General > General Technical Chat
australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
BurningTantalum:
There must be a whole lot more to this story than the media have reported (or made up.) I used to be responsible for fitting Strontium 90 sources. The nuclear material was in a stainless container with a beam-welded titanium window, about the size of a C-cell if I recall. The item was ALWAYS kept in its transport pot which was a lead container with a lid secured by screws unless it was installed in the machine. To suggest that it was loose in the back of a ute/truck/pickup and fell through a screw hole is quite laughable. Someone must have lost it or it was pinched whilst the truck was at a roadhouse stop and there is some face saving occurring.
BT
voltsandjolts:
--- Quote from: Halcyon on January 28, 2023, 09:58:15 pm ---
--- Quote from: voltsandjolts on January 28, 2023, 05:49:25 pm ---
--- Quote from: Halcyon on January 28, 2023, 01:24:58 pm ---This seems highly extraordinary.
...
Something smells off to me.
--- End quote ---
Nope.
This is very ordinary, happens more often than you think.
I work in an industry that uses (very) radioactive sources as a matter of course, transported by road on daily basis. I've heard the stories first hand.
--- End quote ---
Then how is it possible like something like that to just be "lost"? Why wasn't it in a big container that's easy to see and handle?
--- End quote ---
If regulations were being followed correctly it would've been in a transport pig, but humans are [misguided, exhausted, illogical, mistaken, erroneous] at times.
For example, I know of a gamma source used in the mining industry that is the size of a AA battery (permanent encasement size) with a threaded hole for the 1.3 metre long handing tool to screw into. I don't recall the activity but for sure you wouldn't want to hold it in your hand. It's used for rock density measurement and is stored in a lead pig for transport. You have to keep in mind that mining engineers don't sit on their ass in an air conditioned office 9-5. No. They're part of a 24-7 operation, perhaps doing a week of night shifts, maybe couple new recruits to look after, perhaps the weather is bad, perhaps equipment giving problems or getting poor sleep because of day shift noise. It can be a stressful job. Anyway, at the end of a shift, an engineer places this gamma source into it's transport pig. Except they didn't. It hadn't unscrewed from the handling tool fully, and remained on the end of the handling tool and the engineer didn't notice. It was days before the gamma source was found by which time several engineers had received their yearly dose limit. RA sources are ubiquitous in industry and accidents do happen, most never reported in mainstream media. There are stories aplenty on the internet if you look.
Edit: Confirmation lost Australian source should have been in a container...
--- Quote ---The truck bearing the capsule left the mine on 12 January, arriving in Perth on 16 January, but the capsule wasn’t discovered missing until nine days later when the secure housing was opened on 25 January. It is believed a bolt securing the lead-lined gauge containing the capsule worked loose somewhere on the journey – potentially shaken loose by the vibrations of the truck – and the capsule fell through a hole left by the missing bolt.
--- End quote ---
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/29/new-technology-deployed-in-search-for-tiny-potentially-deadly-missing-radioactive-capsule
aargee:
Anyone talked to Doc Emmett Brown?
mendip_discovery:
Given the amount of people using it and how regularly they use it there is always that chance something will go wrong.
It may well be in a case in the truck that is always in the truck and it's so regular for them to use they don't treat it like the dangerous thing it is. The engineer has just had to spend a few days/weeks trying to remember when he last saw it. Did he remember to put it away. The latch is a bit funny but as the case is stupid money to buy the boss wont replace it etc.
It's much like that 10mm socket you put down and it runs away, hides only to appear at the other end of the shed a week later. Hunting for it makes it only harder to find. Before it was publicly announced I suspect they had to check all the obvious places just on the off chance the engineer put it somewhere daft like in his tool box and not the safety container.
Aircraft engineers will know how much crap can be had if you loose a tool on a job.
tom66:
--- Quote from: aargee on January 30, 2023, 02:45:13 pm ---Anyone talked to Doc Emmett Brown?
--- End quote ---
Reads a bit differently:
It's the Aussies, Marty. They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their cesium and in turn, gave them a shiny bomb-casing filled with used pinbull machine parts.
...Oh my god, they found me, I don't know how but they found me. The Aussies, Marty! Run for it!
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