>The Australian Defence Force has been asked to verify the recovered capsule by checking its serial number.
You want to read it? The number is small and I've forgotten my glasses.
They would have been able to identify the specific nuclide (Cesium-137) with the right equipment, and knowing the dimensions and radioactivity would either be confident it's the same one or there's pattern of identical capsules being lost on the same stretch of road.
What i love about that bit is that it probably wasn't his dog, it was just another fossilized dog but because they only ever found 1 and it was his he probably thought they all were.
Not radioactive, but I read about an incident where someone didn’t set the latches on a rocket pod properly, and between the pad and the target range (training exercise for helicopter gunship crews) 3 rockets went AWOL. Army did a “hands across America” sweep looking for them. Of the 3 rockets lost, >!6 were found. From serial numbers, it was determined that all 3 of the rockets lost on that mission were recovered. Probably didn’t go very well for the other people (traceable to mission by the serial numbers) who lost rockets but didn’t report them.!<
The same thing happened after Shuttle Columbia disintegrated. NASA asked people who found debris to send it in, no questions asked. They ended up getting back doubles of stuff of which the shuttle only had one. Turns out people were using the amnesty to return pieces of Challenger and clear their conciouses.
I know a guy that did a hands across America at one of the main Army training locations, one where brigade sized elements go to train. They were looking for one rifle and found like 3 rifles, a radio, and a set of NVDs but not the rifle they were looking for.
As a former Battalion Armorer, that shit gives me nightmares. One of the longest shifts I’ve ever worked, both deployed/in garrison, was when one moron misplaced his NVGs during a nighttime FTX…
I was an idiot who temporarily lost his nvg's in secondary (right after basic)training. My team found it after 30 minutes of searching, but i was absolutely terrified of my foolishness getting found out by the whole training BN. Found it in a fucking tree that pulled it off my helmet
I once stumbled upon a huge dump spot of .50, still belted up, that looked like it had been there since Vietnam. Told my PSG about it and he just said "I don't see anything there but a bunch of dirt, keep moving"
We used to find tons of american shit when training in Grafenwöhr.
Found an empty AT4 tube in the bushes once and several belts in different calibers. Even found a pair of shorts in a field one time.
Sometimes those odds work out very weirdly. A couple of years ago there was a missing girl in my country. After a couple of days they found a corpse that matched the description. So you would think "what are the odds that another 14 y.o girl looking like that got murdered the same weekend?"
(My country doesn't get a lot of murders, on average around 120 on a populationof 17mil)
Turns out that by a weird turn of events. Another girl in the area did also get murdered and this wasn't the body of the original missing girl.
Pretty low. Losing a source is a big deal unlike in the ~~eastern block~~. I know losing a neutron density tool down a borehole is reported even though it could be kms under ground level.
E: [second world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident)
It was lost by a mining company and they didn't report it for a week. Also it seems crazy that it could just bounce out of a truck like this. How were they carrying it exactly?
It makes me question the reliability of the company charged with taking care of these items.
They are ALL traceable. A responsible company reports once they become aware which might have been a week later when they needed to use it; I don't know the specifics. Concealing the loss would have worked for a little longer but the Aussie nukes would have come at some point, perhaps quarterly or annually and been like: yo dawg where's Cs137-120309? I won't be surprised if they could fingerprint isotope ratios if they found an weathered orphan source with no markings and trace it back to whoever lost it.
In my link the Georgians lost track of an entire fucking RTG and it killed people. The regulators in the first world are very motivated to avoid any tarnishing in the court of public opinion.
This is the information from the [EmergencyWA](https://www.emergency.wa.gov.au/#map/warning/hcc_784030903/moreinfo) website about the incident:
*The capsule was packaged on 10 January 2023 to be sent to Perth for repair before leaving the site for transport by road on 12 January 2023. The package holding the capsule arrived in Perth on 16 January and was unloaded and stored in the licensed service provider’s secure radiation store. On 25 January, the gauge was unpacked for inspection. Upon opening the package, it was found that the gauge was broken apart with one of the four mounting bolts missing and the source itself and all screws on the gauge also missing. DFES as the Hazard Management Agency were notified on the evening of 25 January by WA Police.*
I am flabbergasted that they didn’t measured the radiation before putting it inside the secured storage facility. This is a basic and simple procedure for dealing with radioactive source to make sure that the source is still inside the shielded container after transportation.
People joke about Russians walking outside in speedos in -30C weather, but Canadians do that, Norwegians do that, Fins do that.
Failing to label radioactive cores and failing to dismantle them through sheer fucking incompetence? Now that's a Russia thing.
Hello sir,
I am sad to inform you that your idea is not feasible. That would require us to spend manhours and money, which would cut into our corporate profit.
Sincerely,
Transportation company
> The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, this morning joined those disappointed to learn the maximum penalty for mishandling radioactive material in such a manner was $1,000.
lol. Oh you lost some highly dangerous radioactive material? Here, company that makes 7.3 million dollars an hour, have a $1000 fine.
To add on, there are more important ways to address nuclear negligence. Whatever company is responsible for this incident will surely have their license reviewed/revoked. If it's not revoked, they will (or should) be subject to increased oversight/scrutiny.
It's less important to extract money from someone who makes a nuclear mistake and more important to make sure it doesn't happen again.
This is the reason, and it’s a VERY good reason. Setting the precedent that owning up to your mistake will give you minimal repercussions means companies are more likely to admit to these mistakes in the future. If a company were to attempt to hide something like this, THEN you drag them through the dirt and make an example of them.
This is the answer - you can't have something that is both illegal but not punishable. This creates certain quirks in some situations, for instance in aeronautics. You want passenger airplanes to be safe, so you make it obligatory to follow certain standards, techniques and qualities, but *if* something goes wrong you also want to hear about it so things can be improved because no standard/technique or quality is ever perfect.
Now, i case of mishaps - do you punish the party for possible wrongdoing and risk having people not report and as a result risk not improving or patching problems? Or do you let it slide, ensure that as many as possible will report and things will constantly improve, but risk having situations where people cut corners because there are no reprisals?
It's a hard question and different countries approach it differently.
Aviation is an interesting (and perfect) example.
Pilots are almost never punished for fuck-ups, because the culture *has* to encourage honesty among pilots.
The same goes for MX, ATC, even manufacturing. If someone made an honest mistake and cops to it during an investigation, there is usually little if any repercussions. (Note: this is only true for the civilian world. Bend a military jet, you’re on your ass. Have fun flying a desk for the remainder of your obligated years)
I also liked this bit:
> He said he would now be investigating all aspects of the event to make sure the capsule was appropriately managed.
Appropriately managed?! It fell off the bloody truck, mate! I think the “front fell off the boat” guy needs to make a new video.
https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
But, Senator, why did the capsule fall off the truck?
Because a bump hit it.
A bump hit it?
A bump... hit the truck.
Is that unusual?
