Absolutely agree. It's refreshing to have guys like you that are here to help educate folks and inform them of all the misconceptions, and ignorance when it comes to radiation/ nuclear subject matter. Appreciate the effort you put in man! 👍
As a retired Radiation Safety Officer I applaud you for putting this situation in perspective. Yes, the dose of radiation received is reduced by the square of the inverse of the distance from it. In other words, at 3 feet from the object you would only be exposed to 1/9th (1/3 squared) that you would at 1 foot (everything else, including duration of exposure being equal). Another interesting perspective is the amount of radiation received by airline crews...yes, they get exposed to radiation at high altitude that has not been attenuated by the atmosphere. One suggestion I'd make...the bolts holding the housing together should have been lock-wired so as to not be able to loosen off with vibration. (Lock wiring is something done in all aircraft engines, whether jet or piston...for the same reason...to prevent accidental loosening.) It is unfortunate that public hysteria is only exacerbated by those putting out news and safety bulletins who only tell a small, sensationalist part of the story. Scaring the public does nothing to reassure the public. As far as who is to blame? Well, Rio Tinto did hire a contractor to move the guage. If they were in process of purchasing it from some other party then it was up to that party AND the transport contractor to ensure that the move was safely done; if it was moved from one Rio Tinto site to another, then the onus falls on Rio Tinto to ensure that the paperwork and inspections are done properly.
Retired Hazardous waste cleanup supervisor. I mostly ran soil remediation projects. I was never informed about cesium on any project I was involved with yet there is in my tests 20 years after retiring.
Hello, I am from Perth WA and when the news broke about this, I couldn't believe the carelessness of the company (?), the driver (?), etc., and the health risks we could potentially be exposed to. Thank you for explaining the seriousness of this issue. You explained it so succinctly and clearly. Glad I found your channel and glad Cesium 137 was finally found!🙂
Edit: turns out it was 2 mSv/hr at 1 m, not at the source. That makes it more dangerous than I had thought. I'm leaving this comment below as I wrote it. It's really not _that_ dangerous. Yes, dangerous to keep in your pocket all day, so you don't want someone who _doesn't_ know what it is to keep it at home. But I'd have no concern about putting it in the trunk of my vehicle and driving it to where it needed to go. I've personally been more radioactive from Tc-99m than that source :D
@@MarkRose1337 I've had radioactive Iodine (Iodine-131) for my thyroid. I had my own toilet for 24hrs to pee in, no one else could use it, then clean it, back to normal. I think I'd shield the cesium if I was transporting it, tho, just to be safe.
@@MarkRose1337 Agreed, but remember that if you were going to be transporting this, it would be in its shielded casing, and likely with a cover over the aperture. These would minimize any risk. On the other hand, the bare source would be much more dangerous. In that case, you'd probably want to transfer the source(preferably from a distance)into a suitably shielded container before placing it into your car trunk.
Here in the UK they were transporting a source and stopped on a railway bridge to take a look at it without the shielding. To cut it short it rolled off the bridge parapet and fell in a passing goods train. The train was stopped just short of London and the authorities found it in a coal truck. That's a true story. What I will never forget in my copper mining days is that we were in a remote place so it was up to us electrical techs to change sources. The source was a pinhead of material inside a double walled stainless match box inside shielding so heavy you needed a crane. To shorten this the source fell through a grille floor and dropped into the discharge sump of a 800 ton rotary mill. The sump was 10 feet deep and the day workers called me over to take a look. What I will never forget is the wonderful blue/ green glow lighting up the whole sump. I thanked the lord that I was a shift worker and fishing it out had nothing to do with me.
This may sound weird as hell, but the fact you experienced the Cherenkov Effect outside of a nuclear reactor is probably the coolest thing I’ve heard in a long time and Im honestly a little jealous. I’m not sure if you fully understood the physics behind the glow at the time, or maybe you did, but either way it was probably the most amazing experience of your life.
I’m assuming it was under water or something in order to glow so brilliantly, I don’t know much about locomotives or what a sump even is, but assuming it was submerged, you got really lucky because depending on the depth, liquids are pretty good neutron absorbers.
@@kill3rbamb146the reaction only accrues after reaching criticality and then is cooling down. This is 100% a fake story. As you can't reach nuclear criticality outside of a reactor without a lead casket
@@kill3rbamb146 the blue glow was observed in US nuclear labs as well. Not sure if it's ionized air glow, Cherenkov radiation from moisture absorbed by the sample or what, but it was also much admired in Goiânia during that orphan source disaster. One small child painted herself with the powder, got some on her sandwich and died from a lethal dose of radiation.
Lived in WA my whole life. The news stations that picked it up actually eventually started referring to 10 chest xrays, instead of just xrays. Lots of my friends travel that road quite frequently for work, asked one of them if they were worried, He was like "Nah, its just chest xrays, ive had a few of them already", i had to explain that its a dose all at once 1 meter away from the source, which can have a totally different effect on the body. Very interesting, i think the TV media should of done a better job at telling people not to go near it if it is found and elaborate more on the dangers of what could happen if they came into contact with it. We were all told to "Check our tires" to see if it could be hiding in the ridges as if it had come to perth, it could of been driven all around town. All in all, very good explanation, as always thanks for your videos (:
The news gets so much wrong when it comes to radiation. It’s either downplaying so people don’t freak out or they try and freak people out. There is no middle ground for the truth.
From 4:40 onward I do believe he is referencing the Goiânia incident in which the head of a radiotherapy device was left abandoned in a hospital or medical clinic that had shutdown years prior to its re-discovery in Goiânia City Brazil by a scrap metal salvage worker who along with a partner managed to separate a small metal capsule containing Cesium 137 and, because they had no idea what it was they were in contact with, it kick-started the worst nuclear contamination disaster in Brazil's history.
Many thanks for this Drew, not only did I get the news of the find here, you're the only source I've come across to describe the actual dangers involved, shame on the ABC (again!)
We had a company at my former employer who were x-raying the concrete parking deck for internal damage (salt damage) to find cracking. They had Danger signs (X-RAY, radioactive danger) all over the place, taped off areas, etc. Those Xrays must have been stronger than medical ones, I would think.
I understand that one of the major concerns prior to it being found was that it could be picked up in the tread of a car tire and taken anywhere. Definitely a scary thought. Looks like it was found relatively close to the mine site, given the size of the search area.
One of the first to die from radiation was researcher Marie Curie. She discovers radium and polonium. She did experiments with it. And she did WW1 x-rays on French soldiers. Her book in which she wrote down the experiments is still kept in a lead box today. But no one could tell her that radioactivity is deadly over a long period of time.
Marie Curie died of aplastic anemia in her sixties after working with radioactive materials for decades, hands on with no protective clothing, gloves etc. Her husband and collaborator, Pierre Curie died a lot younger but in his case it was from a traffic accident, not radioactivity-induced disease.
@@robertsneddon731 I mean, radiation is just a few particles traveling at hypervelocity speeds, a car is just a lot of particles traveling at highway speeds. Getting hit by a car isn't that much different. Conclusion: Getting hit by a car is a form of acute radiation poisoning.
@@chaon93 a little clarification Pierre Curie was not hit by a car (cars weren't invented until 1885-86) and certainly not at highway speeds (highways weren't a thing until the 1940s) Curie was trampled by the horses and then run over by the wagon of a horse-drawn carriage. cars had yet to be invented. The rest of your comment is accurate though.
I think one of the most concerning things about situations like this, as a person with ADHD, and a small forge, i like to collect scrap steel i see to make decorations and art pieces, I have imagined on several occasions how shitty it would be if one of the dozens of small cylinders of metal I find weekly would happen to be a cesium source. Even scarier is the fact I’m in the smack middle of one of the biggest oil producers in America, Oklahoma. Some workers in the oil field check the integrity and state of underground pipelines using Radiographic testing, which use Xray or Gamma rays to view the internal structure of pipelines and components. In fact one of the only SUSPECTED cases of suicide by radiation occurred in Oklahoma and involved a missing source from one of those machines.
Ever since I started down this road of learning about radiation and radioactivity I've always had a Geiger counter of some kind in the truck and more times than not, having it running. I'm always curious when I find areas that are a little more radioactive than others with no real explanation to it.
@@RadioactiveDrew I’ve never really had the money to afford a dosimeter of decent quality, despite my obsession and very minimal collection of slightly radioactive materials. When i was a teenager I would ask my family for a dosimeter for Christmas and birthdays, but they were rather expensive and never got one. If i had a dosimeter, I would absolutely do the same as you, who knows how many hotspots there are around us no matter how small. May it be a higher concentration of radon gas from concrete structures, or radioactive elements in the nearby ground, it’s always a fascinating concept to basically metal detect for radiation. Having a dosimeter on my person during my scrap metal scavenging at scrapyards and abandoned structures would be a good peace of mind. I’d much rather have something scream at me, than have a hole in my leg. I appreciate your time and words! Amazing content as usual, stay safe!
Last year I was driving on a freeway in LA and my Geiger counter went crazy with a background radiation around 10 times normal. It then went back to normal again and I realized I had just passed a car and slowed down to see if it would rise again. Yes, inside my car it went up again to a level I've never measured before anywhere in nature. I noticed the car had a handicapped number plate and after some investigation learned that it was a patient who was treated for cancer with brachytherapy, where the radioactive material is put in the patient's body during the treatment. Wow, I was in a different lane on the freeway behind my vehicle's doors and still with that radius getting 10 times normal background radiation. Knowing how radiation drops by distance, there is no doubt this is a nasty level of gamma radiation within the patient. The DNA damage from such treatment must be massive.
