That’s exactly what I came here to say. There are plenty of bad things that a radiation source could be used for, but these things only contain a small amount of radioactive material, and none of it is fissionable so the biggest risk is someone using it as a poison and there are plenty of other things that are just as dangerous as far as poisons go that are much easier to get a hold of.
The image makes me think of soil density meters. These use a small radioactive source which is pushed into the soil. A detector in the base measures the radiation which comes through and gives a value for the soil density. When not in use the source is retracted into the case and a shutter in the base closed.
As a civil engineer I haven’t worked with these but know people who have. One told of how he and a partner were sent out into a rural area to run tests on a lot prior to construction. There was no vehicle access, so they parked on the shoulder of the closest road. They set some of their gear - including the density meter - on the tailgate of their pickup while they walked onto the property to prepare a site for testing. When they went back to their truck, the density meter was gone. They never saw anyone.
1 Like
Oh geeze, I was trying to find a link to the case in 2013 where some guys stole a car with a radio medical source and I found another case in 2015! WTH, Mexico!
1 Like
There’s a whole Wikipedia page listing civilian radiation incidents. One of the more horrifying stories, that gets short shrift there, is lumberjacks in the woods of post-Soviet Georgia finding some radiological power sources made for satellites abandoned in a clearing, and using them as a source of warmth as they camped for the night.
3 Likes
Remember the stories of how nuclear waste storage sites are being planned such that intelligent beings thousands of years from now will hopefully be sufficiently discouraged against poking at them?
You’d think they’d make more effort to design these things such that people will likewise have no incentive to try opening them. I suppose that could potentially increase the cost of the containers, especially since any elaborate graphics might not be easy to maintain, but nonetheless.
1 Like
Probably collecting enough to breach the wall when it’s built (if ever).
Old school film noir version
I hear it will be made of hubris, which is cheap, plentiful, and near impenetrable. the usa is one of the world leaders in hubris, and texas is one of the leading producers of hubris in the usa, so there should be no issue with supply. the president is made of the stuff and look how he deflects things left and right that would have taken down former presidents, nothing gets into his hubris reinforced skull.
4 Likes
Assuming that the picture in the tweet is accurate; I think that it’s one of these.
An Iridium-192 source, so zesty gamma rays would be on the table. Is “a maximum activity of 150 curies (5550 GBq)” a lot, a little, middling? I’m having trouble turning that spec into the “expected dose if you messed with it” value.
Even when [Leslie] Groves was called to testify before a Senate committee a few months after the bombs were dropped, he described radiation as “a very pleasant way to die,” despite having recently read about the harrowing deaths by radiation in Hiroshima.
1 Like
It’s pretty sad, actually, what’s happened in the past. People got ahold of some Cesium, got it out of its container and played with it in their hands. “Magical glowing dust.” They died… Oh yes, I see upthread people mentioned the Goiana accident. Very, very sad and awful, and I wish never to be repeated.
2 Likes
Scene One: "Where’d the nukes go?
Scene Two: Cow-sized chuckwallas.
1 Like
Perhaps?
But a different approach can be derived from the observed health effects of the serendipitous contamination of 1700 apartments in Taiwan with cobalt-60 (T1/2 = 5.3 y). This experience indicates that chronic exposure of the whole body to low-dose-rate radiation, even accumulated to a high annual dose, may be beneficial to human health.
An extraordinary incident occurred 22 years ago in Taiwan. Recycled steel, accidentally contaminated with discarded cobalt-60 sources (T1/2 = 5.3 y), was formed into construction steel for more than 180 buildings containing about 1700 apartments, and also public and private schools and small businesses, in Taipei City and nearby counties. About ten thousand people occupied these buildings for 9 to 22 years. While this construction occurred during 1982–84, most of the buildings were completed in 1983.[1, 2] In this preliminary assessment, we consider 1983 to be the first year of the incident. The radioactive state of the buildings was gradually discovered, beginning on July 31, 1992.[2] Less than 100 contaminated apartments were identified in 1992. The number increased to more than 200 in 1993; then to a total of 896 in 1995, 1206 in 1996, and 1277 in 1997. An intensive research program was conducted in 1998, and more than 1600 apartments were finally documented by the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) of Taiwan. After approximately four cobalt-60 half-lives, most of the apartments now have relatively low levels of radiation, less than 5 mSv (500 mrem) per year, and are still in use today. Half of the residents in apartments with high radiation levels have been evacuated, starting in 1996. They all lived in these buildings for at least nine years, with some staying as long as 22 years.
2 Likes
In the US, it seems like at least one of those goes missing every week. Usually it hits the local news and authorities eventually find it discarded in a ditch somewhere.
Edit: just did a quick look…I may have over-estimated – looks like 5 so far this year, so more like 1/month.
150 Ci at 1 foot away would probably be certain death with an hour exposure.
At 2 feet, a 2 hour exposure would put ya around the LD50 dose.
At 3 feet, it would be closer to 5 hours to get to the LD50.
The one good thing about losing an Ir-192 source is that it decays relatively fast and it is a solid piece of metal, so it is not dispersible like the Cs-137 at Goiana.
4 Likes
Hopefully people will draw the correct conclusion from the whole “welded titanium housing with warning stickers enclosing a depleted uranium protective vessel” aesthetic and not try to find out the hard way.
Especially since, while not particularly chemically reactive or liable to end up as dust, iridium is a rather handsome platinum group metal; so it might inspire the wrong behavior in naive viewers. Probably not as likely as mishaps with Gold-198 sources; but it isn’t something you’d just toss on the ‘meh, probably shoddy mild steel’ pile and ignore for a while.
1 Like
I think that there was a relatively recent (2-3 yrs ago) incident in India involving pretty iridium…
Somewhat vexingly, people seem to be a trifle unsystematic about reporting orphan source incidents. The only one in India that gets a lot of attention seems to be a cobalt-60 device in 2010; and the AERB’s site isn’t a model of clarity; but the Off-Site Source Recovery Program claims 101 sources recovered in India to date; but no breakdown of times or circumstances is provided.
Also curious: Australia and Tasmania have exactly the same number of OSRP-reported recoveries. Why so irresponsible per square kilometer, Tasmania?
Also disconcerting: “The Strontium Eye Applicator” is apparently an actual type of medical device; not a cruel hoax.
1 Like
Some veterinarians still use the old fashioned ones… They were just a high-activity Sr-90 source at the end of a stick with a plexiglas shield in between.
Now-a-days they use I-125 seeds or plaques plated with Ru-106.
They actually look even more like torture devices:
The IAEA also has a fascinating if gruesome series of publications about the more notable modern ones, here: http://www-pub.iaea.org/books/IAEABooks/Publications_on_Accident_Response
Warning: They typically end on a chapter of “here’s photos of how the victims responded to treatment”; expect a lot of large burned areas and gangrene.
1 Like
