout from cobalt bombs vs. other nuclear weapons

Fission products are more deadly than neutron-activated cobalt in the first few weeks following detonation. After one to six months, the fission products from even a large-yield thermonuclear weapon decay to levels tolerable by humans. The large-yield three-stage (fission–fusion–fission) thermonuclear weapon is thus automatically a weapon of radiological warfare, but its fallout decays much more rapidly than that of a cobalt bomb. A cobalt bomb's fallout on the other hand would render affected areas effectively stuck in this interim state for decades: habitable, but not safe for constant habitation.

Initially, gamma radiation from the fission products of an equivalent size fission-fusion-fission bomb are much more intense than Co-60: 15,000 times more intense at 1 hour; 35 times more intense at 1 week; 5 times more intense at 1 month; and about equal at 6 months. Thereafter fission product fallout radiation levels drop off rapidly, so that Co-60 fallout is 8 times more intense than fission at 1 year and 150 times more intense at 5 years. The very long-lived isotopes produced by fission would overtake the ⁶⁰Co again after about 75 years.

Theoretically, a device containing 510 metric tons of Co-59 can spread 1 g of the material to each square km of the Earth's surface (510,000,000 km²). If one assumes that all of the material is converted to Co-60 at 100 percent efficiency and if it is spread evenly across the Earth's surface, it is possible for a single bomb to kill every person on Earth. However, in fact, complete 100% conversion into Co-60 is unlikely; a 1957 British experiment at Maralinga showed that Co-59's neutron absorption ability was much lower than predicted, resulting in a very limited formation of Co-60 isotope in practice. 

In addition, another important point in considering the effects of cobalt bombs is that deposition of fallout is not even throughout the path downwind from a detonation, so that there are going to be areas relatively unaffected by fallout and places where there is unusually intense fallout, so that the Earth would not be universally rendered lifeless by a cobalt bomb. The fallout and devastation following a nuclear detonation does not scale upwards linearly with the explosive yield (equivalent to tons of TNT). As a result, the concept of "overkill"—the idea that one can simply estimate the destruction and fallout created by a thermonuclear weapon of the size postulated by Leo Szilard's "cobalt bomb" thought experiment by extrapolating from the effects of thermonuclear weapons of smaller yields—is fallacious.

Example of radiation levels vs. time

Assume a cobalt bomb deposits intense fallout causing a dose rate of 10 sieverts (Sv) per hour. At this dose rate, any unsheltered person exposed to the fallout would receive a lethal dose in about 30 minutes (assuming a median lethal dose of 5 Sv). People in well-built shelters would be safe due to radiation shielding. 

After one half-life of 5.27 years, only half of the cobalt-60 will have decayed, and the dose rate in the affected area would be 5 Sv/hour. At this dose rate, a person exposed to the radiation would receive a lethal dose in 1 hour. 

After 10 half-lives (about 53 years), the dose rate would have decayed to around 10 mSv/hour. At this point, a healthy person could spend 1 to 4 days exposed to the fallout with no immediate effects. 

After 20 half-lives (about 105 years), the dose rate would have decayed to around 10 μSv/hour. At this stage, humans could remain unsheltered full-time since their yearly radiation dose would be about 80 mSv. However, this yearly dose rate is on the order of 30 times greater than the peacetime exposure rate of 2.5 mSv/year. As a result, the rate of cancer incidence in the survivor population would likely increase. 

After 25 half-lives (about 130 years), the dose rate from cobalt-60 would have decayed to less than 0.4 μSv/hour (natural background radiation) and could be considered negligible.

Decontamination

In practice it is unlikely that people would simply sit and wait for nuclear decay to go to completion, as in all historical fallout cases, decontamination of valuable land has occurred. This is most commonly done with the use of simple equipment such as lead glass covered excavators and bulldozers, similar to those employed in the Lake Chagan project. By skimming off the thin layer of fallout on the topsoil surface and burying it in the likes of a deep trench along with isolating it from ground water sources, the gamma air dose is cut by orders of magnitude. The decontamination after the Goiânia accident in Brazil 1987 and the possibility of a "dirty bomb" with Co-60, which has similarities with the environment that one would be faced with after a nuclear yielding cobalt bomb's fallout had settled, has prompted the invention of "Sequestration Coatings" and cheap liquid phase sorbents for Co-60 that would further aid in decontamination, including that of water.

Russian "Status-6"

In 2015, a page from an apparent Russian nuclear-armed torpedo design was accidentally or deliberately leaked. The design was titled "Oceanic Multipurpose System Status-6". The document stated the torpedo would create "wide areas of radioactive contamination, rendering them unusable for military, economic or other activity for a long time". Its payload would be "many tens of megatons in yield". Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta speculated that the warhead would be a cobalt bomb. It is not known whether the Status-6 is a real project, or whether it is Russian disinformation. In 2018 the Pentagon's annual Nuclear Posture Review stated Russia is developing a system called the "Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System". If Status-6 does exist, it is not publicly known whether the leaked 2015 design is accurate, nor whether the 2015 claim that the torpedo might be a cobalt bomb is genuine. Status-6 was officially disclosed and confirmed by Vladimir Putin in 2018 during his display of new Russian offensive weapons, including the Satan-2, Air Launched Iskander, Nuclear cruise-missile, and hypersonic glider.

In popular culture

In the 4th act of the classic Star Trek episode "Obsession", Ensign Garrovick refers to 10,000 cobalt bombs not equaling the power of less than one ounce of antimatter. 

In Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) the main character, upon seeing that the underground people worship a giant bomb that can wipe out the world, comments "They finally built one with a cobalt casing" in reference to a cobalt bomb that could wipe out the world. Similarly, in the bestselling On the Beach (1957) the cobalt bomb was a symbol of man's hubris.

In the black comedy Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), a type of cobalt-salted bomb is employed, with a Dead Hand mechanism, by the Soviet Union as a nuclear deterrent: if the system detects any nuclear attack, the doomsday device will be automatically unleashed. With unfortunate timing, a mentally ill American officer orders an attack on the USSR. One American bomber piloted by a hapless and unknowing crew gets through to their target; the Dead Hand mechanism works as designed and initiates a worldwide nuclear holocaust. The Russian Ambassador says "If you take, say, fifty H-bombs in the hundred megaton range and jacket them with cobalt thorium G, when they are exploded they will produce a doomsday shroud. A lethal cloud of radioactivity which will encircle the earth for ninety-three years!"

In the Spectreman episodes "Smash Alien Igorl!!" and "Enigma of the Cobalt Monster", the villainous Dr. Gori and race of Igorl aliens create a cobalt bomb from a heavy amount of cobalt found beneath a small village and place it within a monster, planning for it to destroy the world due to it reacting strongly to Earth's polluted atmosphere.

In the 2019 video game Metro Exodus the player visits the Russian city of Novosibirsk which was hit with at least one cobalt warhead during a worldwide nuclear war in the year 2014, resulting in catastrophic levels of radiation, and easily the most irradiated area visited in the three Metro games. While the city is left largely standing even twenty years after the cobalt warhead's detonation, the radiation in the city is so lethal that even with lead-lined full enclosure suits, the player can only spend a few minutes on the surface before receiving lethal amounts of radiation poisoning. During their visit, the player discovers that the survivors of the attack survived underground for nineteen years, but only due to constant injections of anti-radiation medicine.