@@RadioactiveDrew Measuring around 1 micro Sieverts per hour over a distance of around 15 feet through two car doors (= 4 metal sheets) on the freeway makes me really wonder how this can be a "treatment". I believe this is still almost a point source in terms of radiation pattern. Using the inverse square law considering a near point source, I can calculate that some tissue is getting fried rather quickly. Concerning CT scans I got two of those for no really good reason (one muscle pain in my shoulder and one infection in my gall bladder). It seems hospitals and insurance companies have little concern about the insane dose rates of these CT scans. No doubt some people develop a cancer from these scans and will end up needing more scans during treatment. Hopefully nobody see that as a business case.
@@ThinkingBetter I agree VERY odd. Something went seriously wrong, particularly given it was not back in the day when no-one knew better. The entire point of brachytherapy is it's incredibly targeted and precise and suitable for day release as the source JUST targets the tumor and not healthy tissue. Such a high level of radiation across the entire body would devastate healthy tissue, in the patient and relatives if in the same house. As a comparison. Before discharge, animals that have had any sort of radiation treatment - usually I -131 for hyperthyroid cats - have to meet very strict levels of radioactivity before discharge is permitted. For I-131 typically 5-7 days in house stay is required, depending on dose (and country - US is not as strict as some countries). I would think human patients also must meet minimum safety criteria before discharge. The treatment specified above would be far more of a dose than one I-131 injection on a 6kg animal, release only sanctioned a day or two before completion of I -131's first half life. Once home cats stay isolated for 2 weeks, then can go about the house for another two but stay one metre from human inhabitants. All cat litter to be flushed for a month. That's pretty strict. For that amount of radiation to potentially affect other people, particularly family members (imagine sharing a bed) - that's a major lawsuit from family and potentially neighbours.
Reminds me of the Kramatorsk incident, which went undetected for years until people who lived in the flats started presenting with radiation sickness symptoms & started dying.
G'Day, I'm from Perth Western Australia... The apathy of the general public was astounding. The government played it down, while the media played it up. Fun fact: The maximum fine for mishandling radioactive materials here in West Australia is US$600. No mention that Caesium can be water soluble. No mention of Beta/Gama and most astounding is that there was no mention of it being 20,000 Sieverts.
The guess was 20,000 uSv/hr or 20 mSv/hr. 20,000 Sv/hr would give you a fatal dose immediately and would be way to dangerous to handle for the mining operations.
Was hoping you would quickly share your opinion on this… except for articles I read about it myself, I only heard one media outlet/reporter bother to mention the relative size of this pellet, and that it could be/been stuck in a tire’s tread. I’ve been reflecting a little differently in thought at every piece of FOD bouncing off my windshield while driving down the highway this week, heh.
As someone has already mentioned in the comments section, similar yet much worse Kramatorsk Radiological Accident occurred in USSR in late 1970s. A cesium-137 source from a comparable instrument was lost in the Karan(sky) quarry. Search was poorly organized and the source ended up in the concrete wall of a residential building. Over 1980-1989 period four residents died of leukemia. Only in 1989 was radioactive source located, wall section cut out and transferred to Institute for Nuclear Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Cesium-137 inside the capsule had activity of 5,2×10^(10) Bq (1,4 Ci).
I work for a large domestic mammo machine manufacturer. The MQSA mandates no more than 3 mGy per breast. Our systems actually run just south of 1.2 mGy for a 2D exposure and 1.5 mGy per tomosynthesis (3D) exposure. Not sure where that 200 mSv number came from but that's going to be too low to obtain a quality image for screening or diagnosis. The detector surface area is just too large, you need more dose than that, otherwise the contrast-to-noise ratio is poor.
The number I put in there was 200 uSv and I got that from a site about x-ray doses. There's a lot of info out there concerning doses from different x-ray procedures. I have heard it going as high as 1mSv or 1mGy of exposure. But I figured I would stick with the lower number.
I used to work with the exact brand of equipment you showed in this video. During my time with this company, I had two incidents with source holders. The first thing that happened was that we had a test source of cobalt 60 in the office. The source itself was lowered into a lead cylinder to isolate it. Since it was not in much use I did not interact with it often. One day, I was testing my measuring equipment and wanted to check how much radiation the Co60 source emitted. To my surprise the radiation did not increase when the source was removed from its lead cylinder, which turns out the rod, which the source was attached to, had been upside-down the last 10 years. So when picking up the rod, my fingers were in direct contact with the source. This is 10 years ago, and my fingers are still the same 😂
This was extremely informative, i have always been fascinated by everything radioactive, like nuclear power is where it started for me, but I have never honestly understood the doses received from different types of quantities
That is because every time a large portion of the public understand the term, they change it. I still prefer to do my calculations in R Roentgens. I can also work in Rads. When enough pepple could they came out with Sieverts, then Micro Sieverts. They will change it again as soon as enough people can understand the concepts. Keeping the populace confused is important. LoL The take away all should have is anything made of Cesium 137 is bad news.
A friend of mine uses XRF as part of her work on a mining site but their sources are tiny. What astonishes me is the cavalier attitude they seem to have on these sites as to the dangers of radiation.
People get very relaxed when dealing with these sources everyday. I'm sure most don't realize how much danger they could be in from mishandling a strong industrial source.
I enjoyed your presentation. My impression, from the stories I read, was that the release of the source from the gauge required the loosing of at least two screws that secured it in place. My guess is that there were not quality control issues regarding the tightening of those screws, including lack of periodic inspections of how tight they were. Perhaps that was complicated by personnal trying to avoid getting near the source. There is a good chance that these screws were getting loser and loser during multiple transport trips and no one was checking on that aspect of the gauge that they were transporting, perhaps over a period of time of many months.
Thanks for the explanation Drew! I was secretly hoping to open CZcams and seeing a video from you explaining the situation! Now the government wants to up the fine for mishandling radioactive materials - currently at $1000 go figure!🤣 Legend thanks mate 👍🏼
Thanks for the details! These reporters and journalists are more concerned with getting something out fast even if it is not correct. Or they don’t want to admit they don’t have all the information. I’m glad a pack rat didn’t carry it away and it stayed close to the highways.
they use that exact same thing at the copper mine I work at, and they give a thorough safety class on it, but out of the 650 employees, only 3 people are certified to work on them. And was just told by Safety that they are reducing the number of these around the site in favor of newer non-radioactive ways to measure.
If it is just level of powders or slurries, ultrasonic measurement is pretty good, but the sensing disk wears out. The main advantage of nuclear is that the source and sensor can be made super rugged and work under all kinds of awful conditions. 🤓
Man, I broke my hip. They took a CT scan, didnt see anything. They said I was ok to leave. I was in so much pain, I couldnt walk. They didn't know why, so they did a seconf CT scan, and whatcha no. After another Dr looked at the x-ray, I had a fractured hip. Nice to know they slammed me with radiation.
I wondered if any radioactive enthusiasts in the area spent a few days driving up and down with something like a Radiacode, or pancake probe hanging out the window, trying to find it for themselves 😅
Wouldn't need to hang it out the window. A source like that could be picked up easily from 20 meters away, which is why they were able to drive down the road at 70 km/h (19 m/s) when they were searching for it. It was found 2 m off the road.
The article I read said it was the same as 10 X-rays. Lol. I’m no radiation expert but I know better. I seriously enjoy your channel sir. Thanks for the education.
I'm pretty late to this, but I wondered during the video if there's any kind of airborne or orbital detector that could, if not pinpoint the location of this source - maybe give a general idea as to its location? That seems like the kind of thing that might exist after decades of nuclear brinksmanship during the Cold War. Anyway, I always appreciate and enjoy your work. Keep it coming!
Something that high up wouldn’t work on a source like this. Good idea and I think something like that exists but it’s mainly for detecting nuclear detonations.
I had cesium 137 pellets injected into my prostrate, the reason I chose it was that it has the shortest "half life" in one month it has very little energy. [5 years cancer free]
I looked up the isotope of cesium used in a procedure like the one you had and it seems like they use cesium - 131 which has a half-life of 9.6 days. This is much shorter than cesium - 137 with a 30 year half-life. So they cesium - 131 they used is much more radioactive but they only need to use an extremely small amount to treat cancers.
It was lost on January 12. They didn't notice it missing until January 25 & it was found on January 31, 19 days on the side of the road. Upon opening the package, it was found that the gauge was broken apart with one of four mounting bolts missing. The source itself and all screws on the gauge were also missing.
@@RadioactiveDrew It was supposed to have been packed up by a contractor that specializes in these gauges on site to be sent back to their facility in the outer suburbs of Perth. That company is blaming the transport company. You've probably heard by now that it's since been found.
Hey thanks for making this video! I really was curious about this after hearing about it and you did the dirty work to find out the answers to the questions I had that were not answered in the news.
@@ajacks1349 I mean having to dig around online to learn about the equipment that the source might have been used in and finding out how radioactive it is. I'm sure most of us could have found that information as well but we didn't have to because he did the work for us. I guess 'tedious' might have been a better word.
@@ajacks1349 Well converting Curies to Sieverts is not straightforward because they are measuring different things, activity and dose. I think he gave a fair approximation based off of the information that he had. The only people who know for sure are the ones that have access to the source.
I used to be certified in the US a few decades ago to use nuclear soil density gauges, (Troxler and another (CPM?). There was always some caution involved in transporting them to and from and having them on construction sites. Tales abounded of incidents including incidents where the source somehow came out of the rod containing it and then some idiot picked it up and stuck it in their pocket, or it just got lost after a bulldozer hit it and tore it all apart and the whole work site had to be shut down until it was found and the area made safe again.
From what I heard from a friend on the east coast who used to work with these in the mines, it would 100 x-rays if you were standing a couple of meters away from it for an hour. His assumption was that the authorities didn't want to create a panic and let people assume it meant if you were holding it.
