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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

#111

Post by erentz »

This is really weird. FTA: "These gauges are designed to be robust and to be used in industrial settings where they may be exposed to weather and vibration,” Dr. Robertson said at a news conference on Saturday, “so it is unusual for a gauge to come apart like this one has."

See also this [1] article with a picture of an example gauge. Again making the point that this is really weird: "Radiation Services WA general manager Lauren Steen said it was a “highly unlikely” scenario, due to the safety measures typically in place for the transit of radioactive materials."

New material for a future Plainly Difficult episode once the investigation is complete.

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-28/radioactive-capsule-s...

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

#112

Post by MengerSponge »

car wrote: post #70
leaving wrote: post #56

This is mostly a data analysis job. If the capsule is on or very near the road, a single trip from start to finish with a NaI(Tl) or CsI scintillation counter will find it. Every CBRN team in the world has these, so they have obviously completed the first run at this without finding it. The capsule is not on or near the road. Australia is famous for road trains on the Great Northen Highway. They travel fast and heavy…

A network of scintillators in every phone would be amazing for finding stuff like this. That was my first thought too. Do you think it’s physically possible to make a MEMS scintiallation device?

No. MEMS means electromechanical, and scintillation needs solid state: a crystal and a photon detector of some kind. The crystal can't be miniaturized because there's a minimum thickness you need to capture the photon and Compton electrons*.

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

#113

Post by londons_explore »

karmakaze wrote: post #4

Here's a story about a lost capsule[0] that ended up being made into building material for the wall of an apartment if you think something small isn't worth being concerned about. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...

The equipment to detect high levels of radiation is very cheap.

Likewise the equipment to detect lead... And hundreds of other deadly pollutants.

Part of owning a house should involve getting it tested, perhaps once per 10 years, for all these contaminants. They might have been put in during construction - or it might be arsenic in the wood of your bed... Or a mixing mistake while making the plastic for your toothbrush handle... Or that mercury lightbulb someone smashed 50 years ago is still soaking through the foundations...

A simple test of the dust your vacuum cleaner picks up would detect most of the most hazardous stuff.

However contamination got into your house, there should be a government scheme to test for it, and possibly to remediate it too (environmental contamination can be seriously expensive to fix, and the last thing you want to happen is someone to hide it from an inspector and sell the house on to someone else)

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

#114

Post by karaterobot »

> They believe that vibrations from the truck caused the sensor to shake apart and also dislodged a mounting bolt, leaving a hole in the bottom of the box. The capsule is believed to have fallen out of the sensor, through the bolt-hole, onto the surface of the truck, and bounced off into the road.

I have a bag of locking washers I would be more than happy to donate if it makes this kind of thing less likely to happen in the future. In the mean time, good luck.

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

#115

Post by testplzignore »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #47
genmon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Again, hyperbole. "the equivalent of 10 X-rays in an hour" People routinely get exposed to that during their normal job. An x-ray is a fraction of a year's natural exposure from the sun. Airline pilots experience this radiation in a few months at work. The numbers matter. This instance, the device hardly matters. Not as much as a national news report anyway. We'd be better off reading about pay disparity or access to…

To back up your point: If "X-ray" is a chest x-ray, then per https://xkcd.com/radiation/ this would be equivalent to one-tenth of a head CT scan, which are routinely done without consideration to any increased risk of cancer.

If the goal is to minimize loss of life, I think there are far better things that time could be spent on than looking for this thing. People are bad at thinking about opportunity cost.

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

#117

Post by qwezxcrty »

car wrote: post #70
leaving wrote: post #56

This is mostly a data analysis job. If the capsule is on or very near the road, a single trip from start to finish with a NaI(Tl) or CsI scintillation counter will find it. Every CBRN team in the world has these, so they have obviously completed the first run at this without finding it. The capsule is not on or near the road. Australia is famous for road trains on the Great Northen Highway. They travel fast and heavy…

A network of scintillators in every phone would be amazing for finding stuff like this. That was my first thought too. Do you think it’s physically possible to make a MEMS scintiallation device?

Although some weird Japanese phone makers did have smartphones with radiation detector built-in (SHARP 107sh and 205sh), I don't think it would be a popular feature.

There isn't so many cases in daily life that one can encounter a radioactive source. Even if you are actively looking for one (don't do it), you will have a hard time if you don't work with radioactive sources occupationally.

Also, it's not physically possible to create a small and yet sensitive radiation detector.

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

#118

Post by perihelions »

Some relevant-looking thing I found on Google:

- "9. SEARCHING FOR RADIOACTIVE OBJECTS"

- "The first part of this section describes three different airborne surveys that successfully located lost radioactive sources. The three incidents were quite different in nature and provide useful information should similar accidents occur in the future. Section 9 concludes with a discussion showing how to estimate the count rate which would be observed by AGRS from a radioactive source. These results can be used to plan searches for lost radioactive sources."

- "9.1. RECOVERY OF A LOST 60CO SOURCE"

- "9.2. LOCATING THE LOST ATHENA MISSILE"

- "9.3. COSMOS-954 INCIDENT"

https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/... ("Airborne Gamma Ray Spectrometer Surveying", 1991)

Their first incident is basically identical to this one:

- "On 21 June 1968, a 325 mCi 60Co source3 was lost in transit somewhere between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Kansas City, Missouri, a distance of 1800 km."

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

#119

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

jhallenworld wrote: post #83
propter_hoc wrote: post #48

Really scary. For those unaware of how badly this kind of situation can end up, read about the horrific Goiânia incident in Brazil. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

Also a close call in Mexico. In this case, they were trying to dispose of the source properly, but the truck was held up and stolen along the way: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/12/04/248737662...

> An estimated 300 curies of radioactive cobalt found their way to the two Mexican foundries, one of which manufactured metal table legs for shipment to the largest distributor of restaurant tables in the U.S., while the other produced steel rods used in the reinforcement of concrete building projects. About 600 tons of the contaminated steel were shipped to the U.S. from December 1983 to January 1984."

How much is 300 curies?

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

#120

Post by dsauss »

londons_explore wrote: post #113
karmakaze wrote: post #4

Here's a story about a lost capsule[0] that ended up being made into building material for the wall of an apartment if you think something small isn't worth being concerned about. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...

The equipment to detect high levels of radiation is very cheap. Likewise the equipment to detect lead... And hundreds of other deadly pollutants. Part of owning a house should involve getting it tested, perhaps once per 10 years, for all these contaminants. They might have been put in during construction - or it might be arsenic in the wood of your bed... Or a mixing mistake while making the plastic for your toothbru…

Are there testing services you’ve used before or would recommend to perform the testing? There does not seem to be a major brand or service provider offering this. Thank you!
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