A new radiation detector that could improve the screening of US-bound cargo containers for nuclear weapons will undergo full-scale testing in the Port of Oakland, California, developers of the technology announced this week.

VeriTainer Corp, a San Francisco Bay Area firm, will equip the Matson Navigation Co. terminal with scanners that attach to the hoisting mechanism of cranes that serve container ships.

The device screens cargo for radiological materials as it is loaded and unloaded, reducing the need to place detectors on busy docks and wharves where they can complicate harbour operations. If successful and widely applied, the detectors would give domestic and foreign ports the potential to scan virtually every container arriving in the US, VeriTainer executives say.

Today, many arriving shipping containers are checked for nuclear materials as they leave port terminals by truck, sometimes days, even weeks, after they are unloaded. At foreign ports, many containers aren’t screened for radiation before they leave for the US, creating a potential opening for terrorists to smuggle in weapons.

“The key to our technology is that we are in the workflow,’’ VeriTainer Chief Executive John Alioto said. “Our goal is to install detectors around the world, making every container crane a security checkpoint.’’ Matson, which owns the terminal along with Stevedoring Services of America, has agreed to install scanners on one of the facility’s three cranes for a 60-day trial.

The VeriTainer system screens for neutrons as well as gamma rays and gamma energy, a product of radioactive decay. Company officials say the readings are transmitted from the crane via wireless technology to computer monitors used by inspectors. Unlike current scanners, the device can detect shielding used to conceal nuclear materials and determine if the emissions are a type associated with radiological weapons, which would reduce false alarms, developers say. More than 1 percent of cargo—including bananas, kitty litter, ceramics and building materials— naturally emits radiation.

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