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Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

nytimes.com

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Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#11

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

throwaway89201 wrote: post #6
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #5

Curious. I would expect something that seems so threatening, has such a tiny effect on the environment that it can't even be detected. Something not adding up.

[flagged]

>You are only asking questions, I understand. Please don't do that here [1].

Where in the HN rules is it forbidding to ask questions?

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#12

Post by phyzome »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #5

Curious. I would expect something that seems so threatening, has such a tiny effect on the environment that it can't even be detected. Something not adding up.

This is the nature of highly radioactive materials. Walk past it? No problem. Walk on the crushed capsule, brush your hand against the bottom of your shoe, eat a sandwich? Die horribly.

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#13

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #9
galleywest200 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also happened in Ukraine. The capsule was lost in a gravel pit and ended up being built into the wall of an apartment and several people died as a result. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...

Not really a regionally significant nuclear accident then. About the same as a gas leak?

A gas leak will either blow you up or kills you quicker and can be identified and fixed quickly but radiation kills you slowly, making identification of the cause very tricky for authorities.

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#15

Post by genmon »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #5

Curious. I would expect something that seems so threatening, has such a tiny effect on the environment that it can't even be detected. Something not adding up.

Because it’s enormously dangerous to stand a meter from, and people near it won’t even know (eg it could have been picked up in a tyre tread so someone is carrying it around), but radiation and therefore ability detect drops according to the inverse square law so it will be hard to find from much further away. And Australia is big.

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#16

Post by aqme28 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #9
galleywest200 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also happened in Ukraine. The capsule was lost in a gravel pit and ended up being built into the wall of an apartment and several people died as a result. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...

Not really a regionally significant nuclear accident then. About the same as a gas leak?

“A few people here may die” is a relatively serious nuclear accident. Worse than three-mile island at least.

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#18

Post by throwanem »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #5

Curious. I would expect something that seems so threatening, has such a tiny effect on the environment that it can't even be detected. Something not adding up.

Cs-137 is dangerous to animals (including humans) in close proximity, precisely because of the gamma radiation it emits. But, like any radiative emission, the power density drops off with the inverse square of distance from the source, which makes it detectable well beyond any range at which it poses a hazard. Think of stadium lights: if you stand five feet in front of one, it will blind you, while from a mile away, it's harmless but you still can see it. With gamma radiation you need a detector (ie a Geiger counter), and with an at the moment presumably unshielded Cs-137 source, a reasonably sensitive detector will indeed pick it up at some distance. So, at worst, if you put enough people in trucks with Geiger counters along the same route the original truck followed, sooner or later you will find the lost source.

That said, this method while effective may take some time, and the major concern here may not be so much the direct radiation emission from the intact source, as the possibility of damage leading to dispersal of its contents. In the Goiânia incident of 1987 [1], scrappers removed a Cs-137 source from an improperly decommissioned radiotherapy machine and broke it open, dispersing the loose isotope material it contained in ignorance of the danger it posed. Several people died, others were badly injured, and at least one house and a lot of soil had to be removed for disposal. If this lost Australian source is similar in design to that one, warning people about it while looking for it is an eminently sensible public safety measure.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#19

Post by DonHopkins »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #13
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a regionally significant nuclear accident then. About the same as a gas leak?

A gas leak will either blow you up or kills you quicker and can be identified and fixed quickly but radiation kills you slowly, making identification of the cause very tricky for authorities.

Or you end up raising a family of mutants.
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