How can we believe anything media & authorities tell us when they constantly lie because they think they know better? This is a perfect example. Tell the truth, people will stay away. Lie, and someone may find something like this and pick it up thinking, "its not so bad."
@@bernzie001 Or, they tell the truth like they did this time, and media medias and makes out that its Chernobyl all over again, like they did when the government did release the info. And don't even get me started on the idiots in Social media.
@@bernzie001 Also, tell the people there's an orphan source and those without nefarious designs will stay away. Can you say that ALL will stay away? Can you say that bad actors will not try to find it to use?
There’s a balance that can be reached. The problem is there are so many sides that are so far away from any type of balanced reporting on a subject like this.
Some density meters use a source of 1mCi Cs-137, that is about 10,000x times what you are showing us! Other manufacturers claim to use sources like you are showing so that licencing isn't required, at least, not in the USA. So I think we can assume that the source lost in Australia was a fairly hot one! The containers are probably made of lead with a powder coat to protect them.
It was around a 20 mCi or greater that was lost and then found. I was able to hunt down the info from a manufacturer that makes sources for this type of use.
@@RadioactiveDrew That would explain all the concern to find it again. I worked with a company in Spain who did these tests in drillholes and their source (similar activity) was tied onto a cord and dangled down 5 metres into an indoor patio that had no access from the apartment building where they had their offices. That was their idea of "safe shielding"
I build the outer hull for replacement bins for some radioaktive stuff in medicine. I think that was for cancer treatment or so. They were 15cm in diameter and 25cm high. The bottom, sides and lid were all more then 4 cm thick solid steel. This thing weighted more then 12kg (~25pounds) and that was before another company put a lead lining inside. My boss said the finished product weighted more then 20kg (~40pounds). This thing had no warning stickers or markings, and the exterieur had to be polished like a mirror, but the other 3 layer of packaging around it were all plastered with everything you could imagine and every layer had a seal. When something seriously radioaktive is transported in public the safety is normaly so that not even a total car crash could destroy it. Then in Europe you need a marking on the truck and the driver must have a special training for hazmats. For that to happen, that the stuff is totally open there must be someone who made a lot of mistakes or..........shortcuts.
i live in australia and I have seen every now and then a ute or pickup whatever you call it in america on the road, they have a radiation sign on the back of the car, and a solid metal container strapped down in the rear corner of the tray diagonally opposite from the driver. I assumed this was the standard way in Australia to transport radioactive test equipment. I'm not sure how this could ever have been allowed to happen.. we generally have alot of regulations and documentation for these sorts of things
@@garyflies makes more sense and normally it's everywhere the same. A little bit Like a russian matroschka, a Box in a Box in a third Box ....... I'm in Germany. Here we have plates with numbers, the number on top describes the danger for example a 7 would be radioaktive. The number at the bottom of the plate is the material-number and then every Police or fire Department has list or can ask via Radio.
According to rad pro calculator a 20mCi Cs-137 source gives a dose rate of .056mSv/h at 1m, .225mSv at 50cm and at 10 cm 5.65 mSv/h, mind you this is only gamma, not taking into account the beta radiation nor bremsstrahlung. So it would take a long time of having the source on a pocket to give you ARS probably weeks. Edit: at 10cm gives only 5.6 mSv not Sv. also going by your source giving 14 µSv/h on contact times 20k equals 280mSv/h. Still very far from being a lethal source but enough to give burns and be harmful if kept in a pocket for many hours.
How about the absorbed dose from a PET scan! Where they inject a positron emitting isotope. I did spectrum analysis on a family member after they had a PET scan. Just being within 12 ft of the person, I was reading 80KCPM with my SEI Inspector USB Alert+. Crazy. Drew, if your interested in that spectrum I can send it along with a few other cool ref spectrums I have taken. The B+ (Positron) spectrum shows a huge peak @ 511 keV.
It’s a subject I want to cover. I also have a family member that got some imaging done with Tc-99m and wow I could detect them about 20 feet away in the garage.
@@RadioactiveDrew Doctors were having trouble locating my Father's parathyroid glands, and gave him a dose of metastable TC-99 in order to track them down so they could be surgically removed. I brought a Ludlum model 19 to the hospital right afterwards, and as in your experience, he was "detectable" from at least 20 feet away. A pretty short half-life isotope, however, so he was not a hazard for very long. A coworker, who is an expert in the field of radiation and uranium mining (teaches RSO classes, etc.) had Iodine 131 treatment for an overactive thyroid. When she got back to the lab from having her treatment, she immediately wanted me to bring a model 19 over to check her out. I don't recall what the gamma dose rate was with the instrument held right up against her neck, but it was pretty hot. The funny part was that she was with her husband (another expert in the field), and when we "surveyed" her, he slowly started backing away from her, and all of us got a good laugh out of it. She referred to herself as a "walking radiation area". ("Radiation Area" has a specific meaning based on dose rate in the U.S. "Any area with radiation levels greater than 5 millirems (0.05 millisievert) in one hour at 30 centimeters from the source or from any surface through which the radiation penetrates.") My mother had a number of PET scans when she had metastatic breast cancer. The imaging the PET scans provide is an amazing tool. I never surveyed her after her scans, but I probably should have. I'm not sure what the sugar is "tagged with", but it's obviously a beta emitter of some sort. Many years ago, I heard a much more horrific story about another lost source. In this case, it was what was supposedly a 20 Curie gamma source that was used in an "open hole" oil well logging tool. The tool got stuck in the hole, and to make a long story short, the company man grew impatient with the fishing, and decided to just drill through the tool to proceed with the well drilling. Of course, that was a catastrophic error. The story went that this chewed the tool up, including the source, and that then contaminated the recirculating drilling mud, which contaminated the entire area where the drilling rig was working. And that mud got onto the boots and clothing of the workers at the rig. They found contamination in hotels and restaurants, etc., in the nearest town. The well area had to be cleaned up, the well sealed off with concrete and abandoned, and a lot of equipment scrapped as hazardous waste, etc. I suspect this particular company man no longer worked for anyone in the drilling industry. I never heard, but in this case of the lost source in WA, when it was found, was it still in its protective casing? That seems like the most likely scenario, and in that case, with the shutter closed, the danger to the public may not have been too great unless someone found it and decided to open it up. That's been the case in a few incidents, of course.
Another incident that has occurred several times is Cobalt 60 cancer therapy machines that get abandoned and get taken apart by scrap metal dealers. Happened in Mexico
The authorities reported the activity of the source as FIVE HUNDRED mCi, not twenty mCi. That's over 10 Sv/hr on contact, enough to fry your heart if you put this thing in a shirt pocket. Seems like a re-do for this video is needed.
I believe they said that if you stood 1 meter away from it you would receive the equivalent of 10 chest x-rays over the period of 1 hour. I also read that that it was a 19 gigabecquerel source. I don't know how accurate that is. In comparison I used an online conversion calculator to show that the 1μCi Cs-137 check source is about 37000 becquerel. I also found a company online, QSA Global, that sells industrial Cesium-137 sources in different capsule sizes. The capsule code X8 seems to be the most similar to the one in Australia and can have a custom activity value but only up to 11.1GBq. Other sizes can have higher activity values.
No kidding. I figured it wouldn’t take them long once they started looking. It’s such a strong source you could drive by it on the road going a good clip and detect it with the right detector.
In Thailand we lost cr-137 from the powerplant 3 weeks ago. It doesn't look small like this. That thing with the steel cover weighs 25 kilograms. Today we found it in a steel melting factory. The Thai government said it was safe but I don't think so. What do you think about it? Any suggestions?
The Cs-137 source that is used in industrial settings can be very strong. I don't know much about the source that was lost there and then found. But Cesium 137 is usually in a metal source container. So as long as it wasn't opened and had the contents spread around it would be fine. I don't think its something to worry about. But if you are concerned about accidents like this and want to know for sure I would look into getting a Geiger counter of some kind. Better Geiger makes one that is easy to use and sensitive to gamma radiation, which Cs-137 gives off a lot of. Hope that helps somewhat.
@@RadioactiveDrew thank you so much for your kindness. The point that we are so worried about right now is the steel factory may have already melted it. So in this case it is not just open, but burns into dust and smoke. They found the radioactive ☢️ in some pieces of steel, but there is no sign of cs-137 or it's steel container anymore.
It sounds like it did get melted in with some steel. The story they are telling is that the temp of the steel melting vaporized the cesium, which could have happened. But this doesn’t destroy it. If that happened the cesium was converted to a gas and then once it cools it becomes a solid again. But I think the contamination would be contained to that steel plant.
Hey Drew, what's your advice on this, I have an old plastic Vietnam era military compass that I came upon, its relatively radioactive at over 10,000 cpm, but the research I've done on this compass tells me they did not use radium or any other radiological source for illumination with compass so I'm quite perplexed Btw congrats on your channel absolutely blowing up!! That's so cool man!
Sure sounds like the compass is radium. I have one from around the late 40’s / early 50’s that is pretty hot…around 50,000. I also have two others that might be from the same era as yours and those I believe read around 10,000 CPM. The military used radium in items all the way up until the 1970’s. Also thanks for the channel congrats. It’s been really awesome seeing so many people comment on and watch these videos.
@@RadioactiveDrew that would make sense, maybe the radium might be so worn that my blacklight isn't even activating it anymore? And no prob man keep up the awesomeness
So if it's a Vega like you displayed in this video, it should have a shutter to block the radiation. Here in the US a radiation program must be in place before purchasing a radiation source.
The one that had its source rattled out of it was damaged and mishandled. I'm sure the the IAEA manages this part of the world and the company would have had all the proper paperwork. But even with all that...you aren't going to stop people from mishandling dangerous sources.
