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Why Is This Cargo Container Emitting So Much Radiation? (2011)

14 points by docdeek 5y ago

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
Interesting article but it was pub'd on 10.21.2011
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
It was a container full of scrap metal but a piece of radioactive cobalt... > the box was stuffed at a metal yard in Saudi Arabia under the auspices of Sun Metal Casting, a scrap-metal dealer in the tiny Arab emirate of Ajman. > Whatever was in the box was giving off gamma rays at 1,173 and 1,332 kiloelectron volts. It could be only one thing: cobalt-60 slowly alchemizing itself into nickel.
- throwawaymanbot 5y ago
  What Saudi project could that have been?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Traubenfuchs 5y ago
Why was this horrible article so long? The answers you want to know in one paragraph: Aside from a few scratches, there are no identifying marks on the cylinder to help investigators figure out what it is or where it came from. The encapsulated chunk of cobalt will make its way north to Leipzig, Germany, where a specialized firm will search it for a serial number and eventually melt it down and recycle it. Judging by its size and shape, the object was probably part of a medical device or a machine used to sterilize food. Disposing of such material is expensive; Italian officials won't speculate on how it got conveniently lost in a Saudi scrap yard. No one knows how the cobalt got into the container or how the container got into the system.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  I guess 2011 was the height of clickbaity title. If the title was "The saga of the radioactive container that landed ashore in Genoa" we'd be prepared for a long story... Edit: I skimmed through the beginning, yeah it's the typical Wired style of "That morning the main character of this story started with a cup of coffee with beans from Kenya. He'd always been a coffee afficiniado since he met a coffee-loving chemistry teacher when he was in high school. This bit is not relevant to the article, but hey, it's world building..."
dandotway 5y ago
"The radiation portals that were deployed in the aftermath of 9/11 are essentially fine, except for three problems: They won't find a nuclear bomb, they won't find highly enriched uranium, and they won't find a shielded dirty bomb," says Stephen Flynn, a terrorism expert and president of the Center for National Policy. "Other than that, they're great pieces of equipment." In other words, we only have a "security theater" ability to prevent radiological weapons from entering the border. Like the TSA, this theatrical security creates jobs, consumes tax wealth, and enables politicians to say they took action to address the problem while simultaneously giving them someone to blame when an attack occurs.

14 points by docdeek 5y ago

Interesting article but it was pub'd on 10.21.2011

It was a container full of scrap metal but a piece of radioactive cobalt... > the box was stuffed at a metal yard in Saudi Arabia under the auspices of Sun Metal Casting, a scrap-metal dealer in the tiny Arab emirate of Ajman. > Whatever was in the box was giving off gamma rays at 1,173 and 1,332 kiloelectron volts. It could be only one thing: cobalt-60 slowly alchemizing itself into nickel.

throwawaymanbot 5y ago
What Saudi project could that have been?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Traubenfuchs 5y ago

Why was this horrible article so long? The answers you want to know in one paragraph: Aside from a few scratches, there are no identifying marks on the cylinder to help investigators figure out what it is or where it came from. The encapsulated chunk of cobalt will make its way north to Leipzig, Germany, where a specialized firm will search it for a serial number and eventually melt it down and recycle it. Judging by its size and shape, the object was probably part of a medical device or a machine used to sterilize food. Disposing of such material is expensive; Italian officials won't speculate on how it got conveniently lost in a Saudi scrap yard. No one knows how the cobalt got into the container or how the container got into the system.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
I guess 2011 was the height of clickbaity title. If the title was "The saga of the radioactive container that landed ashore in Genoa" we'd be prepared for a long story... Edit: I skimmed through the beginning, yeah it's the typical Wired style of "That morning the main character of this story started with a cup of coffee with beans from Kenya. He'd always been a coffee afficiniado since he met a coffee-loving chemistry teacher when he was in high school. This bit is not relevant to the article, but hey, it's world building..."

dandotway 5y ago

"The radiation portals that were deployed in the aftermath of 9/11 are essentially fine, except for three problems: They won't find a nuclear bomb, they won't find highly enriched uranium, and they won't find a shielded dirty bomb," says Stephen Flynn, a terrorism expert and president of the Center for National Policy. "Other than that, they're great pieces of equipment." In other words, we only have a "security theater" ability to prevent radiological weapons from entering the border. Like the TSA, this theatrical security creates jobs, consumes tax wealth, and enables politicians to say they took action to address the problem while simultaneously giving them someone to blame when an attack occurs.