Radiation Detectors Lacking Key Components

There's a definite need for radiological sniffers but apparently they can't be built for lack of critical components

Lack of a specific material has forced the suspension of a U.S. Homeland Security Department effort to deploy new radiation detectors intended to prevent a nuclear weapon from being smuggled into the country, the New York Times reported today

The agency to date has spent $230 million on the program to field up to 1,400 of the devices that would scan cargo passing though foreign seaports. However, the $800,000 machines require helium 3 for detection of neutrons, which are emitted by the nuclear-weapon material plutonium. Helium 3 is a byproduct of the decay of tritium, which is produced only in limited quantities in the United States.

By: Watchdog