Is it possible for you to do a review of the Santa Susana Field Lab in Southern California? They had several nuclear accidents and a partial meltdown in 1959. Would be interesting if you can go over what happened and test for contamination.
I’ve been there before and have hiked the trails around the area looking for contamination. I want to go back there to do a video about the meltdown and all the other things that happened there.
I guess Boeing owns it now is refusing to clean it up more and ground water contamination went beyond site "lines" long ago guess the toxic sledge didnt get the memo. Who knew shooting barrels of toxic liquid crap was a bad idea? Not to mention the "containment" structure for the reactor was the equivalent of a metal shed. Fair amount of actor deaths are thought to be attributed to the recording in the somewhat near vicinity as well. I'm sure if united nuclear / rocketdyne / e.t.c.? could have covered it up forever they would have happily.
@@ajacks1349 no...nothing obvious. But I was on publicly available trails so I would imagine they would have cleaned that up as much as they could have. I want to go back there again with some different equipment and see what I find.
@@frizzlefry1921 I think people that have been effected by the site have been exposed to some of the chemicals used on site. The radiation from the meltdown of the test reactor might have had some negative effect when it happened. But chemical exposure is that gift that keep on giving and its really hard to test for it in everything. At least with radioactive isotopes you can detect them pretty easily with a Geiger counter.
Gotta say though, the very difficulty of the search indicates that the risk of anyone being hurt buy it was extremely low. It was in a desert surrounded by nothing for hundreds of miles.
A 0.02Ci is absolutely tiiiiiiiny. I regularly work with 20Ci Iridium-192 & 30Ci Selenium-75 for NDT. I meam it's not a good idea to eat the capsule if found haha but you could pick up a 0.02Ci Caesium-137 and wouldn't get radiation burns from it.
Worked with cesium 137 for oil well logging tools.. Our source looked like a 1" long 3/4" bolt, painted bright yellow. You would unscrew it from the lead pig and insert it into the tool... Company had a few close calls with lost sources over the years.. One tool got sent back from offshore with the source still in the tool...Another, where someone found a source laying on the ground and did not know what it was, he picked it up and walked over and stuck it in the face of someone that definitely knew what it was...
It seems astonishing that the containment vessel was not secured with wire locked bolts. That actually might have been the case, but mining is a tough business and equipment suffers a harsh life. It would appear that at the end of a job, the equipment was just loaded up and shipped off to a new site. It is only after arriving at the new site that maintenance and servicing was carried out. Which is when the loss of the Cesium source was discovered. That makes sense when you consider the state of the roads over which the equipment needed to be transported. Loads of bumps and vibration on the way, so no real surprise that this could have happened. The intensity of the source made detection relatively easy, but it could equally have been picked up in the tyres of a passing vehicle and lodged somewhere in the chassis. It would still have come to light eventually when people started coming to hospital with unexplained burns or symptoms of radiation sickness. So finding it eventually was in little doubt. The trick was to find it before someone got hurt and without panicking the local population, which is thankfully very sparse in that area. Industrial radiation sources generally fall into the category of being very bad to be close to unless they are installed correctly in their shielded housings. Very intense sources may be physically too hot to handle outside of their containment, so the chance of someone holding on to one of these pellets with bare hands or slipping it into a pocket are reduced somewhat. Still very nasty to come across one of these pellets unshielded under any circumstances without the correct protective gear and handling equipment.
They found it on the side on the road not far from the mine site. A bolt had broken off the radiation gauge containment. The source fell through the open hole of the missing bolt.
I am suspicious of how that thing could just fall out of a container designed to have several layers of protection to prevent that exact thing from happening. There would have to be an obscene number of screws, bolts, and guards missing.
I can believe it if the workers just beat their equipment up and people that are suppose to be trained to handle material like this have zero training.
There are radiation transport regulations in every state!! They are quite specific and demanding, I know I have been in the industry for 35 years. This seems like a case of 'slap stick' control by the authorised company. It's not the first time.
I wasnt sure what the big deal was at the time, I assumed it was not the typical cesium source like shown in this video for calibrating Geiger counters, these things are everywhere.
I found an area with rocks that give 100 usv/hr. When I started digging with a shovel I noticed the soil all around it was sand/silt, but the soil directly in contact with it was clay and the rocks were soft and broken down. Was wondering if it was the radiation that broke down the soil to clay faster.
I know that sometimes radiation can cause a change in color with the surrounding rock layers. Usually it won’t break down other rocks…but I’m not 100% sure it won’t.
Great Video! I do have a question, they claim that exposure is equivalent to 10 x-rays which I agree is extremely vague but is it possible they could be calculating the exposure model with respect to the energy of the radiation emitted? Leads me to another question is it possible to have something be extremely radioactive but the decay energy be very low so damage from prolonged exposure is kept minimal and localized?
I can’t see how a difference in energy level from X-rays to gamma rays from Cs-137 could make up for that 10 X-ray number. I think it was more of a thing of them downplaying the danger associated with the source by using something people are familiar with…X-rays. But when they talk about the source outside of that scope they referred to it as dangerous. 10 X-rays isn’t dangerous…but 2800 of them sure are.
@@RadioactiveDrew ahhh yeah that is a good point, photon energy levels of X-rays and gamma rays are orders of magnitude different. Downplaying the scenario seems likely.
That source sound powerful enough to make a dirty bomb (and caesium is chemically favorable too) So it should be guarded 24/7 by somebody who knows how to handle it. It is baffling to hear how it was lost so easily.
lol the article I read made it seem like Australians were amazed that this could happen. Meanwhile I read the NRC event notification reports every month and see lost/stolen, and damaged sources reported everywhere. IDK what amuses me more....the quest for the missing tritium exit signs, or moisture/density gauges being run over by heavy equipment onsite.
Finally a rational, in-depth and unsensational analysis of this event. Thanks for doing it.
No problem. I like making these videos.
Absolutely agree. It's refreshing to have guys like you that are here to help educate folks and inform them of all the misconceptions, and ignorance when it comes to radiation/ nuclear subject matter. Appreciate the effort you put in man! 👍
Thanks.
As soon as I saw this in the news, I hoped you would make a video about it. Right up your alley!
As he always does. Fantastic Drew!
Marty, I'm sure that in 1985, you can find pieces of Cs 137 all over the streets but here in 1955, Cs 137 is a little hard to come by.
Most people won't get this reference.
In 2023, it's just a bunch of used pinball machine parts.
This made me laugh.
Did u rip that off?
1.21 jigawatts?!
As a retired Radiation Safety Officer I applaud you for putting this situation in perspective. Yes, the dose of radiation received is reduced by the square of the inverse of the distance from it. In other words, at 3 feet from the object you would only be exposed to 1/9th (1/3 squared) that you would at 1 foot (everything else, including duration of exposure being equal). Another interesting perspective is the amount of radiation received by airline crews...yes, they get exposed to radiation at high altitude that has not been attenuated by the atmosphere. One suggestion I'd make...the bolts holding the housing together should have been lock-wired so as to not be able to loosen off with vibration. (Lock wiring is something done in all aircraft engines, whether jet or piston...for the same reason...to prevent accidental loosening.) It is unfortunate that public hysteria is only exacerbated by those putting out news and safety bulletins who only tell a small, sensationalist part of the story. Scaring the public does nothing to reassure the public. As far as who is to blame? Well, Rio Tinto did hire a contractor to move the guage. If they were in process of purchasing it from some other party then it was up to that party AND the transport contractor to ensure that the move was safely done; if it was moved from one Rio Tinto site to another, then the onus falls on Rio Tinto to ensure that the paperwork and inspections are done properly.
Retired Hazardous waste cleanup supervisor. I mostly ran soil remediation projects. I was never informed about cesium on any project I was involved with yet there is in my tests 20 years after retiring.
Hello, I am from Perth WA and when the news broke about this, I couldn't believe the carelessness of the company (?), the driver (?), etc., and the health risks we could potentially be exposed to. Thank you for explaining the seriousness of this issue. You explained it so succinctly and clearly. Glad I found your channel and glad Cesium 137 was finally found!🙂
Edit: turns out it was 2 mSv/hr at 1 m, not at the source. That makes it more dangerous than I had thought. I'm leaving this comment below as I wrote it.
It's really not _that_ dangerous. Yes, dangerous to keep in your pocket all day, so you don't want someone who _doesn't_ know what it is to keep it at home. But I'd have no concern about putting it in the trunk of my vehicle and driving it to where it needed to go. I've personally been more radioactive from Tc-99m than that source :D
@@MarkRose1337 I've had radioactive Iodine (Iodine-131) for my thyroid. I had my own toilet for 24hrs to pee in, no one else could use it, then clean it, back to normal. I think I'd shield the cesium if I was transporting it, tho, just to be safe.
@@repro7780 Well yeah, if I were in the business of transporting it I'd shield it further. In a pinch I'd surround it by jugs of water.
@@MarkRose1337 Agreed, but remember that if you were going to be transporting this, it would be in its shielded casing, and likely with a cover over the aperture.
These would minimize any risk.
On the other hand, the bare source would be much more dangerous.
In that case, you'd probably want to transfer the source(preferably from a distance)into a suitably shielded container before placing it into your car trunk.
@@MarkRose1337 yep, in a emergency, water would be at least helpful.
Here in the UK they were transporting a source and stopped on a railway bridge to take a look at it without the shielding. To cut it short it rolled off the bridge parapet and fell in a passing goods train. The train was stopped just short of London and the authorities found it in a coal truck. That's a true story. What I will never forget in my copper mining days is that we were in a remote place so it was up to us electrical techs to change sources. The source was a pinhead of material inside a double walled stainless match box inside shielding so heavy you needed a crane. To shorten this the source fell through a grille floor and dropped into the discharge sump of a 800 ton rotary mill. The sump was 10 feet deep and the day workers called me over to take a look. What I will never forget is the wonderful blue/ green glow lighting up the whole sump. I thanked the lord that I was a shift worker and fishing it out had nothing to do with me.