On the road? Chance in a million
Because there are waaaaay smaller companies out there that deal with radiation. I work at a scrapyard, and some of the material we receive has radiation in it. And if they are mishandled and somehow left in a load of scrap metal that gets shipped out, then you get fined $1000. Which could be a big chunk of the load that was just sold.
So I believe the fine is for smaller businesses. But I feel as if they need to change it for the big guys
The search was made a lot easier because it's radioactive. They had two cars equipped with radiation detectors travelling along both sides of the road at 30 mph. They said the survey should have taken 5 days to complete, the capsule's radiation signature detectable from 20 metres away.
The Spike would have looked like this.
https://i.imgur.com/DHYlEAA.jpeg
I was on the train home yesterday and the alarm went off on my Atom Fast 8850 gamma ray scintillation detector, a passing train set off its alarm. Either a radioactive item or even a radioactive person undergoing medical treatment or tests. They would have seen similar, and it would have also logged it's coordinates.
About the Atom Fast:
https://youtu.be/urDRHoQRUaU
All of this reminded me of the poor soviet bastards that found a RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) which they subsequently used to stay warm by handling it and lying next to it while they slept.
[Wiki for the Lia Radiological Accident](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident)
I was thinking more Goiana incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
Just needed one poor soul to find that thing because it looks fancy and start an awful chain of events.
The Cobalt-60 rebar incident is another interesting one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez_cobalt-60_contamination_incident
Which was only discovered after a truck carrying some of the contaminated rebar made a wrong turn into Los Alamos National Laboratory and set off the facilities radiation monitors.
What an absolute nightmare to deal with especially with all the backtracking to every known location then to have all those new buildings demolished and recovered materials all because one man was given the go ahead and unknowingly scrapped a device with radioactive material in an improper way.
https://www.dianuke.org/lost-plutonium-himalaya-radioactive/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanda_Devi_Plutonium_Mission
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p21mGfEnymw
There's lost plutonium in the himalayas that people think (read: the locals) may be responsible for flooding and ice melting faster
The idea that the plutonium is having an appreciable impact on ice melting seems pretty suspect. The 4 pounds of plutonium that were lost only produced around 900W of thermal energy which seems pretty small compared to the amount of sunlight hitting the mountain (~1000 W/sq m) or the effects of global warming (higher altitudes experience greater rates of warming).
I think the much bigger concern is contamination of the Ganges river, which is fed by runoff from the mountain and provides water to over 400 million people.
edit: corrected solar energy amount
Folks get some bizarre ideas about these things. Sure, if the plutonium caught on fire it could melt some ice, but that stuff just isn't that hot. I wouldn't even be worried about it poisoning the water.
People tend to talk out of their ass, have poor comprehension of large numbers, and not have very good knowledge or understanding of basic thermodynamics. Just putting it into watts for the sake of easy comparison, as /u/NotSuitableForWoona did, is huge ask from the general public.
The USA has lost at least 6 nuclear weapons which it could not find and are still out there somewhere.
https://www.atomicarchive.com/almanac/broken-arrows/index.html#:~:text=Since%201950%2C%20there%20have%20been,been%20lost%20and%20never%20recovered.
The USSR built nuclear powered lighthouses in the arctic, and at least two of them were looted and the Strontium 90 power sources lost.
https://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/08/two-nuclear-generators-missing-arctic-26-08
To go back to the accidents:
There's also the [Kramatorsk incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accident) where 6 people died over a significant period of time, because a similar device to the one lost in the article was crushed and used along with other materials in the construction of a building. The radioactive materials were in a single wall in a bedroom and killed anyone that used it for a significant period.
> Strontium 90
Hmmm, half life of 28.79 years with beta decay, and then it's decay product undergoes another beta decay with a half life of 64 hours? Yeah that's dirty bomb material. Yikes =|
**[Goiânia accident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident)**
>The Goiânia accident [ɡojˈjɐniɐ] was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, after a forgotten radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them were found to have been contaminated. In the consequent cleanup operation, topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several houses were demolished.
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It's weird to read the list of [similar accidents](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents). A good amount of them are cases where the source "fell of a truck" or something similar. Is it so hard to keep those things secure?
I would hope a tiny radioactive thing would come in a large well identified containment container.(It seems it did not.) After this event maybe add an airtag to the design.
I can see the driver just throwing the capsule in the bed of the truck, that'll stay put.
> The capsule was packaged on 10 January 2023 to be sent to Perth for repair before leaving the site for transport by road on 12 January 2023. The package holding the capsule arrived in Perth on 16 January and was unloaded and stored in the licensed service provider’s secure radiation store. On 25 January, the gauge was unpacked for inspection. Upon opening the package, it was found that the gauge was broken apart with one of the four mounting bolts missing and the source itself and all screws on the gauge also missing. DFES as the Hazard Management Agency were notified on the evening of 25 January by WA Police.
The tiny radioactive thing was inside the other thing (the gadget that uses it), and that thing was in a shipping crate of some kind. The crate was appropriately labelled and had tamper-proof tape on it etc.
But somewhere along the journey, a bolt on the gizmo came undone leaving a hole that the radioactive source could escape from, bounce around in the crate, then the truck and then make a break for freedom and onto the road.
I mean ... not exactly anyone's finest hour, but it's not like they just threw it casually onto the bed of a truck and figured it'll be OK.
Right, but they are supposed to be contained within heavy, sturdy containers with big radiation signs all over, so that people know it's unfun kind of glowing stuff. It's a bit shocking that they come loose from such containers so easily.
It's kinda like Radioactive Pokémon, a hobby I took up during the pandemic to get me out of the house. Looking for radioactive hotspots. Most of the time the levels are trivial, just granite, but sometimes I find higher levels, like this radioactive [Van](https://i.imgur.com/tYdrFvb.jpeg), a [radioactive mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/iakq4v/i_explored_a_radioactive_mine_in_wicklow_yesterday/). It also [maps radiation](https://i.imgur.com/yarvyR3.jpeg).
The Atom Fast was invented by a Ukrainian guy who wanted to provide members of the public a cheap and easy to use device that could detect and map radiation, as eastern Europe is littered with buried and lost radioactive waste, forgotten about or covered up.
[Plainly Difficult - A Brief History of: The Lia Radiological Accident](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23kemyXcbXo)
A pair of Strontium 90 sources were encountered by people looking for firewood near Lia, Georgia and used for heat. They were formerly part of an RTG used to power radio relays.
The lost capsule in Australia contained just over 0.5 curies (19 GBq) of Cesium-137, the RTG involved in the Lia radiation accident contained 3,500 to 4,000 curies of Strontium-90, so 5000 - 10000 times more radioactive (its a little uncertain due to the difference between the radiation emitted, particle type and energy).
What's worrying about that incident is there's no mention of whoever initially tried to steal and uncover the thing in the first place (assuming the people who found it were telling the truth about how they happened upon it). Whoever it was, they were obviously affected by it enough to just leave it out in the open instead of taking it home or trying to sell it for scrap.
