Author Topic: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?  (Read 4919 times)

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Offline coppercone2Topic starter

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australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« on: January 28, 2023, 07:39:30 am »
Given that this is an Australian forum, and people might have some equipment,
https://slashdot.org/story/23/01/28/0123235/missing-radioactive-capsule-sparks-urgent-health-alert-in-western-australia




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« Last Edit: January 28, 2023, 07:55:16 am by coppercone2 »
 

Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2023, 09:27:50 am »
 :-DD :-DD

The article has a bit of a Simpsons vibe. A 6mm x 8mm capsule falling of a truck through a bolt hole.  :palm:

Offline coppercone2Topic starter

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2023, 10:03:22 am »
needs lockwire, or a cotter pin. Why do I have a feeling the wheels of trolly cart are better secured then radioactive material?

they should also put a flange on it, so its not tiny. IDK What they were thinking. A square flange would prevent it from rolling. And it should be placed so that if a bolt falls out, it would need to over come gravity. Why is it capable of falling out?

I guess messing with the shape makes it easier to breach or misuse/pry/force. But seriously, cotter pin, lock wire, gravity. Radioactive materials are a dismal problem.  Transport fixture where its upside down during transport.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2023, 10:18:59 am by coppercone2 »
 

Offline sleemanj

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #3 on: January 28, 2023, 11:14:12 am »
6mm x 8mm and it fell off the truck somewhere along it's 1400km journey.

I permananly lose bigger things that fall off the front of my bench!
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Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #4 on: January 28, 2023, 11:30:07 am »
6mm x 8mm and it fell off the truck somewhere along it's 1400km journey.

I permananly lose bigger things that fall off the front of my bench!

But are these things radioactive  :-//

Offline voltsandjolts

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #5 on: January 28, 2023, 12:24:18 pm »
geez this thing would be impossible to find unless you had a truck with geiger counters very close to the road travelling the entire route, twice or even 3 times if possible.

That's been done before using scintillator GR detectors and a long slow drive down the road with someone watching the GR counts.
 

Offline AndyBeez

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #6 on: January 28, 2023, 12:37:29 pm »
So what happened is... a 'road warrior' road train ran over the capsule on a hot day, capturing it in the tire tread. Which means the capsule could now be anywhere between Perth and Brisbane. Mad Max: Atomic Road
 

Offline redkitedesign

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #7 on: January 28, 2023, 01:01:12 pm »
And it should be placed so that if a bolt falls out, it would need to over come gravity. Why is it capable of falling out?

I've driven that 1400km road. Things a lot bigger than 6x8mm bounced a lot higher in my car during that trip.
Gravity wouldn't have kept in place.

Then again, it's apparently as radioactive as an X-ray at a few meters distance, so good luck finding it with an Geigercounter, the ground over the entire road produces probably as much background radiation as this object itself. And it can easily have landed 20m beside the road.
 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #8 on: January 28, 2023, 01:24:58 pm »
This seems highly extraordinary.

Having been involved in nuclear material escorts in my "previous life" to/from ANSTO in Sydney, I find it highly unusual that something of this size would just "pop out" of a truck.

Either:

1. It's not as dangerous as the media make it out to be, but it's still considered a "notifiable" incident, or
2. It wasn't packed/transported properly, and/or
3. Someone really fucked up and is going to get a big smack.

Nuclear material is a big thing in AU (since we don't have nuclear energy), handling of such substances is fairly tightly controlled.

Something smells off to me.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2023, 01:27:26 pm by Halcyon »
 
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Offline dmills

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #9 on: January 28, 2023, 04:26:33 pm »
Lot of sources like that used for Gamma NDT in mining, hydro power and related fields, they go (usually temporarily) missing way more then you would expect. Hell there have been one or two stolen by workers on the site!

If it is a gamma source, that is actually good as it will be far more detectable at a bit of distance then most of the other radiations would be (Inverse square law tapers more slowly then an exponential does).
 

Offline voltsandjolts

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #10 on: January 28, 2023, 05:49:25 pm »
This seems highly extraordinary.
...
Something smells off to me.

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.
 

Offline coppercone2Topic starter

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #11 on: January 28, 2023, 08:29:03 pm »
do you transport them so a loose screw = miniature radioactive capsule rolling off into a sewer drain ?

I feel like this should take a truck roll over
 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #12 on: January 28, 2023, 09:58:15 pm »
This seems highly extraordinary.
...
Something smells off to me.

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.

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?
 

Offline daqq

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #13 on: January 28, 2023, 11:06:43 pm »
Another article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-27/radioactive-capsule-lost-in-wa-emergency-public-health-warning/101901472

So halflife of 30 years, means Cs-137, picture of capsule included, some additional details present as well: 10 x ray equivalent at one meter distance, so fairly hot.