I'm in the UK - thanks for the stories. Really interesting.
This may sound weird as hell, but the fact you experienced the Cherenkov Effect outside of a nuclear reactor is probably the coolest thing I’ve heard in a long time and Im honestly a little jealous.
I’m not sure if you fully understood the physics behind the glow at the time, or maybe you did, but either way it was probably the most amazing experience of your life.
I’m assuming it was under water or something in order to glow so brilliantly, I don’t know much about locomotives or what a sump even is, but assuming it was submerged, you got really lucky because depending on the depth, liquids are pretty good neutron absorbers.
@@kill3rbamb146the reaction only accrues after reaching criticality and then is cooling down. This is 100% a fake story. As you can't reach nuclear criticality outside of a reactor without a lead casket
@@kill3rbamb146 the blue glow was observed in US nuclear labs as well. Not sure if it's ionized air glow, Cherenkov radiation from moisture absorbed by the sample or what, but it was also much admired in Goiânia during that orphan source disaster. One small child painted herself with the powder, got some on her sandwich and died from a lethal dose of radiation.
Lived in WA my whole life. The news stations that picked it up actually eventually started referring to 10 chest xrays, instead of just xrays. Lots of my friends travel that road quite frequently for work, asked one of them if they were worried, He was like "Nah, its just chest xrays, ive had a few of them already", i had to explain that its a dose all at once 1 meter away from the source, which can have a totally different effect on the body. Very interesting, i think the TV media should of done a better job at telling people not to go near it if it is found and elaborate more on the dangers of what could happen if they came into contact with it. We were all told to "Check our tires" to see if it could be hiding in the ridges as if it had come to perth, it could of been driven all around town. All in all, very good explanation, as always thanks for your videos (:
The news gets so much wrong when it comes to radiation. It’s either downplaying so people don’t freak out or they try and freak people out. There is no middle ground for the truth.
From 4:40 onward I do believe he is referencing the Goiânia incident in which the head of a radiotherapy device was left abandoned in a hospital or medical clinic that had shutdown years prior to its re-discovery in Goiânia City Brazil by a scrap metal salvage worker who along with a partner managed to separate a small metal capsule containing Cesium 137 and, because they had no idea what it was they were in contact with, it kick-started the worst nuclear contamination disaster in Brazil's history.
Many thanks for this Drew, not only did I get the news of the find here, you're the only source I've come across to describe the actual dangers involved, shame on the ABC (again!)
Shame on every news source. They all regurgitate the same bad information.
We had a company at my former employer who were x-raying the concrete parking deck for internal damage (salt damage) to find cracking. They had Danger signs (X-RAY, radioactive danger) all over the place, taped off areas, etc. Those Xrays must have been stronger than medical ones, I would think.
Yeah, 95% of the time Cs-137 decays into Ba-137m, which gives off a 662 keV photon when it decays. Medical x-rays are more in the 20 to 60 keV range.
Yup usually either a 300MV x ray tube or a nuclear source such as Iridium or cobalt. Cs 137 isnt normaslly used. 🤔
Cs137 is used a lot in soil density measurements.
@@christopherleubner6633 you mean 300kV right? Lol
@@inductivelycoupledplasma6207 Lmao imagine a 300MW x-ray tube. Literal death ray haha
I understand that one of the major concerns prior to it being found was that it could be picked up in the tread of a car tire and taken anywhere. Definitely a scary thought.
Looks like it was found relatively close to the mine site, given the size of the search area.
I'd be more concerned about a bird thinking "Oh shiny!" and flying off with it 🐦
The forbidden wheel weight!
@@5roundsrapid263 extra spicy
@@MarkRose1337 Not much out in WA that would bother with it. Might get eaten by an Emu at which point the Great Emu War goes nuclear!
Excellent explanation
One of the first to die from radiation was researcher Marie Curie. She discovers radium and polonium. She did experiments with it. And she did WW1 x-rays on French soldiers. Her book in which she wrote down the experiments is still kept in a lead box today. But no one could tell her that radioactivity is deadly over a long period of time.
Marie Curie died of aplastic anemia in her sixties after working with radioactive materials for decades, hands on with no protective clothing, gloves etc. Her husband and collaborator, Pierre Curie died a lot younger but in his case it was from a traffic accident, not radioactivity-induced disease.
@@robertsneddon731 I mean, radiation is just a few particles traveling at hypervelocity speeds, a car is just a lot of particles traveling at highway speeds. Getting hit by a car isn't that much different. Conclusion: Getting hit by a car is a form of acute radiation poisoning.
@@chaon93 a little clarification Pierre Curie was not hit by a car (cars weren't invented until 1885-86) and certainly not at highway speeds (highways weren't a thing until the 1940s) Curie was trampled by the horses and then run over by the wagon of a horse-drawn carriage. cars had yet to be invented. The rest of your comment is accurate though.
Needle in a haystack, they said.
A needle screaming loudly, that is.
Exactly.
I think one of the most concerning things about situations like this, as a person with ADHD, and a small forge, i like to collect scrap steel i see to make decorations and art pieces, I have imagined on several occasions how shitty it would be if one of the dozens of small cylinders of metal I find weekly would happen to be a cesium source. Even scarier is the fact I’m in the smack middle of one of the biggest oil producers in America, Oklahoma. Some workers in the oil field check the integrity and state of underground pipelines using Radiographic testing, which use Xray or Gamma rays to view the internal structure of pipelines and components. In fact one of the only SUSPECTED cases of suicide by radiation occurred in Oklahoma and involved a missing source from one of those machines.
Ever since I started down this road of learning about radiation and radioactivity I've always had a Geiger counter of some kind in the truck and more times than not, having it running. I'm always curious when I find areas that are a little more radioactive than others with no real explanation to it.
@@RadioactiveDrew I’ve never really had the money to afford a dosimeter of decent quality, despite my obsession and very minimal collection of slightly radioactive materials. When i was a teenager I would ask my family for a dosimeter for Christmas and birthdays, but they were rather expensive and never got one.
If i had a dosimeter, I would absolutely do the same as you, who knows how many hotspots there are around us no matter how small. May it be a higher concentration of radon gas from concrete structures, or radioactive elements in the nearby ground, it’s always a fascinating concept to basically metal detect for radiation.
Having a dosimeter on my person during my scrap metal scavenging at scrapyards and abandoned structures would be a good peace of mind. I’d much rather have something scream at me, than have a hole in my leg.
I appreciate your time and words! Amazing content as usual, stay safe!
Last year I was driving on a freeway in LA and my Geiger counter went crazy with a background radiation around 10 times normal. It then went back to normal again and I realized I had just passed a car and slowed down to see if it would rise again. Yes, inside my car it went up again to a level I've never measured before anywhere in nature. I noticed the car had a handicapped number plate and after some investigation learned that it was a patient who was treated for cancer with brachytherapy, where the radioactive material is put in the patient's body during the treatment. Wow, I was in a different lane on the freeway behind my vehicle's doors and still with that radius getting 10 times normal background radiation. Knowing how radiation drops by distance, there is no doubt this is a nasty level of gamma radiation within the patient. The DNA damage from such treatment must be massive.
Those radiation treatments can be extremely strong. Even the ones for imaging can be very intense.
@@RadioactiveDrew Measuring around 1 micro Sieverts per hour over a distance of around 15 feet through two car doors (= 4 metal sheets) on the freeway makes me really wonder how this can be a "treatment". I believe this is still almost a point source in terms of radiation pattern. Using the inverse square law considering a near point source, I can calculate that some tissue is getting fried rather quickly.
Concerning CT scans I got two of those for no really good reason (one muscle pain in my shoulder and one infection in my gall bladder). It seems hospitals and insurance companies have little concern about the insane dose rates of these CT scans. No doubt some people develop a cancer from these scans and will end up needing more scans during treatment. Hopefully nobody see that as a business case.
@@ThinkingBetter I agree VERY odd. Something went seriously wrong, particularly given it was not back in the day when no-one knew better.
The entire point of brachytherapy is it's incredibly targeted and precise and suitable for day release as the source JUST targets the tumor and not healthy tissue.
Such a high level of radiation across the entire body would devastate healthy tissue, in the patient and relatives if in the same house.
As a comparison. Before discharge, animals that have had any sort of radiation treatment - usually I -131 for hyperthyroid cats - have to meet very strict levels of radioactivity before discharge is permitted. For I-131 typically 5-7 days in house stay is required, depending on dose (and country - US is not as strict as some countries).
I would think human patients also must meet minimum safety criteria before discharge. The treatment specified above would be far more of a dose than one I-131 injection on a 6kg animal, release only sanctioned a day or two before completion of I -131's first half life.
Once home cats stay isolated for 2 weeks, then can go about the house for another two but stay one metre from human inhabitants. All cat litter to be flushed for a month. That's pretty strict.
For that amount of radiation to potentially affect other people, particularly family members (imagine sharing a bed) - that's a major lawsuit from family and potentially neighbours.
Reminds me of the Kramatorsk incident, which went undetected for years until people who lived in the flats started presenting with radiation sickness symptoms & started dying.
Damn, you're releasing more videos than my radium releases alpha particles😆
Now that would be a lot of videos.
G'Day, I'm from Perth Western Australia... The apathy of the general public was astounding. The government played it down, while the media played it up. Fun fact: The maximum fine for mishandling radioactive materials here in West Australia is US$600. No mention that Caesium can be water soluble. No mention of Beta/Gama and most astounding is that there was no mention of it being 20,000 Sieverts.
The guess was 20,000 uSv/hr or 20 mSv/hr. 20,000 Sv/hr would give you a fatal dose immediately and would be way to dangerous to handle for the mining operations.