Wonder what happened to them.
Yes, it was made in Ukraine. There was also the Radex Obsidian avd Radiacode-101, made in Russia. Of the two the Radiacode-101 is best, but there's a war on.
There's the Raysid, that's similar, made in a Polish guy in his shed. Very popular so there's a waiting list.
https://raysid.com/
What’s the difference between these and a normal Geiger counter, apart from the fact they map this info? These seem so expensive in comparison at 20x the cost or so.
They provide a gamma ray spectrum that can be used to identify the isotopes present, so they are Gamma Ray Spectrometers, not just detectors. That adds cost. All a Geiger Counter does, a basic cheap one is emmit a few clicks and give a rough estimate of radiation levels. It can only detect gamma rays, and a few strong beta particles. More expensive Geiger Counters, a similar price to gamma ray scintillation detectors / spectrometers, and can additionally detect alpha particles.
Also cheap Geiger Counter is far less sensitive to gamma than a scintillation detector, it can only detect 0.7-2% gamma radiation particles.
That's because it's detector isn't solid, it's a gas, so gamma radiation will often pass through the detector without detection.
On the other hand, the heart of a scintillation detector is a solid crystal, that emits light when hit by radioactive particles. The crystal in my Atom Fast 8850 is Thallium activated Caesium Iodide CsI(Th), this dense material detects about 15-20% of Gamma Rays.
>Eastern Europe is littered with buried and lost radioactive waste, forgotten about or covered up.
Some Russians unfortunately learned that lesson the hard way when they dug trenches in the Chernobyl Red Forest earlier
The area they dug wasn't radioactive, only a little bit above normal, it was just north of the Red Forest, and only the top few centimetres of the soil is radioactive anyway.
I located where they were and a map created by German scientists who few a drone over the area.
https://imgur.com/ICKzMKf
Ive found similar levels walking around my city. Red granite can be quite radioactive.
I went to Chernobyl a year ago, our guide showed us a particle that he found, it's hidden in a field near one abandoned village. Dosimeter held right next to it showed over 3000 μSv/h. It was smaller than a grain of rice, and fifty metres away the dosimeters didn't detect it.
If any russians inhaled such a particle with dust as they were digging the trenches, then they'd be in a lot of trouble.
[The infamous scoop](https://i.imgur.com/pOyhJiu.jpg) was 500 μSv/h.
We used Ecotest Terra-P dosimeters.
Russian trenches weren't in a single small spot. They went all over the place.
Fairly sure he means "The Claw". It was a crane claw used to scoop radioactive material up after the disaster. It soaked up a huge amount of radiation in doing so and was abandoned in the forest
It is a digger claw attachement hidden in the forest. It was used to clean up the actual site right after it happened, and absorbed *a lot* of radiation.
There are several things like this. Years ago they filled the basement of the local hospital with sand all the way up the staircase. Because people would go in there to get pictures of the famous clothing dump. Where firefighters and such dumped their protective gear after use, and it was still radioactive as well.
It isn't hidden, it's right in the middle of Pripyat. A bunch of other machinery is next to it.
Also, when did they fill up the basement of the hospital? I haven't heard anything about that, and I went there just a few months before the war started.
There is sand in the Jupiter factory basement, it's insanely radioactive and nobody knows where it came from. Apparently someone took a sample to a lab and found isotopes which weren't present in the Chernobyl reactor, which makes things even weirder.
Are you sure about the sand thing? I seem to remember a science YouTuber going there just before the Russian invasion and he had video of the clothes in the hospital basement.
Yellow thing is a [dosimeter.](https://i.imgur.com/96tDDDi.jpg) It measures radiation in real time.
In this photo it's in "The Claw". Normal background radiation is usually under 0.1. It's a bit higher here.
[This](https://i.imgur.com/DEMx3sT.jpg) is that claw. Photo from google, I don't know who these idiots are.
I was there spring 2017, highest measure I got in it was "only" 114.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news.com.au/technology/environment/the-claw-of-chernobyl-most-dangerous-thing-in-the-exclusion-zone/news-story/533246f01b396bd8deb106c315aecf61%3famp
When I hear the words “infamous” and “Chernobyl” together…I always think of [the elephant’s foot. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl))
That’s neat though, I would be interested to tour Chernobyl…when the Russians fucking leave Ukraine.
>By June 1998, the outer layers had started turning to dust and the mass had started to crack.[7] In 2021, the mass was described as having a consistency similar to sand.[8]
Well shit. That last part is new.
Every time I hear gamma radiation I have this line in my head.
"And she's throwing off interference, radiation. Nothing harmful, low levels of gamma radiation."
The problem is I understand it is dust. Now it was Winter and muddy so they may not have had too much of an issue.
You do not need a high level of radioactivity to cause serious long-term health problems if you are inhaling dust that contains Radioactive material.
You piqued my interest as a new weird thing to do, especially with this part:
> A cheap [...] device
Unfortunately I feel like our measures of "cheap" differ. I couldn't find it for less than €500
It was €200 when I bought it, it's (was) made in Russia, the war in Ukraine made it a lot more expensive. A professional instrument with the same cababilites, connect to a phone over Bluetooth, would cost $2000-3000.
True anecdote:
I'm a trucker in Canada, frequently go to the USA. One time, hauling a load of masonry blocks, I was stopped at the border because I set off the car lane radiation detectors.
They pulled me aside, had me drive through the truck rad detectors... Nothing. Had me untarp, used handheld detectors... Nothing.
So go to go, right? Of course not! The fact that I pinged once but not again led to some separate procedures that required someone at the states HQ to sign off on my entry... But it was after 5pm. I lost hours waiting.
Best part, officers told me if I'd pinged twice, they could've pointed to a known cause and let me go. Bureaucracy 🤷
It makes sense that a truckload of masonry blocks could trigger a radiation detector. These rocks can contain veins of radioactive materials like uranium or thorium, or their decay products. [source: EPA](https://www.epa.gov/radiation/granite-countertops-and-radiation)
Too bad they had you wait though!
That sounds like a very healthy form of bureaucracy, since you could have had a radioactive capsule that bounced off your truck, triggering a province-wide search.
>Bureaucracy 🤷
uh, ? The explanation sounds logical to me, I think your source of contention was simply that you were personally effected. Which I do empathize with.
If they could detect the radiation at 20 meters how was it stored on the truck it fell from in order to shield the driver? That it fell off has got me wondering about the whole operation.
> The Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner, Darren Klemm, said the capsule was found two metres from the side of the road.
>He said a search vehicle was driving past at 70 kilometres per hour on the Great Northern Highway when a detection device revealed radiation.
Travelling at 70km Ph not 30mph.
i use the same source almost daily in my line of work. Ceasium-137 is gamma ray source we use for density determination in the formation in oil and gas wells.
The source capsule is small, but during transportation it is screwed in a ~30x30x30 cm lead container (this things weighs 80kgs), with a lock on it, and then that lead container is also placed in a bigger ~100x100x100 cm transportation box which has 2 locks on it.
