You need one terrorist to extract the material and put some quantities in a somewhat shielded container before being incapacitated, and then others to spread it on the subway.
If you put an activated fuel rod inside of a lead lunch box, you will still die. You will now die from a lethal dose of bremsstrahlung. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremsstrahlung
If you interact with this material as an amateur without processes, robotics and safety, you will die. Period. You will also suffer from intense nausea and be unable to move before you die.
Sharks with lasers are more realistic than this concern.
The more plausible scenario is a "dirty bomb" that spreads depleted uranium particles everywhere and gives people cancer long-term. But there's an element of impracticality to this and there's a reason why it hasn't happened yet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...
These incidents, while uncomfortable, are just not that concerning. You can kill yourself with damn near anything if you mishandle it badly enough.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine#Recorded_human_poison...
Until they did it.
After all, it’s very impractical getting a bunch of random terrorists training in flying well enough to do this without being caught.
Let alone co-ordinating everything, getting through multiple layers of airport security, etc.
And everyone ‘successful’ is going to die too. Who would do that?
Historically, terrorists would just hijack a plane for attention and/or money and then let everyone go except for those stupid enough to fight them.
Which is why the reaction onboard to the terrorists taking the planes was so muted, until a passenger on one of the planes heard the news of the first impact, and they realized they were in a very different situation than a hijacking for money.
Not considering dirty bomb type issues a threat would likely be a mistake.
Having a bunch of disposable idiots throw hot fuel rods into a water tanker truck, then driving to manhattan, seeding the water with cobalt-59, and letting the mess ‘sort itself out’ (or blowing the the truck up) certainly wouldn’t be hard compared to 9/11 in these scenarios, or likely kill more than a handful of terrorists. Depending on how well secured the fuel was anyway.
It would create an absolutely terrific mess though.
The only hard part here would be getting the hot fuel (and the idiots), everything else would be ‘COTS’.
Which, like 9/11, would not be seen as ‘expensive’.
This isn’t sharks with lasers territory.
the real economics low-hanging fruit is to build those regular NPPs in increments, basically cheaper AND faster (which also means even cheaper). get real economies of scale, apply all of the last century's industrialization benefits on nuclear energy. (because current cost overruns are insane and mostly because of too-slow AND super-duper-artisanal (which means even slower) plant construction.
Was literally an episode of the Lone Gunmen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen_(TV_series)
In the pilot episode, which aired March 4, 2001 (exactly six months and one week prior to the September 11 attacks[5]), rogue members of the U.S. government remotely hijack an airliner flying to Boston, planning to crash it into the World Trade Center, and let anti-American terrorist groups take credit, to gain support for a profitable new war following the Cold War. The heroes ultimately override the controls, foiling the plot.Clearly, Vince Gilligan is a member of the illuminati. Though the list of follow up episodes was a bit meh. Perhaps also telling?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen_(TV_series)#ci...], such as
Episode 6 - "A man contacts the Lone Gunmen, believing his life has been stolen after being abducted by aliens. They end up getting caught in a love triangle involving a one-eyed stereo salesman, brainwashing, and a wrestling dwarf."
Episode 10 - "Yves and Frohike go undercover as tango dancers to stop a man from selling government secrets."
Or, the real 'telling the truth in the form of a lie'?
Their last episode #13 - "The Lone Gunmen team up with Man in Black agent Morris Fletcher to find Yves. What they uncover is Romeo-61, a secret government organization responsible for decades of major incidents."
Was Vince picking up top-secret communications in his fillings (maybe even subconsciously) and ended up telling too much? Or a SG-1 style 'early disclosure'/'disinfo' campaign? Or false-false flag? Or coincidence? Or reaction to some actual gov't preparatory 'conspiracy theory' poisoning the well?
The world may never know. /s
A fuel rod toting terrorist is a dead terrorist.
Now what I'm about to say changes with the fuel being used, but from LLNL's report, https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/10137382Good luck trying to carry that stuff out. They'll be the walking dead in a few minutes. They'll be unable to walk and will be just dead in ~100 minutes. Give or take 10 to 20 minutes depending on how they're holding the item etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_radiation_syndrome#Dose_...
And no, they can't just "put it in [a] lead [box]" to run away with it, because then they'll die to bremsstrahlung radiation or braking radiation. It'll take longer, but the end result will be the same.
If it's fuel that hasn't gone into the reactor yet/hasn't undergone neutron activation, then it's not radioactive enough to be a concern unless consumed.
Terrorists are rare and they're usually not that capable. It's easier for them to buy a gun or a lorry and mow down a crowd than it is to plan a fiendishly complicated radiation heist.