VIDEO: Twinsburg GE Facility Expansion Will Help Improve Homeland Security

A new technology for detecting nuclear material will be developed in Twinsburg, resulting in an expansion and new jobs at the General Electric facility on Darrow Road.

General Electric Measurement and Control Solutions today unveiled the facility expansion that will be used to develop and produce neutron detection technology used in Homeland Security radiation portals.

A GE spokesman said the 13,000-square-foot expansion could bring  30 new jobs to Twinsburg by the end of 2011. Ohio Congressman Steven LaTourette said this new expansion is a step forward for the city and the region.

“Any time a new technology is developed, it creates jobs and means growth,” LaTourette said.

Job creation isn’t the only benefit of the new expansion: LaTourette said this new technology will serve a major need nationally.

The product line leader for this new development, Tom Anderson, said GE will now use an element known as boron-10 inside neutron scanners to detect dirty bombs or nuclear material that may be smuggled into the United States.

“We’re trying to make sure they are screened for radiation, in particular, neutron radiation,” Anderson said. “It’s the best way to detect materials that could be used to make a nuclear weapon.”

“This project is particularly exciting because they have developed a way to make sure our ability to detect dirty bombs, that people will smuggle into this country, will continue,” LaTourette said.

Anderson said that after September 11, many programs and technologies were implemented to screen for potentially dangerous materials. In 2008, the nation’s supply of helium-3, the gas traditionally used in the scanners, was nearly depleted and a new resource was needed.

Researchers adapted an older scanning technology using boron-10 to replace helium-3.

Anderson said that cargo containers that are imported have to go through the neutron scanners in order to pass into the country.

“It basically gives them a green light or a red light,” Anderson said. “It makes sure they’re not bringing those materials into the U.S.”

By developing this technology in Twinsburg, it will give the company and the city a new sense of pride, LaTourette said.

“It was all thought of here, in Twinsburg, and this is going to become the only place in the world that will make it,” he said.