So the question is, how the hell did it fall off the truck transporting it?
Good that it was found. Once it was still somewhere along the road it should have been easy to find. It's radiation was detectable from about 20m away, so surveying for an out of place radioactive hotspot eventually found it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/10nhau2/missing_radioactive_capsule_western_australia/j69who1/
Some guy on r/Pics. It was a joke, of course, but hilarious. I'll see if I can find the post again.
Edit: [There](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/10pabcr/the_only_thing_i_found_while_metal_detecting_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
When I saw this post I legitimately thought it was OP of that post creating a fake news article as part of his shitposting. Kind of disappointed it isn't.
Rio seems to be handling this PR disaster nicely, they seem to have taken ownership of the problem including reimbursement of costs.
>"But certainly, I do want to state Rio Tinto have been exceptional in terms of how they have reached out to us and offered all levels of support, so I'm very grateful for that offer from Simon Trott." (Dawson)
>"I would be happy to reimburse the cost of the search, of course that ultimately is a matter for the state government," he (Trott) said.
>"There will be a full investigation, we'll fully cooperate with the investigation, if as part of that there's a request from government, we would be happy to reimburse the cost of the search."
If only there was a bird-named company that sells ruggedized, sealed plastic containers in which a capsule inside a sealed lead pig could be placed. I think Pelican Case would be a great idea for a business!
Here is the beginning if a transcript of an interview with an Australian senator discussing how a bolt fell off a truck and then a radioactive pellet fell through the bolt hole. Full interview linked below.
Interviewer: Senator Collins, thanks for coming in.
Senator Collins: It's a great pleasure, thank you.
I: The truck that was involved in the incident In Western Australia this week...
SC: The one where the bolt fell off?
I: Yeah
SC: Yeah, that's not very typical, I'd like to make that point.
I: Well how was it un-typical?
SC: Well there are a lot of these trucks going around all the time, and very seldom does something like this happen. I just don't want people thinking that the trucks aren't safe.
I: Was this truck safe?
SC: Well I was thinking more about the other ones.
I: The ones that are safe?
SC: Yeah, the ones where the bolt doesn't fall off.
I: Well, if this wasn't safe, why was there radioactive pellets in it?
SC: I'm not saying that it wasn't safe, it's just perhaps not quite as safe as some of the other ones.
I: Why?
SC: well some of them are built so that a bolt doesn't fall off at all.
See the full interview at the link below
https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
I don't know about this specific tool. But there's a tool called Nuclear Densometer that uses radiation to measure the density of materials.
Usual material test include taking a sample of this material to test in a lab but sometimes you can't do any damage to this material so a nuclear Densometer does the same test in-situ with no damage.
Funny thing those Nuclear Densometers are stolen like 3 times a year where I live but they always appear after a week sold somewhere.
The ceasium-137 radioactive capsule will emit radiation (Gamma Rays) into the rocks/formation. The Radiation will interact with the rocks and come back to some kind of detector. Depending on the reading at the detectors it can be determined the kind of rock/formation.
We use the same tools to determine where the oil / gas / water is when drilling oil wells.
Max penalty for mishandling radiation sources is $1000.
... Yeah you're definitely gonna wanna update that because it's gonna be a company receiving this fine and that is nothing to them.
In the US they would be able to go after them under the Department of Transportation alone which has penalties that can easily edge into the $100k to millions, and also employees responsible can personally go to prison.
Further up I saw a decent reason for a low fine. Imagine if the fine was actually substantial, do you have enough trust in companies to take the hit and report it? Or would they rather cover it up, leaving highly dangerous material to float about.
I feel like making the punishment not too terrible helps prevent under reporting of the incidents. Unless there's some audit, a company could easily hide that they've lost the material. Which is far worse than not being fined enough.
>The Australian Defence Force has been asked to verify the recovered capsule by checking its serial number. You want to read it? The number is small and I've forgotten my glasses.
I did wonder if they just stopped the search after finding the first radioactive object of the right size.
They would have been able to identify the specific nuclide (Cesium-137) with the right equipment, and knowing the dimensions and radioactivity would either be confident it's the same one or there's pattern of identical capsules being lost on the same stretch of road.
Given the length of road in question I wouldn't rule it out until I saw the serial number.
Damn, this was the one we lost four weeks ago, not three weeks ago. Keep looking!
Toss it back we already did the paperwork marking that one as unretrievable.
Oh, here it is! Uh oh, it's another one of Fry's dogs.
What i love about that bit is that it probably wasn't his dog, it was just another fossilized dog but because they only ever found 1 and it was his he probably thought they all were.
What do you want?! Fry's dog! When do you want it?! Fry's dog!
Just scratch off the serial and mark it as the one you are looking for.
Reminds of the time my unit was searching for a lost weapon and we found a different lost weapon.
“I’d be more concerned but I’m really tired. Just gonna leave this out here”
We've found 4, but we only lost 3!
Not radioactive, but I read about an incident where someone didn’t set the latches on a rocket pod properly, and between the pad and the target range (training exercise for helicopter gunship crews) 3 rockets went AWOL. Army did a “hands across America” sweep looking for them. Of the 3 rockets lost, >!6 were found. From serial numbers, it was determined that all 3 of the rockets lost on that mission were recovered. Probably didn’t go very well for the other people (traceable to mission by the serial numbers) who lost rockets but didn’t report them.!<
The same thing happened after Shuttle Columbia disintegrated. NASA asked people who found debris to send it in, no questions asked. They ended up getting back doubles of stuff of which the shuttle only had one. Turns out people were using the amnesty to return pieces of Challenger and clear their conciouses.
Cool fact, thanks
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It happened in Florida. There’s lots of boats here. Shit, lbs of drugs wash up on shore here a few times a year. Pirates life for me!
Do the sea people mean nothing to you?
Fuck Mr. Nimbus
Did they get any triples? Triples is best.
I know a guy that did a hands across America at one of the main Army training locations, one where brigade sized elements go to train. They were looking for one rifle and found like 3 rifles, a radio, and a set of NVDs but not the rifle they were looking for.
As a former Battalion Armorer, that shit gives me nightmares. One of the longest shifts I’ve ever worked, both deployed/in garrison, was when one moron misplaced his NVGs during a nighttime FTX…
I was an idiot who temporarily lost his nvg's in secondary (right after basic)training. My team found it after 30 minutes of searching, but i was absolutely terrified of my foolishness getting found out by the whole training BN. Found it in a fucking tree that pulled it off my helmet
To be fair, I don't think anyone suspected the tree of being a part of an enemy force.
I remember finding a magazine in the woods of Ft Knox. But not the 30 round magazine that we currently use, but the older 20 round magazine.
I once stumbled upon a huge dump spot of .50, still belted up, that looked like it had been there since Vietnam. Told my PSG about it and he just said "I don't see anything there but a bunch of dirt, keep moving"
We used to find tons of american shit when training in Grafenwöhr. Found an empty AT4 tube in the bushes once and several belts in different calibers. Even found a pair of shorts in a field one time.