@@RadioactiveDrew My bad for not using the correct units. I know better. Thanks for correcting my mistake, Drew!!!
No problem. I like to give people the right info when I can.
Was hoping you would quickly share your opinion on this… except for articles I read about it myself, I only heard one media outlet/reporter bother to mention the relative size of this pellet, and that it could be/been stuck in a tire’s tread.
I’ve been reflecting a little differently in thought at every piece of FOD bouncing off my windshield while driving down the highway this week, heh.
As someone has already mentioned in the comments section, similar yet much worse Kramatorsk Radiological Accident occurred in USSR in late 1970s. A cesium-137 source from a comparable instrument was lost in the Karan(sky) quarry. Search was poorly organized and the source ended up in the concrete wall of a residential building. Over 1980-1989 period four residents died of leukemia. Only in 1989 was radioactive source located, wall section cut out and transferred to Institute for Nuclear Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Cesium-137 inside the capsule had activity of 5,2×10^(10) Bq (1,4 Ci).
I remember reading about this incident a couple years back. That is a crazy hot source.
I work for a large domestic mammo machine manufacturer. The MQSA mandates no more than 3 mGy per breast. Our systems actually run just south of 1.2 mGy for a 2D exposure and 1.5 mGy per tomosynthesis (3D) exposure. Not sure where that 200 mSv number came from but that's going to be too low to obtain a quality image for screening or diagnosis. The detector surface area is just too large, you need more dose than that, otherwise the contrast-to-noise ratio is poor.
The number I put in there was 200 uSv and I got that from a site about x-ray doses. There's a lot of info out there concerning doses from different x-ray procedures. I have heard it going as high as 1mSv or 1mGy of exposure. But I figured I would stick with the lower number.
I give this show a glowing review.
Dabumtiss
I used to work with the exact brand of equipment you showed in this video. During my time with this company, I had two incidents with source holders.
The first thing that happened was that we had a test source of cobalt 60 in the office. The source itself was lowered into a lead cylinder to isolate it. Since it was not in much use I did not interact with it often. One day, I was testing my measuring equipment and wanted to check how much radiation the Co60 source emitted. To my surprise the radiation did not increase when the source was removed from its lead cylinder, which turns out the rod, which the source was attached to, had been upside-down the last 10 years. So when picking up the rod, my fingers were in direct contact with the source. This is 10 years ago, and my fingers are still the same 😂
This was extremely informative, i have always been fascinated by everything radioactive, like nuclear power is where it started for me, but I have never honestly understood the doses received from different types of quantities
That is because every time a large portion of the public understand the term, they change it. I still prefer to do my calculations in R Roentgens. I can also work in Rads. When enough pepple could they came out with Sieverts, then Micro Sieverts. They will change it again as soon as enough people can understand the concepts. Keeping the populace confused is important. LoL The take away all should have is anything made of Cesium 137 is bad news.
A friend of mine uses XRF as part of her work on a mining site but their sources are tiny. What astonishes me is the cavalier attitude they seem to have on these sites as to the dangers of radiation.
People get very relaxed when dealing with these sources everyday. I'm sure most don't realize how much danger they could be in from mishandling a strong industrial source.
I enjoyed your presentation. My impression, from the stories I read, was that the release of the source from the gauge required the loosing of at least two screws that secured it in place. My guess is that there were not quality control issues regarding the tightening of those screws, including lack of periodic inspections of how tight they were. Perhaps that was complicated by personnal trying to avoid getting near the source. There is a good chance that these screws were getting loser and loser during multiple transport trips and no one was checking on that aspect of the gauge that they were transporting, perhaps over a period of time of many months.
Thank you. Shielding, distance and exposure time are critical.
Excellent report Drew you have nailed the explanation far better than the mining company and local press here in Western Australia 🇦🇺 👏
Thanks for the explanation Drew! I was secretly hoping to open CZcams and seeing a video from you explaining the situation!
Now the government wants to up the fine for mishandling radioactive materials - currently at $1000 go figure!🤣
Legend thanks mate 👍🏼
Glad you enjoyed the video. $1000 fine…now that’s funny.
Probably a reaction to idiots not abiding by best practices or the laws...it always happens.
Thanks for the details! These reporters and journalists are more concerned with getting something out fast even if it is not correct. Or they don’t want to admit they don’t have all the information. I’m glad a pack rat didn’t carry it away and it stayed close to the highways.
So, if you see a pile of rocks on the side of the road emitting cherenkov radiation, RUN !
That’s a good rule to live by.
they use that exact same thing at the copper mine I work at, and they give a thorough safety class on it, but out of the 650 employees, only 3 people are certified to work on them. And was just told by Safety that they are reducing the number of these around the site in favor of newer non-radioactive ways to measure.
If it is just level of powders or slurries, ultrasonic measurement is pretty good, but the sensing disk wears out. The main advantage of nuclear is that the source and sensor can be made super rugged and work under all kinds of awful conditions. 🤓
Source was ~19GBq. Which is 513mCi, not 20mCi.
He didn't say it was 20mCi. He said the source he had in his hand was, not the lost source which has now been found.
@@BackYardScience2000 2:15 he says they source lost was 20mCi, or 20,000 of the ones in his hand.
1: I love how well you explained this.
2: I love your hat. My Jeep is wearing a lot of OME part.
Man, I broke my hip. They took a CT scan, didnt see anything. They said I was ok to leave. I was in so much pain, I couldnt walk. They didn't know why, so they did a seconf CT scan, and whatcha no. After another Dr looked at the x-ray, I had a fractured hip. Nice to know they slammed me with radiation.
Yeah, doctors like to give x-rays like they're giving out candy.
I wondered if any radioactive enthusiasts in the area spent a few days driving up and down with something like a Radiacode, or pancake probe hanging out the window, trying to find it for themselves 😅
That would have been fun.
Wouldn't need to hang it out the window. A source like that could be picked up easily from 20 meters away, which is why they were able to drive down the road at 70 km/h (19 m/s) when they were searching for it. It was found 2 m off the road.
The article I read said it was the same as 10 X-rays. Lol. I’m no radiation expert but I know better. I seriously enjoy your channel sir. Thanks for the education.
No problem.
Depends on distance---without specifying that, you could use any number.
I'm pretty late to this, but I wondered during the video if there's any kind of airborne or orbital detector that could, if not pinpoint the location of this source - maybe give a general idea as to its location?
That seems like the kind of thing that might exist after decades of nuclear brinksmanship during the Cold War.
Anyway, I always appreciate and enjoy your work. Keep it coming!
Something that high up wouldn’t work on a source like this. Good idea and I think something like that exists but it’s mainly for detecting nuclear detonations.
Thanks Drew, more info from you than we did from our authorities here !
When it comes to radiation the news and the authorities seem to always get it wrong.
I had cesium 137 pellets injected into my prostrate, the reason I chose it was that it has the shortest "half life" in one month it has very little energy. [5 years cancer free]
I looked up the isotope of cesium used in a procedure like the one you had and it seems like they use cesium - 131 which has a half-life of 9.6 days. This is much shorter than cesium - 137 with a 30 year half-life. So they cesium - 131 they used is much more radioactive but they only need to use an extremely small amount to treat cancers.
The forbidden nugget. (It was found on 1/2/2023)
It was lost on January 12. They didn't notice it missing until January 25 & it was found on January 31, 19 days on the side of the road. Upon opening the package, it was found that the gauge was broken apart with one of four mounting bolts missing. The source itself and all screws on the gauge were also missing.
I could see the source rattling out of that housing if it was just left to bounce around in the back of a truck.
@@RadioactiveDrew It was supposed to have been packed up by a contractor that specializes in these gauges on site to be sent back to their facility in the outer suburbs of Perth. That company is blaming the transport company. You've probably heard by now that it's since been found.
Gross negligence at best...
Hey thanks for making this video! I really was curious about this after hearing about it and you did the dirty work to find out the answers to the questions I had that were not answered in the news.
Glad you enjoyed the work put into the video.
What "dirty work"?
@@ajacks1349 I mean having to dig around online to learn about the equipment that the source might have been used in and finding out how radioactive it is. I'm sure most of us could have found that information as well but we didn't have to because he did the work for us. I guess 'tedious' might have been a better word.
@@farklek Yes, but he needs to get the basics right like the activity for the source, which is rather stronger than what he alleges.
@@ajacks1349 Well converting Curies to Sieverts is not straightforward because they are measuring different things, activity and dose. I think he gave a fair approximation based off of the information that he had. The only people who know for sure are the ones that have access to the source.
Wow bro, your fast! I was litrally on my way to post a link in ur previous video.
I can be fast. I shot this yesterday and edited it last night and this morning.
Good deal. I figured it would be somewhat easy and likey to locate. Start from the departure point and slowly cruise down the road.
Yeah, a source like this one would easily pop up on most scintillation detectors.
I used to be certified in the US a few decades ago to use nuclear soil density gauges, (Troxler and another (CPM?). There was always some caution involved in transporting them to and from and having them on construction sites. Tales abounded of incidents including incidents where the source somehow came out of the rod containing it and then some idiot picked it up and stuck it in their pocket, or it just got lost after a bulldozer hit it and tore it all apart and the whole work site had to be shut down until it was found and the area made safe again.
From what I heard from a friend on the east coast who used to work with these in the mines, it would 100 x-rays if you were standing a couple of meters away from it for an hour. His assumption was that the authorities didn't want to create a panic and let people assume it meant if you were holding it.
How can we believe anything media & authorities tell us when they constantly lie because they think they know better?
This is a perfect example. Tell the truth, people will stay away. Lie, and someone may find something like this and pick it up thinking, "its not so bad."
It’s a huge problem with the media reporting on these subjects they have zero clue about.
