Cesium 137 Source Lost and Found in Western Australia 

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!

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?!

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.

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.

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.

Exactly.

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.

Shame on every news source. They all regurgitate the same bad information.

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

Now that would be a lot of videos.

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

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!

Dabumtiss

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.

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.

No problem.

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.

Thanks.

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.

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.

Glad you enjoyed it.

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.

That’s a good rule to live by.

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.

When it comes to radiation the news and the authorities seem to always get it wrong.

No problem.

Depends on distance---without specifying that, you could use any number.

Thanks.

I can be fast. I shot this yesterday and edited it last night and this morning.

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.

I remember reading about this incident a couple years back. That is a crazy hot source.

Thanks.

Thanks. I have some ARB gear on my truck as well.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah, a source like this one would easily pop up on most scintillation detectors.

Sources like this can be very scary…if not handled properly.

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. 🤓

Yeah, doctors like to give x-rays like they're giving out candy.

What about the Kramatorsk incident?

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

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.

I bet there would have been many losses or thefts due to poor practices, supervision & no accountability.

1/2 Curie---that is more believable. It takes a very powerful source to penetrate rock, especially metal-bearing rock.

They can be expensive depending on what you get.

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$$)

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 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...

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.

I know. I made reference to that in the video.

I ran into someone using one by my house a couple years ago. I would love to do a video about these gauges.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yes, and it wound up in ironwork patio furniture sold in Texas.

​@@maxr.dechantsreiter5226what was the result of that?

Those RTGs can be very dangerous.

I know…that’s why I said it would really only be fatal if swallowed.

Yes…all that is very crazy.

I saw that as well. There are more than 19 becquerels in my left foot from K-40 😂

Hahahaha...very true.

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.

...Or maybe we should be more concerned about chest (and other) X-rays.

Dang, those are some hot sources.

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.

The "mickey mouse" science on here is hilarious...

It’s pretty amazing that all those things happened.

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.

That happens a lot...at least with me. I usually collect cool looking rocks or some piece of junk from abandoned sites. I always check to see if anything I pick up is radioactive.

Plenty stolen/lost that could be used for terrorist purposes...pathetic really.

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.

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.

I think the Kramatorsk incident is more alarming...

No soil needed to be removed because nothing was contaminated. If the capsule broke open that would be a different story.

@@RadioactiveDrew Thanks, I understand more now.

Glad I could help.