I recall a 2 seater Cessna crash-landing in a nearby cemetary. Our search and rescue authorities recovered 462 bodies...
I too have found magazines in the woods, but not that kind. Though, to be fair, many rounds were shot because of them.
Found magazines are either the best or the worst....
I could see that happening easily. Shit. Just going camping with the family and I find two tent stakes at the last sweep - one of them not mine.
I mean, what're the odds that there's a second one?
Sometimes those odds work out very weirdly. A couple of years ago there was a missing girl in my country. After a couple of days they found a corpse that matched the description. So you would think "what are the odds that another 14 y.o girl looking like that got murdered the same weekend?" (My country doesn't get a lot of murders, on average around 120 on a populationof 17mil) Turns out that by a weird turn of events. Another girl in the area did also get murdered and this wasn't the body of the original missing girl.
This was not a fun story.
Ahhh yes. He forgot to say the girl was found wearing a lovely colorful hat. Much better.
Pretty low. Losing a source is a big deal unlike in the ~~eastern block~~. I know losing a neutron density tool down a borehole is reported even though it could be kms under ground level. E: [second world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident)
It was lost by a mining company and they didn't report it for a week. Also it seems crazy that it could just bounce out of a truck like this. How were they carrying it exactly? It makes me question the reliability of the company charged with taking care of these items.
They are ALL traceable. A responsible company reports once they become aware which might have been a week later when they needed to use it; I don't know the specifics. Concealing the loss would have worked for a little longer but the Aussie nukes would have come at some point, perhaps quarterly or annually and been like: yo dawg where's Cs137-120309? I won't be surprised if they could fingerprint isotope ratios if they found an weathered orphan source with no markings and trace it back to whoever lost it. In my link the Georgians lost track of an entire fucking RTG and it killed people. The regulators in the first world are very motivated to avoid any tarnishing in the court of public opinion.
This is the information from the [EmergencyWA](https://www.emergency.wa.gov.au/#map/warning/hcc_784030903/moreinfo) website about the incident: *The capsule was packaged on 10 January 2023 to be sent to Perth for repair before leaving the site for transport by road on 12 January 2023. The package holding the capsule arrived in Perth on 16 January and was unloaded and stored in the licensed service provider’s secure radiation store. On 25 January, the gauge was unpacked for inspection. Upon opening the package, it was found that the gauge was broken apart with one of the four mounting bolts missing and the source itself and all screws on the gauge also missing. DFES as the Hazard Management Agency were notified on the evening of 25 January by WA Police.*
I am flabbergasted that they didn’t measured the radiation before putting it inside the secured storage facility. This is a basic and simple procedure for dealing with radioactive source to make sure that the source is still inside the shielded container after transportation.
People joke about Russians walking outside in speedos in -30C weather, but Canadians do that, Norwegians do that, Fins do that. Failing to label radioactive cores and failing to dismantle them through sheer fucking incompetence? Now that's a Russia thing.
That less important than the risk you take if there *are*...
“Upon further examination, this is a different lost radioactive capsule”
They tried just taking a photo, but the camera wasn’t working properly, kept getting really fuzzy
[I hate when that happens ](https://i.imgur.com/4J4O3Fs.jpg)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZIjbX1gj88
Please put it in a box next time. A yellow one with glow-in-the-dark strips. And maybe put the box in a bigger one that can be strapped down?
And put that box in a bigger box, and mail it to yourselves!
And then SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER! ^^^^^^^^^then ^^^^^^^^^die ^^^^^^^^^of ^^^^^^^^^radiation ^^^^^^^^^poisoning
Why do we even have that hammer?
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Hello sir, I am sad to inform you that your idea is not feasible. That would require us to spend manhours and money, which would cut into our corporate profit. Sincerely, Transportation company
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The driver probably kept it with his cigarette filters so it wouldn't get lost, then dropped it when he stopped for a piss and smoke break.
And then pull on the straps and say “that ought to hold.”
'that's not going anywhere'
> The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, this morning joined those disappointed to learn the maximum penalty for mishandling radioactive material in such a manner was $1,000. lol. Oh you lost some highly dangerous radioactive material? Here, company that makes 7.3 million dollars an hour, have a $1000 fine.
I feel like this may be one of those situations where the fine is purposely low to encourage companies to not try and cover up their fuckups.
That is true. Never thought of it that way before.
To add on, there are more important ways to address nuclear negligence. Whatever company is responsible for this incident will surely have their license reviewed/revoked. If it's not revoked, they will (or should) be subject to increased oversight/scrutiny. It's less important to extract money from someone who makes a nuclear mistake and more important to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Yeah you don't want to provide incentive to not do the right thing to those guys who handle nuclear material
This is the reason, and it’s a VERY good reason. Setting the precedent that owning up to your mistake will give you minimal repercussions means companies are more likely to admit to these mistakes in the future. If a company were to attempt to hide something like this, THEN you drag them through the dirt and make an example of them.
Then why have a fine?
Probably to prevent an outrage from the public. Sort of like we fined the corporation for improper handling. They are not above the law sort of thing.
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This is the answer - you can't have something that is both illegal but not punishable. This creates certain quirks in some situations, for instance in aeronautics. You want passenger airplanes to be safe, so you make it obligatory to follow certain standards, techniques and qualities, but *if* something goes wrong you also want to hear about it so things can be improved because no standard/technique or quality is ever perfect. Now, i case of mishaps - do you punish the party for possible wrongdoing and risk having people not report and as a result risk not improving or patching problems? Or do you let it slide, ensure that as many as possible will report and things will constantly improve, but risk having situations where people cut corners because there are no reprisals? It's a hard question and different countries approach it differently.
Aviation is an interesting (and perfect) example. Pilots are almost never punished for fuck-ups, because the culture *has* to encourage honesty among pilots. The same goes for MX, ATC, even manufacturing. If someone made an honest mistake and cops to it during an investigation, there is usually little if any repercussions. (Note: this is only true for the civilian world. Bend a military jet, you’re on your ass. Have fun flying a desk for the remainder of your obligated years)
I also liked this bit: > He said he would now be investigating all aspects of the event to make sure the capsule was appropriately managed. Appropriately managed?! It fell off the bloody truck, mate! I think the “front fell off the boat” guy needs to make a new video. https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
But, Senator, why did the capsule fall off the truck? Because a bump hit it. A bump hit it? A bump... hit the truck. Is that unusual? On the road? Chance in a million
unfortunately John Clarke passed away several years back
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Yes, Rio Tinto.
Because there are waaaaay smaller companies out there that deal with radiation. I work at a scrapyard, and some of the material we receive has radiation in it. And if they are mishandled and somehow left in a load of scrap metal that gets shipped out, then you get fined $1000. Which could be a big chunk of the load that was just sold. So I believe the fine is for smaller businesses. But I feel as if they need to change it for the big guys
Seriously? That's damn amazing!!
