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On a related note: Those ships are highly sought after. At some point there will probably a startup using this data to salvage all these ships. Why? Because it
by runxel 2y ago
On a related note: Those ships are highly sought after. At some point there will probably a startup using this data to salvage all these ships.
Why? Because it was before the nuclear bomb and all the other desasters that followed which actually permanently raised our background radiation levels.
And because these ships were and still are underwater, they have been largely unaffected by this.
It might not seem much but apparently the radiation difference is enough, so for things that go into your body (like after an operation) only this old steel is used.
Or so I was told by a friend working in medical.
- ceejayoz 2y agoIt was a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel Since we've stopped nuclear testing, though, it's returned pretty close to normal, and such steel is no longer as sought after. > World anthropogenic background radiation levels peaked at 0.11 mSv/yr above natural levels in 1963, the year that the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was enacted. Since then, by about 2008, anthropogenic background radiation has decreased to 0.005 mSv/yr above natural levels.
- jprd 2y agoThis is also graverobbing, and very not cool. Most wrecks will have sailors/soldiers/merchantmen entombed. Parent comment is 100% correct, unfortunately this doesn't stop people from continuing to do it to this day.
- tadfisher 2y agoThere is nothing left of those remains. The flesh was gone between a few days to a year or so depending on the water temperature. Microorganisms feed on the collagen binding the inorganic matrix, reducing the bones to dust within 10 years at the most.
- AlgorithmicTime 2y ago[dead]
- ceejayoz 2y agoThis is true of most remains, but someone still typically gets a bit peeved if you dig up the cemetery. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/09/images-reveal-three-more-japanese-wwii-shipwrecks-torn-apart-for-scrap https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/09/images-reveal-... > Naval shipwrecks are granted sovereign immunity under international law and remain the property of their nations, in this case Japan. These protections makes it illegal to destroy them without permission from Tokyo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Protection_of_the_Underwater_Cultural_Heritage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Protection_o...
- rjsw 2y agoThe German ships sunk in Scapa Flow [1] are a good source of steel as they are not war graves. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuttling_of_the_German_fleet_at_Scapa_Flow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuttling_of_the_German_fleet_...
- southernplaces7 2y agoBy your logic, any random long-urbanized space on Earth should remain untouched because at some point it was the site of people's (often violent) deaths. These ships weren't memorial vessels, they were just ships doing work and there's nothing wrong with salvaging them. Cemeteries are a different story. They represent places where people specifically chose to bury their dead for the sake of memorializing them.
- azernik 2y agoThey don't need to have been underwater; the steel just has to have been made pre-1945. The steelmaking process incorporates of lot of gases into the final product.
- southernplaces7 2y agoBy your logic, any random long-urbanized space on Earth should remain untouched because at some point it was the site of people's (often violent) deaths. These ships weren't memorial vessels, they were just ships doing work and there's nothing wrong with salvaging them. Cemeteries are a different story. They represent places where people specifically chose to bury their dead for the sake of memorializing them.
- dehugger 2y agoI think you replied to the wrong comment.
- southernplaces7 2y agoIndeed I did. attention error!. Sorry.
- tedmcory77 2y agoI still don't understand why ore dug up out of the ground and made into steel is more effected by this than this steel. (Edit, made into steel, not iron)
- JohnMakin 2y agomostly because steel is used for things like particle accelerators that are understandably very sensitive to contamination - as a sibling comment noted this is not much of an issue anymore.
- ceejayoz 2y agoThat's the why, not the how. The how is impurities from the air are introduced during the forging process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_process / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_oxygen_steelmaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_oxygen_steelmaking), not the mining process.
- JohnMakin 2y agoYea - the parent was confused about the why.
- Teever 2y agoIt's because the smelting process introduces a lot of isotopes into steel when you make it. I assume that they find big pieces of already smelted steel in the ocean and just grind away the rust / mill it into the shape they want.
- jabl 2y agoWhen you turn iron ore into steel with blast furnaces and steel making (e.g. basic oxygen process) you blast it with atmospheric air (or oxygen made from atmospheric air), and tiny amounts of impurities in the air (such as fallout from atmospheric nuclear testing) get embedded in the steel. Yes, this is the same air you're breathing. No, the levels are not high enough to be a health issue. But it's an issue for very sensitive scientific instruments and such.
- jabl 2y ago> At some point there will probably a startup using this data to salvage all these ships. FFS, yes this is HN and all, but why does everything have to be a "startup"? FWIW, there's lots of under-the-radar (apparently mostly Chinese) companies that are hard at work breaking up these ships and selling them for scrap. Considering many of those wrecks are war graves, a lot of people are kind of upset by this.
- SoftTalker 2y agoThere's a value to scrap steel but it's not all that great, and the low-rad steel isn't as much in demand as it used to be. Many of these ships are likely in such deep water that they aren't worth salvaging.
- Loughla 2y agoSeriously though, it's no longer starting a small business or even a business. It's a startup. Is this just a change in the language, or is there an appreciable difference between a new salvage business and new salvage startup?
- pimlottc 2y ago“Startup” implies VC funding and a resultant “go big or go home” strategy.
- mannyv 2y agoChina and others have been harvesting old wrecks for exactly this/
- devilbunny 2y agoNah, they don’t use low-rad steel for medical implants. Mostly for scientific instruments that would thrown off by even a small rise in background radiation. IIRC the bulk of the supply came from the scuttled German fleet at Scapa Flow, where the ships involved were not graves - they were intentionally scuttled by the crew, who got off and were rescued.
- pfdietz 2y agoThere is another kind of wreck used for extreme low background physics experiments. These experiments (put deep underground) need even lower background than medical equipment. They use lead for shielding, but any modern lead is contaminated with Pb-210, an isotope with a half life of 22 years. This contamination comes from the radioactive decay of uranium in the lead ore. These experiments have come to use lead that's been underwater, in wrecks, for centuries, so almost all the Pb-210 has decayed away.