Though I think that they could find with the right tools - a gamma ray spectrometer driven over the whole route, see in which area there was a peak, narrow down the area...
« Last Edit: January 28, 2023, 11:09:42 pm by daqq »
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Offline coppercone2Topic starter

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #14 on: January 28, 2023, 11:18:30 pm »
This seems highly extraordinary.
...
Something smells off to me.

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.

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?

because we are not making any money if we don't get this done faster and cheaper, stop being a worry wart (said on phone call by project manager originating from 450$ steak house)

On one hand someone forgot to check torque or something, on the other hand, the systems in place for containment are horribly inadequate
« Last Edit: January 28, 2023, 11:21:58 pm by coppercone2 »
 

Offline coppercone2Topic starter

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #15 on: January 28, 2023, 11:24:18 pm »
you would think its monitored for radiation output while being transported by a data logger to show exactly when there was a radiation spike. Or monitored inside of the instrument to show when there was a radiation decrease because the module was removed. Like to alert the driver that something went missing or that there was a containment breach and the truck is dangerous.

Then they would know when it happened and you could correlate it with GPS time stamps to figure out where it fell out of the truck, to narrow the search area down by 1000 miles or so.

The whole situation screams negligence by many parties, including technicians, project managers and regulation designers.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2023, 11:28:15 pm by coppercone2 »
 

Online vk6zgo

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #16 on: January 28, 2023, 11:52:51 pm »
I agree it sounds a bit sus to me too.

You would think it would be inside of a lead lined box, the box latched, and placed somewhere safe. Bare minimum.

Though considering the condition of the roads in Australia....

It's not a dirt road, but a perfectly good sealed one, so it will almost certainly be along the edge of the road somewhere.

The State Chief Medical Officer says it isn't dangerous unless you spend some time within 5 metres of it, but to err on the side of safety, try to keep it at 20m.
If it is still "suss" at 20m, that implies that it would be detectable at that sort of distance, as well.
Several vehicles with appropriate detection equipment could do a slow run along the route, to speed up the process.
 

Offline sleemanj

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #17 on: January 29, 2023, 12:17:51 am »
It's not a dirt road, but a perfectly good sealed one, so it will almost certainly be along the edge of the road somewhere.

This article sounds like the search area is now "only" 36km
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/300794718/tiny-radioactive-capsule-lost-in-australia-triggers-search

but...

"There are concerns the solid capsule may have already become lodged in another vehicle’s tyre and potentially be hundreds of km away from the search area."



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Online Someone

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #18 on: January 29, 2023, 12:22:34 am »
So we have a pile of comments from people either from other countries (where such materials are taken less seriously) or who have no idea about radioisotopes and their practical applications.

These sorts of devices are relatively common:
https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.gov.au/business-industry/partners-suppliers/documents/test-methods/field-density-testing-by-using-a-nuclear-gauge.pdf
If you see a tradespersons ute driving around with a radiation trefoil placard it is likely this or something similar (welding inspection being less common but a similar scale/complexity). Note that there will be multiple "layers" of passive containment/retention, which is the big question around how this item got loose. Someone had to leave multiple steps out of the procedure and not store the device inside an outer container.

The dose rate publicly announced (1-2mSv/h at 1m) is a real hazard if it were to end up in a tire parked in a persons garage, if picked up as a curiosity and held close to the body (such as in a pocket) for some hours would cause burns! That rate would be detected very easily by normal handheld occupational survey meters, out to 10m or more. Sensitive instruments will pick that up at 100m or so (direct line of sight) but probably work too slowly to be air towed. Walking pace is about right:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-28/radioactive-capsule-search-perth-to-pilbara-/101902914
« Last Edit: January 29, 2023, 12:27:41 am by Someone »
 

Online Someone

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #19 on: January 29, 2023, 04:22:14 am »
It was probably actually stolen, right?
Not much value in the item and significant amounts of danger, unlikely anyone would steal it knowingly.
 

Offline BurningTantalum

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #20 on: January 29, 2023, 09:52:25 am »
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
 
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Offline voltsandjolts

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #21 on: January 29, 2023, 11:10:54 am »
This seems highly extraordinary.
...
Something smells off to me.

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.

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?

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.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/29/new-technology-deployed-in-search-for-tiny-potentially-deadly-missing-radioactive-capsule
« Last Edit: January 29, 2023, 11:35:22 am by voltsandjolts »
 
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Offline aargee

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #22 on: January 30, 2023, 02:45:13 pm »
Anyone talked to Doc Emmett Brown?
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Offline mendip_discovery

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #23 on: January 30, 2023, 10:23:16 pm »
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.
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Online tom66

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Re: australia nuclear easter egg hunt?
« Reply #24 on: January 30, 2023, 10:31:22 pm »
Anyone talked to Doc Emmett Brown?

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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