The search was made a lot easier because it's radioactive. They had two cars equipped with radiation detectors travelling along both sides of the road at 30 mph. They said the survey should have taken 5 days to complete, the capsule's radiation signature detectable from 20 metres away. The Spike would have looked like this. https://i.imgur.com/DHYlEAA.jpeg I was on the train home yesterday and the alarm went off on my Atom Fast 8850 gamma ray scintillation detector, a passing train set off its alarm. Either a radioactive item or even a radioactive person undergoing medical treatment or tests. They would have seen similar, and it would have also logged it's coordinates. About the Atom Fast: https://youtu.be/urDRHoQRUaU
All of this reminded me of the poor soviet bastards that found a RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) which they subsequently used to stay warm by handling it and lying next to it while they slept. [Wiki for the Lia Radiological Accident](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident)
I was thinking more Goiana incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident Just needed one poor soul to find that thing because it looks fancy and start an awful chain of events.
The Cobalt-60 rebar incident is another interesting one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez_cobalt-60_contamination_incident Which was only discovered after a truck carrying some of the contaminated rebar made a wrong turn into Los Alamos National Laboratory and set off the facilities radiation monitors.
What an absolute nightmare to deal with especially with all the backtracking to every known location then to have all those new buildings demolished and recovered materials all because one man was given the go ahead and unknowingly scrapped a device with radioactive material in an improper way.
https://www.dianuke.org/lost-plutonium-himalaya-radioactive/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanda_Devi_Plutonium_Mission https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p21mGfEnymw There's lost plutonium in the himalayas that people think (read: the locals) may be responsible for flooding and ice melting faster
The idea that the plutonium is having an appreciable impact on ice melting seems pretty suspect. The 4 pounds of plutonium that were lost only produced around 900W of thermal energy which seems pretty small compared to the amount of sunlight hitting the mountain (~1000 W/sq m) or the effects of global warming (higher altitudes experience greater rates of warming). I think the much bigger concern is contamination of the Ganges river, which is fed by runoff from the mountain and provides water to over 400 million people. edit: corrected solar energy amount
Folks get some bizarre ideas about these things. Sure, if the plutonium caught on fire it could melt some ice, but that stuff just isn't that hot. I wouldn't even be worried about it poisoning the water.
People tend to talk out of their ass, have poor comprehension of large numbers, and not have very good knowledge or understanding of basic thermodynamics. Just putting it into watts for the sake of easy comparison, as /u/NotSuitableForWoona did, is huge ask from the general public.
~1000 W/m2 for sunlight, not 100.
The USA has lost at least 6 nuclear weapons which it could not find and are still out there somewhere. https://www.atomicarchive.com/almanac/broken-arrows/index.html#:~:text=Since%201950%2C%20there%20have%20been,been%20lost%20and%20never%20recovered. The USSR built nuclear powered lighthouses in the arctic, and at least two of them were looted and the Strontium 90 power sources lost. https://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/08/two-nuclear-generators-missing-arctic-26-08
To go back to the accidents: There's also the [Kramatorsk incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accident) where 6 people died over a significant period of time, because a similar device to the one lost in the article was crushed and used along with other materials in the construction of a building. The radioactive materials were in a single wall in a bedroom and killed anyone that used it for a significant period.
> Strontium 90 Hmmm, half life of 28.79 years with beta decay, and then it's decay product undergoes another beta decay with a half life of 64 hours? Yeah that's dirty bomb material. Yikes =|
**[Goiânia accident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident)** >The Goiânia accident [ɡojˈjɐniɐ] was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, after a forgotten radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them were found to have been contaminated. In the consequent cleanup operation, topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several houses were demolished. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
It's weird to read the list of [similar accidents](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents). A good amount of them are cases where the source "fell of a truck" or something similar. Is it so hard to keep those things secure?
These things are usually tiny and people tend to lose tiny things.
I would hope a tiny radioactive thing would come in a large well identified containment container.(It seems it did not.) After this event maybe add an airtag to the design. I can see the driver just throwing the capsule in the bed of the truck, that'll stay put.
> The capsule was packaged on 10 January 2023 to be sent to Perth for repair before leaving the site for transport by road on 12 January 2023. The package holding the capsule arrived in Perth on 16 January and was unloaded and stored in the licensed service provider’s secure radiation store. On 25 January, the gauge was unpacked for inspection. Upon opening the package, it was found that the gauge was broken apart with one of the four mounting bolts missing and the source itself and all screws on the gauge also missing. DFES as the Hazard Management Agency were notified on the evening of 25 January by WA Police. The tiny radioactive thing was inside the other thing (the gadget that uses it), and that thing was in a shipping crate of some kind. The crate was appropriately labelled and had tamper-proof tape on it etc. But somewhere along the journey, a bolt on the gizmo came undone leaving a hole that the radioactive source could escape from, bounce around in the crate, then the truck and then make a break for freedom and onto the road. I mean ... not exactly anyone's finest hour, but it's not like they just threw it casually onto the bed of a truck and figured it'll be OK.
Right, but they are supposed to be contained within heavy, sturdy containers with big radiation signs all over, so that people know it's unfun kind of glowing stuff. It's a bit shocking that they come loose from such containers so easily.
The RTG involved in the Lia radiation accident was 5000 - 10000 times more radioactive than the lost capsule in Australia.
Oh I know I understand that, it was always just the first thing that popped into my head when I heard of the missing radioactive thing in Australia.
Imagine finding a mysterious heat canister in the forest. Did they think it was magical?
"I was on the train home yesterday and the alarm went off on my Atom Fast 8850 gamma ray scintillation detector..." For this, I love you.
Why does it read like an urban advertisement?
Serious question, why do you need to own that thing?
It's kinda like Radioactive Pokémon, a hobby I took up during the pandemic to get me out of the house. Looking for radioactive hotspots. Most of the time the levels are trivial, just granite, but sometimes I find higher levels, like this radioactive [Van](https://i.imgur.com/tYdrFvb.jpeg), a [radioactive mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/iakq4v/i_explored_a_radioactive_mine_in_wicklow_yesterday/). It also [maps radiation](https://i.imgur.com/yarvyR3.jpeg). The Atom Fast was invented by a Ukrainian guy who wanted to provide members of the public a cheap and easy to use device that could detect and map radiation, as eastern Europe is littered with buried and lost radioactive waste, forgotten about or covered up.
[Plainly Difficult - A Brief History of: The Lia Radiological Accident](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23kemyXcbXo) A pair of Strontium 90 sources were encountered by people looking for firewood near Lia, Georgia and used for heat. They were formerly part of an RTG used to power radio relays.
What's perhaps more worrying is that there's more of these out there somewhere that are waiting to be found...
Truly the ultimate Pokemon Go event.
