Which type of device causes the purposeful dissemination of radioactive material across an area without a nuclear detonation?

Answer 1

A conventional bomb enclosed in a jacket of highly radioactive isotopes. However it will probably kill the builders before they can use it. This is called a "radiological weapon", a radiation dispersal device or a "dirty bomb".

Such a radiation dispersal device could be a "dirty bomb" but since the question does not include phrases like harmful, or detrimental and no limit is placed on "device" it is necessary to include alternate answers.

These would be:

• Hardware stores and similar hat sell ionizing radiation smoke detectors which contain Americium
• Jewelry shops that sell tritium powered luminescent watches
• Bone density examinations which infuse a persons body with short lived radioisotopes
• Sellers of radioactive sources to labs and inspection firms
• Antique shops with old radium dialed watches and clocks
• Earth satellite programs with nuclear power sources which burn up on reentry
• Manufacturers of granite counter tops which contain uranium
• US forces using depleted uranium shell and bullets
• Coal fired power plants which have uranium in their stack gases
• Drywall manufacturers whose products emit radon

One instance of this was in the 1950s Hanford site Green Run, where they took material direct from the reactors and processed it, allowing Iodine-131 and other radioisotopes to go out the processing plant stack and travel east over the rest of the country in the wind. Normally they allowed the material from the reactors to decay in cooling ponds for several weeks to remove these isotopes before processing. They tracked the radioactive plume from the Green Run to develop a model of dispersal, because it was believed the USSR was operating their plants this way to accelerate Plutonium production. If the USSR was doing this, it was hoped that the model developed from the Green Run data would allow accurate estimations of the size of the USSR's stockpile.

Answer 2

radiation dispersal device
Radiation dispersal devise