4 ms·

Last year a tiny radioactive capsule the size of a fingernail went missing in Australia, when a "safe" storage container the size of a small car failed and allo

Last year a tiny radioactive capsule the size of a fingernail went missing in Australia, when a "safe" storage container the size of a small car failed and allowed it to fall out. The search to find the capsule cost four million dollars and there were global news stories warning people to avoid the highway the (very, very long) highway the truck had driven down. In other countries (e.g. Soviet ones) where precautions like that haven't been taken, those capsules have been found after dozens of people caught cancer due to regular exposure to a capsule that just happened to end up near them. Presumably there are more that haven't been found, and those countries just accept a higher rate of cancer than the rest of the world. Avoiding those scenarios is what costs so much.

canadianfella 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
renewiltord 3y ago
That doesn’t check out, though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident Was horrific and teletherapy machines are quite cheap. You would expect that if risk of radiation source loss underlies cost then they would be much more expensive.
jimworm 3y ago
The accidents you described didn't come from nuclear power plants. The Western Australian incident was mining equipment. The Goiânia accident happened in Brazil and was medical equipment. The Kramatorsk radiological accident was also mining equipment.
- itishappy 3y ago
  I was imaginging insane nuclear laser drills, but... > The capsule, part of a gauge used to measure the density of iron ore... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/31/australian-nuclear-agency-joins-hunt-for-lost-radioactive-capsule https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/31/australian-nuclear-... More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australian_radioactive_capsule_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australian_radioactive... Terrifying Wikipedia rabbit hole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incident...
  - patmorgan23 3y ago
    There's an interesting YouTube channel called Plainly Difficult that goes over industrial accidents, many of them nuclear/radiation in nature. (https://youtube.com/@PlainlyDifficult https://youtube.com/@PlainlyDifficult) Also medical radiation machines around the time that
    - somedude895 3y ago
      I love his radiation incident videos and it's sad he seems to have run out of them. The structural failure and trainwreck videos just don't scratch the same itch for me.
      - dbt00 3y ago
        I find it actually quite relieving that he doesn't have any new nuclear incidents to document.
  - sbierwagen 3y ago
    Fun fact: one of the few industrial applications of nuclear fusion reactors today is as pulsed neutron generators for excitation gamma ray spectroscopy in oil exploration. https://www.slb.com/-/media/files/drilling/brochure/neoscope-br.ashx https://www.slb.com/-/media/files/drilling/brochure/neoscope...
concordDance 3y ago
The Australia case is a clear example of misspent money because headlines rule the world. Those millions of dollars could have saved a dozen lives, while odds are very high that capsule would have not been found by a civilian until after decaying to a harmless level. In the very unlikely event of being found it would likely have killed only one or two people.
- rvba 3y ago
  Why couldnt it be you though, so we wouldnt have to read such stupid comments.
- kzrdude 3y ago
  Meanwhile air quality is killing millions per year.
- hef19898 3y ago
  I find the attitude of valueing money more than human lifes worrisome, to say the least. And I have been called a cynic more than once.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    Read what I wrote again. I'm stating that money IS lives. If you spend $100 million to save one person when you could spend $100 million to save 10 people you're wasting 9 lives. Even purely commercial monetary gains can be inefficiently converted into lives via government taxes that then get spent on road safety, pollution regulation or healthcare.
    - everforward 3y ago
      A lot of these "cost" reports include money that couldn't be shifted around. E.g. they often include the salaries of people who worked on the project, and you can't just not pay them and re-allocate those funds elsewhere. I'm also cynically skeptical that the money would go to road safety or healthcare or some other noble cause if it wasn't spent here. It seems more likely that the money would have stayed with whatever branch of government spent it, and instead it would've been used to buy a new tank or patrol cars or some such. Or in true Catch-22 fashion, they'd spend $3.5 million on a report on how to spend the remaining $500k but the report runs over budget and costs the full $4 million.

canadianfella 3y ago

[dead]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

renewiltord 3y ago

That doesn’t check out, though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident Was horrific and teletherapy machines are quite cheap. You would expect that if risk of radiation source loss underlies cost then they would be much more expensive.

jimworm 3y ago

The accidents you described didn't come from nuclear power plants. The Western Australian incident was mining equipment. The Goiânia accident happened in Brazil and was medical equipment. The Kramatorsk radiological accident was also mining equipment.

itishappy 3y ago
I was imaginging insane nuclear laser drills, but... > The capsule, part of a gauge used to measure the density of iron ore... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/31/australian-nuclear-agency-joins-hunt-for-lost-radioactive-capsule https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/31/australian-nuclear-... More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australian_radioactive_capsule_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australian_radioactive... Terrifying Wikipedia rabbit hole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incident...
- patmorgan23 3y ago
  There's an interesting YouTube channel called Plainly Difficult that goes over industrial accidents, many of them nuclear/radiation in nature. (https://youtube.com/@PlainlyDifficult https://youtube.com/@PlainlyDifficult) Also medical radiation machines around the time that
  - somedude895 3y ago
    I love his radiation incident videos and it's sad he seems to have run out of them. The structural failure and trainwreck videos just don't scratch the same itch for me.
    - dbt00 3y ago
      I find it actually quite relieving that he doesn't have any new nuclear incidents to document.
- sbierwagen 3y ago
  Fun fact: one of the few industrial applications of nuclear fusion reactors today is as pulsed neutron generators for excitation gamma ray spectroscopy in oil exploration. https://www.slb.com/-/media/files/drilling/brochure/neoscope-br.ashx https://www.slb.com/-/media/files/drilling/brochure/neoscope...

concordDance 3y ago

The Australia case is a clear example of misspent money because headlines rule the world. Those millions of dollars could have saved a dozen lives, while odds are very high that capsule would have not been found by a civilian until after decaying to a harmless level. In the very unlikely event of being found it would likely have killed only one or two people.

rvba 3y ago
Why couldnt it be you though, so we wouldnt have to read such stupid comments.
kzrdude 3y ago
Meanwhile air quality is killing millions per year.
hef19898 3y ago
I find the attitude of valueing money more than human lifes worrisome, to say the least. And I have been called a cynic more than once.
- concordDance 3y ago
  Read what I wrote again. I'm stating that money IS lives. If you spend $100 million to save one person when you could spend $100 million to save 10 people you're wasting 9 lives. Even purely commercial monetary gains can be inefficiently converted into lives via government taxes that then get spent on road safety, pollution regulation or healthcare.
  - everforward 3y ago
    A lot of these "cost" reports include money that couldn't be shifted around. E.g. they often include the salaries of people who worked on the project, and you can't just not pay them and re-allocate those funds elsewhere. I'm also cynically skeptical that the money would go to road safety or healthcare or some other noble cause if it wasn't spent here. It seems more likely that the money would have stayed with whatever branch of government spent it, and instead it would've been used to buy a new tank or patrol cars or some such. Or in true Catch-22 fashion, they'd spend $3.5 million on a report on how to spend the remaining $500k but the report runs over budget and costs the full $4 million.