@@bernzie001 Or, they tell the truth like they did this time, and media medias and makes out that its Chernobyl all over again, like they did when the government did release the info. And don't even get me started on the idiots in Social media.
@@bernzie001 Also, tell the people there's an orphan source and those without nefarious designs will stay away. Can you say that ALL will stay away? Can you say that bad actors will not try to find it to use?
There’s a balance that can be reached. The problem is there are so many sides that are so far away from any type of balanced reporting on a subject like this.
Some density meters use a source of 1mCi Cs-137, that is about 10,000x times what you are showing us! Other manufacturers claim to use sources like you are showing so that licencing isn't required, at least, not in the USA. So I think we can assume that the source lost in Australia was a fairly hot one! The containers are probably made of lead with a powder coat to protect them.
It was around a 20 mCi or greater that was lost and then found. I was able to hunt down the info from a manufacturer that makes sources for this type of use.
@@RadioactiveDrew That would explain all the concern to find it again. I worked with a company in Spain who did these tests in drillholes and their source (similar activity) was tied onto a cord and dangled down 5 metres into an indoor patio that had no access from the apartment building where they had their offices. That was their idea of "safe shielding"
Thank you for the entire story Drew.
No problem.
A cynical part of me wonders if they were purposely under-reporting the radioactivity so people didn't freak out too much.
I’m sure that’s why they did it. But I’m also sure those numbers came from the company. Just another form of CYA (cover your A$$)
You should look into Troxler Nuclear Density gauges. We use them all the time in construction.
I ran into someone using one by my house a couple years ago. I would love to do a video about these gauges.
I build the outer hull for replacement bins for some radioaktive stuff in medicine. I think that was for cancer treatment or so. They were 15cm in diameter and 25cm high. The bottom, sides and lid were all more then 4 cm thick solid steel. This thing weighted more then 12kg (~25pounds) and that was before another company put a lead lining inside. My boss said the finished product weighted more then 20kg (~40pounds). This thing had no warning stickers or markings, and the exterieur had to be polished like a mirror, but the other 3 layer of packaging around it were all plastered with everything you could imagine and every layer had a seal. When something seriously radioaktive is transported in public the safety is normaly so that not even a total car crash could destroy it. Then in Europe you need a marking on the truck and the driver must have a special training for hazmats. For that to happen, that the stuff is totally open there must be someone who made a lot of mistakes or..........shortcuts.
It seems like different countries have different regulations when people are going to handle radioactive materials.
@@RadioactiveDrew jeah but even with the most basic Security this should not happen. That was Like a hole in your pocket and you lost a Penny.
i live in australia and I have seen every now and then a ute or pickup whatever you call it in america on the road, they have a radiation sign on the back of the car, and a solid metal container strapped down in the rear corner of the tray diagonally opposite from the driver. I assumed this was the standard way in Australia to transport radioactive test equipment. I'm not sure how this could ever have been allowed to happen.. we generally have alot of regulations and documentation for these sorts of things
@@garyflies makes more sense and normally it's everywhere the same. A little bit Like a russian matroschka, a Box in a Box in a third Box ....... I'm in Germany. Here we have plates with numbers, the number on top describes the danger for example a 7 would be radioaktive. The number at the bottom of the plate is the material-number and then every Police or fire Department has list or can ask via Radio.
All you need is enough people thinking it’s not a big deal and that’s when accidents happen.
According to rad pro calculator a 20mCi Cs-137 source gives a dose rate of .056mSv/h at 1m, .225mSv at 50cm and at 10 cm 5.65 mSv/h, mind you this is only gamma, not taking into account the beta radiation nor bremsstrahlung. So it would take a long time of having the source on a pocket to give you ARS probably weeks. Edit: at 10cm gives only 5.6 mSv not Sv. also going by your source giving 14 µSv/h on contact times 20k equals 280mSv/h. Still very far from being a lethal source but enough to give burns and be harmful if kept in a pocket for many hours.
I know…that’s why I said it would really only be fatal if swallowed.
How about the absorbed dose from a PET scan! Where they inject a positron emitting isotope. I did spectrum analysis on a family member after they had a PET scan. Just being within 12 ft of the person, I was reading 80KCPM with my SEI Inspector USB Alert+. Crazy. Drew, if your interested in that spectrum I can send it along with a few other cool ref spectrums I have taken. The B+ (Positron) spectrum shows a huge peak @ 511 keV.
It’s a subject I want to cover. I also have a family member that got some imaging done with Tc-99m and wow I could detect them about 20 feet away in the garage.
@@RadioactiveDrew Doctors were having trouble locating my Father's parathyroid glands, and gave him a dose of metastable TC-99 in order to track them down so they could be surgically removed. I brought a Ludlum model 19 to the hospital right afterwards, and as in your experience, he was "detectable" from at least 20 feet away. A pretty short half-life isotope, however, so he was not a hazard for very long.
A coworker, who is an expert in the field of radiation and uranium mining (teaches RSO classes, etc.) had Iodine 131 treatment for an overactive thyroid. When she got back to the lab from having her treatment, she immediately wanted me to bring a model 19 over to check her out. I don't recall what the gamma dose rate was with the instrument held right up against her neck, but it was pretty hot. The funny part was that she was with her husband (another expert in the field), and when we "surveyed" her, he slowly started backing away from her, and all of us got a good laugh out of it. She referred to herself as a "walking radiation area". ("Radiation Area" has a specific meaning based on dose rate in the U.S. "Any area with radiation levels greater than 5 millirems (0.05 millisievert) in one hour at 30 centimeters from the source or from any surface through which the radiation penetrates.")
My mother had a number of PET scans when she had metastatic breast cancer. The imaging the PET scans provide is an amazing tool. I never surveyed her after her scans, but I probably should have. I'm not sure what the sugar is "tagged with", but it's obviously a beta emitter of some sort.
Many years ago, I heard a much more horrific story about another lost source. In this case, it was what was supposedly a 20 Curie gamma source that was used in an "open hole" oil well logging tool. The tool got stuck in the hole, and to make a long story short, the company man grew impatient with the fishing, and decided to just drill through the tool to proceed with the well drilling. Of course, that was a catastrophic error.
The story went that this chewed the tool up, including the source, and that then contaminated the recirculating drilling mud, which contaminated the entire area where the drilling rig was working. And that mud got onto the boots and clothing of the workers at the rig. They found contamination in hotels and restaurants, etc., in the nearest town. The well area had to be cleaned up, the well sealed off with concrete and abandoned, and a lot of equipment scrapped as hazardous waste, etc. I suspect this particular company man no longer worked for anyone in the drilling industry.
I never heard, but in this case of the lost source in WA, when it was found, was it still in its protective casing? That seems like the most likely scenario, and in that case, with the shutter closed, the danger to the public may not have been too great unless someone found it and decided to open it up. That's been the case in a few incidents, of course.
Another incident that has occurred several times is Cobalt 60 cancer therapy machines that get abandoned and get taken apart by scrap metal dealers. Happened in Mexico
Yes, and it wound up in ironwork patio furniture sold in Texas.
@@maxr.dechantsreiter5226what was the result of that?
The authorities reported the activity of the source as FIVE HUNDRED mCi, not twenty mCi. That's over 10 Sv/hr on contact, enough to fry your heart if you put this thing in a shirt pocket. Seems like a re-do for this video is needed.
The "mickey mouse" science on here is hilarious...
Cesium 137 lost in Australia, $20 M in gold lost in Canada, A few tons of ammonium nitrate spilled in Western USA. Just crazy.
Yes…all that is very crazy.
From recollection, they found it by using a detector like an identiFINDER R700 (if not that same model).
You could driven down the road with almost any scintillation detector and found this object. Just as long as you weren’t going too fast.
I believe they said that if you stood 1 meter away from it you would receive the equivalent of 10 chest x-rays over the period of 1 hour. I also read that that it was a 19 gigabecquerel source. I don't know how accurate that is. In comparison I used an online conversion calculator to show that the 1μCi Cs-137 check source is about 37000 becquerel. I also found a company online, QSA Global, that sells industrial Cesium-137 sources in different capsule sizes. The capsule code X8 seems to be the most similar to the one in Australia and can have a custom activity value but only up to 11.1GBq. Other sizes can have higher activity values.
1/2 Curie---that is more believable. It takes a very powerful source to penetrate rock, especially metal-bearing rock.
Sure glad they found it!
No kidding. I figured it wouldn’t take them long once they started looking. It’s such a strong source you could drive by it on the road going a good clip and detect it with the right detector.
In Thailand we lost cr-137 from the powerplant 3 weeks ago. It doesn't look small like this. That thing with the steel cover weighs 25 kilograms. Today we found it in a steel melting factory. The Thai government said it was safe but I don't think so. What do you think about it? Any suggestions?
The Cs-137 source that is used in industrial settings can be very strong. I don't know much about the source that was lost there and then found. But Cesium 137 is usually in a metal source container. So as long as it wasn't opened and had the contents spread around it would be fine. I don't think its something to worry about. But if you are concerned about accidents like this and want to know for sure I would look into getting a Geiger counter of some kind. Better Geiger makes one that is easy to use and sensitive to gamma radiation, which Cs-137 gives off a lot of. Hope that helps somewhat.
@@RadioactiveDrew thank you so much for your kindness. The point that we are so worried about right now is the steel factory may have already melted it. So in this case it is not just open, but burns into dust and smoke. They found the radioactive ☢️ in some pieces of steel, but there is no sign of cs-137 or it's steel container anymore.
It sounds like it did get melted in with some steel. The story they are telling is that the temp of the steel melting vaporized the cesium, which could have happened. But this doesn’t destroy it. If that happened the cesium was converted to a gas and then once it cools it becomes a solid again. But I think the contamination would be contained to that steel plant.