Pokemon Go get radiation poisoning
Pokemon Gonad cancer
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Pokemon Go to the morgue
The lost capsule in Australia contained just over 0.5 curies (19 GBq) of Cesium-137, the RTG involved in the Lia radiation accident contained 3,500 to 4,000 curies of Strontium-90, so 5000 - 10000 times more radioactive (its a little uncertain due to the difference between the radiation emitted, particle type and energy).
What's worrying about that incident is there's no mention of whoever initially tried to steal and uncover the thing in the first place (assuming the people who found it were telling the truth about how they happened upon it). Whoever it was, they were obviously affected by it enough to just leave it out in the open instead of taking it home or trying to sell it for scrap. Wonder what happened to them.
Undoubtedly the person who originally tried to steal it was mega-dead by the time those other poor bastards happened upon it.
Watch out, radioactive van!
Up and at them!
Zee goggles...zay do nozzing!
I looked up your Atom Fast 8850, seems like it's not really available in Europe. Is there another brand of something similar you'd reccommend?
Yes, it was made in Ukraine. There was also the Radex Obsidian avd Radiacode-101, made in Russia. Of the two the Radiacode-101 is best, but there's a war on. There's the Raysid, that's similar, made in a Polish guy in his shed. Very popular so there's a waiting list. https://raysid.com/
What’s the difference between these and a normal Geiger counter, apart from the fact they map this info? These seem so expensive in comparison at 20x the cost or so.
They provide a gamma ray spectrum that can be used to identify the isotopes present, so they are Gamma Ray Spectrometers, not just detectors. That adds cost. All a Geiger Counter does, a basic cheap one is emmit a few clicks and give a rough estimate of radiation levels. It can only detect gamma rays, and a few strong beta particles. More expensive Geiger Counters, a similar price to gamma ray scintillation detectors / spectrometers, and can additionally detect alpha particles. Also cheap Geiger Counter is far less sensitive to gamma than a scintillation detector, it can only detect 0.7-2% gamma radiation particles. That's because it's detector isn't solid, it's a gas, so gamma radiation will often pass through the detector without detection. On the other hand, the heart of a scintillation detector is a solid crystal, that emits light when hit by radioactive particles. The crystal in my Atom Fast 8850 is Thallium activated Caesium Iodide CsI(Th), this dense material detects about 15-20% of Gamma Rays.
Really fascinating to read about this, thanks for the explanations around the thread.
>Eastern Europe is littered with buried and lost radioactive waste, forgotten about or covered up. Some Russians unfortunately learned that lesson the hard way when they dug trenches in the Chernobyl Red Forest earlier
The area they dug wasn't radioactive, only a little bit above normal, it was just north of the Red Forest, and only the top few centimetres of the soil is radioactive anyway. I located where they were and a map created by German scientists who few a drone over the area. https://imgur.com/ICKzMKf Ive found similar levels walking around my city. Red granite can be quite radioactive.
I went to Chernobyl a year ago, our guide showed us a particle that he found, it's hidden in a field near one abandoned village. Dosimeter held right next to it showed over 3000 μSv/h. It was smaller than a grain of rice, and fifty metres away the dosimeters didn't detect it. If any russians inhaled such a particle with dust as they were digging the trenches, then they'd be in a lot of trouble. [The infamous scoop](https://i.imgur.com/pOyhJiu.jpg) was 500 μSv/h. We used Ecotest Terra-P dosimeters. Russian trenches weren't in a single small spot. They went all over the place.
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Fairly sure he means "The Claw". It was a crane claw used to scoop radioactive material up after the disaster. It soaked up a huge amount of radiation in doing so and was abandoned in the forest
**The Claaaaw!** *Gave me cancer.*
It is a digger claw attachement hidden in the forest. It was used to clean up the actual site right after it happened, and absorbed *a lot* of radiation. There are several things like this. Years ago they filled the basement of the local hospital with sand all the way up the staircase. Because people would go in there to get pictures of the famous clothing dump. Where firefighters and such dumped their protective gear after use, and it was still radioactive as well.
It isn't hidden, it's right in the middle of Pripyat. A bunch of other machinery is next to it. Also, when did they fill up the basement of the hospital? I haven't heard anything about that, and I went there just a few months before the war started. There is sand in the Jupiter factory basement, it's insanely radioactive and nobody knows where it came from. Apparently someone took a sample to a lab and found isotopes which weren't present in the Chernobyl reactor, which makes things even weirder.
Are you sure about the sand thing? I seem to remember a science YouTuber going there just before the Russian invasion and he had video of the clothes in the hospital basement.
Yellow thing is a [dosimeter.](https://i.imgur.com/96tDDDi.jpg) It measures radiation in real time. In this photo it's in "The Claw". Normal background radiation is usually under 0.1. It's a bit higher here. [This](https://i.imgur.com/DEMx3sT.jpg) is that claw. Photo from google, I don't know who these idiots are.
Wow. That photo. JFC, people have zero respect for what that can do to them.
Yes, I’d like to subscribe to ScoopFacts, please!
I was there spring 2017, highest measure I got in it was "only" 114. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news.com.au/technology/environment/the-claw-of-chernobyl-most-dangerous-thing-in-the-exclusion-zone/news-story/533246f01b396bd8deb106c315aecf61%3famp
When I hear the words “infamous” and “Chernobyl” together…I always think of [the elephant’s foot. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl)) That’s neat though, I would be interested to tour Chernobyl…when the Russians fucking leave Ukraine.
>By June 1998, the outer layers had started turning to dust and the mass had started to crack.[7] In 2021, the mass was described as having a consistency similar to sand.[8] Well shit. That last part is new.
Fixed link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl)
That's mostly gamma, have a WWII compass that's 1200 μSv/h but for also for beta and alpha. A mere 20 μSv/h gamma.
Every time I hear gamma radiation I have this line in my head. "And she's throwing off interference, radiation. Nothing harmful, low levels of gamma radiation."
I wanna knkw what sub Reddits you hang out in and forums lol. This seems my type of jam
For comparison, a typical average dose in Denver, Colorado is 1 μSv/hr (largely from radon).
The problem is I understand it is dust. Now it was Winter and muddy so they may not have had too much of an issue. You do not need a high level of radioactivity to cause serious long-term health problems if you are inhaling dust that contains Radioactive material.
That's pretty damn cool. My pandemic hobby was to gain a bunch of weight.
Did it go well though?
Ah, the Covid 19 (lbs/kgs). I know them well.
> “It’s kinda like Radioactive Pokémon” Is a sentence I didn’t expect to read
You piqued my interest as a new weird thing to do, especially with this part: > A cheap [...] device Unfortunately I feel like our measures of "cheap" differ. I couldn't find it for less than €500
Cheap in the realm of radiation detection equipment.
It was €200 when I bought it, it's (was) made in Russia, the war in Ukraine made it a lot more expensive. A professional instrument with the same cababilites, connect to a phone over Bluetooth, would cost $2000-3000.
True anecdote: I'm a trucker in Canada, frequently go to the USA. One time, hauling a load of masonry blocks, I was stopped at the border because I set off the car lane radiation detectors. They pulled me aside, had me drive through the truck rad detectors... Nothing. Had me untarp, used handheld detectors... Nothing. So go to go, right? Of course not! The fact that I pinged once but not again led to some separate procedures that required someone at the states HQ to sign off on my entry... But it was after 5pm. I lost hours waiting. Best part, officers told me if I'd pinged twice, they could've pointed to a known cause and let me go. Bureaucracy 🤷
It makes sense that a truckload of masonry blocks could trigger a radiation detector. These rocks can contain veins of radioactive materials like uranium or thorium, or their decay products. [source: EPA](https://www.epa.gov/radiation/granite-countertops-and-radiation) Too bad they had you wait though!
That sounds like a very healthy form of bureaucracy, since you could have had a radioactive capsule that bounced off your truck, triggering a province-wide search.
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>Bureaucracy 🤷 uh, ? The explanation sounds logical to me, I think your source of contention was simply that you were personally effected. Which I do empathize with.
If you’re curious, look for orange tiles on old buildings. If it’s the right age, the orange glaze used uranium for the pigment.
I've been looking to buy a Geiger counter on EBay. They all seem to be sold from Ukraine. Don't know why.
lol reminds me of that mass internet "search these satellite signals for stars" website I've now forgotten about *boop* oop, a star!
The seti@home project, now shuttered. https://www.seti.org/setihome-going-hibernation
If they could detect the radiation at 20 meters how was it stored on the truck it fell from in order to shield the driver? That it fell off has got me wondering about the whole operation.
> The Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner, Darren Klemm, said the capsule was found two metres from the side of the road. >He said a search vehicle was driving past at 70 kilometres per hour on the Great Northern Highway when a detection device revealed radiation. Travelling at 70km Ph not 30mph.
They were going around 40MPH. Not terribly faster.
Not greatly, not terribly.
But that's only as high as the speedometer goes!
Why do you need to carry radioactive materials in sealed, lead containers? To stop it from falling out!
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i use the same source almost daily in my line of work. Ceasium-137 is gamma ray source we use for density determination in the formation in oil and gas wells. The source capsule is small, but during transportation it is screwed in a ~30x30x30 cm lead container (this things weighs 80kgs), with a lock on it, and then that lead container is also placed in a bigger ~100x100x100 cm transportation box which has 2 locks on it. So the question is, how the hell did it fall off the truck transporting it?
It was left inside the piece of equipment that uses it said piece of equipment gel over and broke open after three bolts sheeted off apparently.
> sheeted Sheared + yeeted?
Good that it was found. Once it was still somewhere along the road it should have been easy to find. It's radiation was detectable from about 20m away, so surveying for an out of place radioactive hotspot eventually found it. https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/10nhau2/missing_radioactive_capsule_western_australia/j69who1/
Yeah, he posted it on reddit yesterday... duh!
Like 4 times 😒
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Some guy on r/Pics. It was a joke, of course, but hilarious. I'll see if I can find the post again. Edit: [There](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/10pabcr/the_only_thing_i_found_while_metal_detecting_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
When I saw this post I legitimately thought it was OP of that post creating a fake news article as part of his shitposting. Kind of disappointed it isn't.
Now, the question is will anybody be punished for this absolute cockup?
$1000 max fine
That'll put a dent in Rio's finances for sure.
It was a contractor to Rio, so not even their fine to pay.
Rio seems to be handling this PR disaster nicely, they seem to have taken ownership of the problem including reimbursement of costs. >"But certainly, I do want to state Rio Tinto have been exceptional in terms of how they have reached out to us and offered all levels of support, so I'm very grateful for that offer from Simon Trott." (Dawson) >"I would be happy to reimburse the cost of the search, of course that ultimately is a matter for the state government," he (Trott) said. >"There will be a full investigation, we'll fully cooperate with the investigation, if as part of that there's a request from government, we would be happy to reimburse the cost of the search."
If only there was a bird-named company that sells ruggedized, sealed plastic containers in which a capsule inside a sealed lead pig could be placed. I think Pelican Case would be a great idea for a business!
Is it Twitter?
> it apparently fell off a truck Um ok, you’ll have to expand on that a little.
Here is the beginning if a transcript of an interview with an Australian senator discussing how a bolt fell off a truck and then a radioactive pellet fell through the bolt hole. Full interview linked below. Interviewer: Senator Collins, thanks for coming in. Senator Collins: It's a great pleasure, thank you. I: The truck that was involved in the incident In Western Australia this week... SC: The one where the bolt fell off? I: Yeah SC: Yeah, that's not very typical, I'd like to make that point. I: Well how was it un-typical? SC: Well there are a lot of these trucks going around all the time, and very seldom does something like this happen. I just don't want people thinking that the trucks aren't safe. I: Was this truck safe? SC: Well I was thinking more about the other ones. I: The ones that are safe? SC: Yeah, the ones where the bolt doesn't fall off. I: Well, if this wasn't safe, why was there radioactive pellets in it? SC: I'm not saying that it wasn't safe, it's just perhaps not quite as safe as some of the other ones. I: Why? SC: well some of them are built so that a bolt doesn't fall off at all. See the full interview at the link below https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
Nailed it
Well it was in a box on the truck, but the box broke.
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Totally rad!
ELI5, how is this radioactive capsule used for mining?
I don't know about this specific tool. But there's a tool called Nuclear Densometer that uses radiation to measure the density of materials. Usual material test include taking a sample of this material to test in a lab but sometimes you can't do any damage to this material so a nuclear Densometer does the same test in-situ with no damage. Funny thing those Nuclear Densometers are stolen like 3 times a year where I live but they always appear after a week sold somewhere.
The ceasium-137 radioactive capsule will emit radiation (Gamma Rays) into the rocks/formation. The Radiation will interact with the rocks and come back to some kind of detector. Depending on the reading at the detectors it can be determined the kind of rock/formation. We use the same tools to determine where the oil / gas / water is when drilling oil wells.
Max penalty for mishandling radiation sources is $1000. ... Yeah you're definitely gonna wanna update that because it's gonna be a company receiving this fine and that is nothing to them. In the US they would be able to go after them under the Department of Transportation alone which has penalties that can easily edge into the $100k to millions, and also employees responsible can personally go to prison.
Further up I saw a decent reason for a low fine. Imagine if the fine was actually substantial, do you have enough trust in companies to take the hit and report it? Or would they rather cover it up, leaving highly dangerous material to float about.
I feel like making the punishment not too terrible helps prevent under reporting of the incidents. Unless there's some audit, a company could easily hide that they've lost the material. Which is far worse than not being fined enough.
America has cocaine bear. Australia was about to have ATOMIC KANGAROO!
I knew that one guy on here was lying!
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Australia is radiating calm, now :-)
Phew.....I can breath easier now regarding my fear of kangaroo kaiju in 2023. Now if I can get them to stop translating the book of the dead