Thanks another good show 👍
Thank you for a very good explanation. Great channel you have there👍🏻👌🏻
Thanks.
You talked about the distance part of exposure, but maybe a bit about time and shielding too.
Hey Drew, what's your advice on this, I have an old plastic Vietnam era military compass that I came upon, its relatively radioactive at over 10,000 cpm, but the research I've done on this compass tells me they did not use radium or any other radiological source for illumination with compass so I'm quite perplexed
Btw congrats on your channel absolutely blowing up!! That's so cool man!
Sure sounds like the compass is radium. I have one from around the late 40’s / early 50’s that is pretty hot…around 50,000. I also have two others that might be from the same era as yours and those I believe read around 10,000 CPM. The military used radium in items all the way up until the 1970’s.
Also thanks for the channel congrats. It’s been really awesome seeing so many people comment on and watch these videos.
@@RadioactiveDrew that would make sense, maybe the radium might be so worn that my blacklight isn't even activating it anymore? And no prob man keep up the awesomeness
Hey drew! Great video, very excited that I'm going to visit the Trinity site in March, my father knows the Commanding General of White Sands.
Are you doing a private tour? I only ask because the next open house for the site is April 1St.
@@RadioactiveDrew Indeed I am, we are also going to the area where the bomb was assembled.
There has been some nasty accidents with lost thermal generators so its serious
Those RTGs can be very dangerous.
So if it's a Vega like you displayed in this video, it should have a shutter to block the radiation. Here in the US a radiation program must be in place before purchasing a radiation source.
The one that had its source rattled out of it was damaged and mishandled. I'm sure the the IAEA manages this part of the world and the company would have had all the proper paperwork. But even with all that...you aren't going to stop people from mishandling dangerous sources.
Is it possible for you to do a review of the Santa Susana Field Lab in Southern California? They had several nuclear accidents and a partial meltdown in 1959. Would be interesting if you can go over what happened and test for contamination.
I’ve been there before and have hiked the trails around the area looking for contamination. I want to go back there to do a video about the meltdown and all the other things that happened there.
I guess Boeing owns it now is refusing to clean it up more and ground water contamination went beyond site "lines" long ago guess the toxic sledge didnt get the memo. Who knew shooting barrels of toxic liquid crap was a bad idea? Not to mention the "containment" structure for the reactor was the equivalent of a metal shed. Fair amount of actor deaths are thought to be attributed to the recording in the somewhat near vicinity as well. I'm sure if united nuclear / rocketdyne / e.t.c.? could have covered it up forever they would have happily.
@@RadioactiveDrew Well...did you find any contamination?
@@ajacks1349 no...nothing obvious. But I was on publicly available trails so I would imagine they would have cleaned that up as much as they could have. I want to go back there again with some different equipment and see what I find.
@@frizzlefry1921 I think people that have been effected by the site have been exposed to some of the chemicals used on site. The radiation from the meltdown of the test reactor might have had some negative effect when it happened. But chemical exposure is that gift that keep on giving and its really hard to test for it in everything. At least with radioactive isotopes you can detect them pretty easily with a Geiger counter.
very well done..thank you sir
Glad you enjoyed it.
Why the Australian government hasn't kicked Rio Tinto out of the country is beyond me.
Gotta say though, the very difficulty of the search indicates that the risk of anyone being hurt buy it was extremely low. It was in a desert surrounded by nothing for hundreds of miles.
A 0.02Ci is absolutely tiiiiiiiny. I regularly work with 20Ci Iridium-192 & 30Ci Selenium-75 for NDT.
I meam it's not a good idea to eat the capsule if found haha but you could pick up a 0.02Ci Caesium-137 and wouldn't get radiation burns from it.
Dang, those are some hot sources.
Worked with cesium 137 for oil well logging tools.. Our source looked like a 1" long 3/4" bolt, painted bright yellow. You would unscrew it from the lead pig and insert it into the tool... Company had a few close calls with lost sources over the years.. One tool got sent back from offshore with the source still in the tool...Another, where someone found a source laying on the ground and did not know what it was, he picked it up and walked over and stuck it in the face of someone that definitely knew what it was...
I bet there would have been many losses or thefts due to poor practices, supervision & no accountability.
It seems astonishing that the containment vessel was not secured with wire locked bolts. That actually might have been the case, but mining is a tough business and equipment suffers a harsh life. It would appear that at the end of a job, the equipment was just loaded up and shipped off to a new site. It is only after arriving at the new site that maintenance and servicing was carried out. Which is when the loss of the Cesium source was discovered. That makes sense when you consider the state of the roads over which the equipment needed to be transported. Loads of bumps and vibration on the way, so no real surprise that this could have happened. The intensity of the source made detection relatively easy, but it could equally have been picked up in the tyres of a passing vehicle and lodged somewhere in the chassis. It would still have come to light eventually when people started coming to hospital with unexplained burns or symptoms of radiation sickness. So finding it eventually was in little doubt. The trick was to find it before someone got hurt and without panicking the local population, which is thankfully very sparse in that area. Industrial radiation sources generally fall into the category of being very bad to be close to unless they are installed correctly in their shielded housings. Very intense sources may be physically too hot to handle outside of their containment, so the chance of someone holding on to one of these pellets with bare hands or slipping it into a pocket are reduced somewhat. Still very nasty to come across one of these pellets unshielded under any circumstances without the correct protective gear and handling equipment.
They found it on the side on the road not far from the mine site. A bolt had broken off the radiation gauge containment. The source fell through the open hole of the missing bolt.
It’s pretty amazing that all those things happened.
#garagelogic
A better, fuller explanation for what’s going on. This is a great channel.
Thanks.
to quote HBO Chernobyl "its no different then a chest x ray" sounds familiar
...Or maybe we should be more concerned about chest (and other) X-rays.
Scary stuff
Sources like this can be very scary…if not handled properly.
I am suspicious of how that thing could just fall out of a container designed to have several layers of protection to prevent that exact thing from happening. There would have to be an obscene number of screws, bolts, and guards missing.
I can believe it if the workers just beat their equipment up and people that are suppose to be trained to handle material like this have zero training.
There are radiation transport regulations in every state!! They are quite specific and demanding, I know I have been in the industry for 35 years. This seems like a case of 'slap stick' control by the authorised company. It's not the first time.
Glad they found it. Was worried about another south america incident again
What about the Kramatorsk incident?
Recommend “mining boom” yt channel to understand about mining safety.
Thanks...I'll check it out.
Nice hat Drew👍
Thanks. I have some ARB gear on my truck as well.
After learning how often this 1950's-60's tech is in mining and industry, I'm really surprised that no one has stolen some and made a dirty bomb yet.
Use this stuff at work to make sure meters are working and for safety system checks you can hold it just don’t eat it
These tests disks are pretty safe to handle. The sources used in those density meters not so much.
Good explanation
I wasnt sure what the big deal was at the time, I assumed it was not the typical cesium source like shown in this video for calibrating Geiger counters, these things are everywhere.
Initially media reported it was a 19 Becquerel source :D
I saw that as well. There are more than 19 becquerels in my left foot from K-40 😂
Hahahaha...very true.
Time, Distance and Shielding.
I found an area with rocks that give 100 usv/hr. When I started digging with a shovel I noticed the soil all around it was sand/silt, but the soil directly in contact with it was clay and the rocks were soft and broken down. Was wondering if it was the radiation that broke down the soil to clay faster.
I know that sometimes radiation can cause a change in color with the surrounding rock layers. Usually it won’t break down other rocks…but I’m not 100% sure it won’t.
However, everything is more or less radioactive. Radioactivity is what makes our world tick, our universe.
Wow I had no idea this kinda thing could happen these days 😮
It happens more often than you would think. People become complacent with safety around these objects and mistakes happen...or really bad training.
Detecting it is one thing but no thanks walking close to it lol
That’s why it’s nice to have a radiation detector. If you are getting too close you can see there’s going to be a problem before there’s a problem.
Wasn't there a case where such a source was lost in an apartment wall and everyone who lived in there got cancer?
Yes…I believe it happened somewhere in Ukraine or Russia a while back.
They’ve found it now!
I know. I made reference to that in the video.
The level of radiation drops off with the inverse square of the distance.
Great Video! I do have a question, they claim that exposure is equivalent to 10 x-rays which I agree is extremely vague but is it possible they could be calculating the exposure model with respect to the energy of the radiation emitted? Leads me to another question is it possible to have something be extremely radioactive but the decay energy be very low so damage from prolonged exposure is kept minimal and localized?
I can’t see how a difference in energy level from X-rays to gamma rays from Cs-137 could make up for that 10 X-ray number. I think it was more of a thing of them downplaying the danger associated with the source by using something people are familiar with…X-rays. But when they talk about the source outside of that scope they referred to it as dangerous. 10 X-rays isn’t dangerous…but 2800 of them sure are.
@@RadioactiveDrew ahhh yeah that is a good point, photon energy levels of X-rays and gamma rays are orders of magnitude different. Downplaying the scenario seems likely.
That source sound powerful enough to make a dirty bomb (and caesium is chemically favorable too)
So it should be guarded 24/7 by somebody who knows how to handle it.
It is baffling to hear how it was lost so easily.
It’s not enough material to make a dirty bomb.
7:15 That would be the same as 1 chest X-ray every 1.3 seconds.
Finally someone explained it with numbers
lol the article I read made it seem like Australians were amazed that this could happen. Meanwhile I read the NRC event notification reports every month and see lost/stolen, and damaged sources reported everywhere. IDK what amuses me more....the quest for the missing tritium exit signs, or moisture/density gauges being run over by heavy equipment onsite.
Plenty stolen/lost that could be used for terrorist purposes...pathetic really.