The radioactive boy scout: When a teenager attempts to build a breeder reactor.

[Fernbay]

I found this a very entertaining tale.

I thought it would be good to share it with you guys.
Enjoy

[gordon_s1942]

I wonder if thats why they have him on a nuclear powered ship, to either merge into the background radiation or be a secondary supply should the main reator go Off Line.
Anyone whose read the history of Radium and its discoverer, Madame Curie' knows what it did to her eventualy but whether this fellow has had that much exposure to cause cancerous growths only time will tell as he apparently has refused to be tested.
But I worry just what he will get up to when he is back out in the world after his military service is finished.

[mtv]

Shhhhh..... don't tell anyone, but I reckon this guy is secretly living (and likely still experimenting) in Tamworth, Australia and now goes by the alias of 'trash'.

[gordon_s1942]

No wonder the Golden Guitars have such a glow about them.

[trash]

I should make a video.

Currently the only people who are truly scared are the crystal healing people at lapidary shows. I scare the fvck outta those people. I don't like 'healing' crystals. I like the shit that causes death and disease. Pitchblende, Monazite, Cinnabar, Arsenopyrite, Chrysotile
Though that is starting to wear off because they know I remove all the rocks and crystal with a "bad aura".

Actually, there plenty of people with their own nuclear reactors or who can create nuclear reactions on a bench. It's really not all that hard.

The main thing is on a small scale such things are trivial but a bit of fun.

But even for the scale and effort put into the radioactive boyscout, he went to a lot of effort to achieve what he did and even then the scale of his effort was still only very small. The story is of course often dramatised, and why not, it's a great story.
Reality is that his exposure was not all that serious. I just had a quick look at the wikipedia link to see what they had to say. "1000 times over background levels".

Big numbers in chemistry and physics always impress people who do not understand them. As a comparison, gamma radiation in my back shed is easily 1000 times greater than the background radiation in my area and I live in one of the most radioactive parts of Australia. (I live on top of the Moombi batholithic granite).
The levels of alpha radiation would exceed a million times. Sounds scary, but it's rather trivial. As you can probably see, it is very easy to stack the deck with statistics.

Is this a huge amount of radiation ? No, not really.
The background levels are actually very low, even for where I live.

In the case of alpha particles, they're not very common. I would detect about one every 10 seconds in my driveway. With the same type of geiger counter I have a single piece of pitchblende that exceeds 1 million counts per second, and it's real decay rate is much higher than that, I just can't physically measure it.
So you can see by those values I probably exceed it by 100 million times with one rock, let alone all the others.

The greenies have run off to call the cops, and I haven't broken into a sweat yet.
Alpha radiation is the most dangerous form of radiation, it's about 20 times worse than gamma radiation. So if I stack the deck and calculate the "potential" exposure of my pet rock collection, it's probably trillions of times worse than background levels.
But to achieve that kind of exposure, I'd have to eat them !

Reality is they live in an air tight sealed container (to prevent radon gas escaping).
The levels of alpha radiation outside of the tin ? About the same as background radiation.

Gamma levels on the outside of the tin ? A bit higher than you would expect for radiation for Chernobyl. Ah, see ! Dramatisation. It works wonders if you want to scare people.

Chernobyl, is radioactive dust uncontained and spread over a large area.
My gamma radiation comes from a solid source inside a tin can. Not exactly something that requires the hazmat to remove it.

[gordon_s1942]

I equate those 'Healing Crystals' along with Feung Shu and Magnetic Pillows, all of which I wish I had thought of to make a Dollar from.
Radioactiverty is something few know and understand (I dont for one) and I guess its that 'Unknown' that enables the 'Panic Brigade' to run riot with peoples imagination.
In the early 50's as we 'Entered the Atomic Age' with all of its weird and wonderfull ideas of mutations and radiations and any other 'adiations' the media could devise at the time certainly didnt promote the further use of it as an energy source.
I still am convinced generation of electricity by atomic energy is the only reliable 'renewable' non polluting energy source available assisted with both Solar and wind.
My only concern is the handling and storing of spent material when it needs to be disposed of.
Most people look at the current crop of Coal fired Generators and think the vapour rising is pollution from the furnaces when in fact its steam from the condensation towers which soon converts back to water as it cools.

[nbound]

Well we'll only have to wait a couple of decades for Nuclear Fusion (as opposed to Fission) to become cost effective. Much less pollution. Much more fuel (Hydrogen and Helium).

But yeah trash, the animals/plants that still inhabit Chernobyl are laughing (and multiplying quite successfully while going about their mundane lives - human free).

[Bibliophile]

Most people look at the current crop of Coal fired Generators and think the vapour rising is pollution from the furnaces when in fact its steam from the condensation towers which soon converts back to water as it cools.

Yeah, it's always tickled me that the media always shows the condensers and not the smoke stacks. Why, because they look more dramatic. If you look at the stacks, there is not much to see as the electrostatic precipitators remove most of the particulate matter i.e. smoke.
The CO2, being invisible, goes unseen.

[Fernbay]

i should make a video..

+1

[Uncle Fester]

I found this a very entertaining tale.

I thought it would be good to share it with you guys.
Enjoy

Quite inspiring story for today's youth who think beyond social networks and might be after an actual challenge with all those details explained.

I was always more excited about Fusion and at the time I wrote an essay at school about it, we were told to expect results in a decade.
That was over 40 years ago.

So much money is wasted in research, discussions and regulations regarding CO2 induced global warming. That money would have been far better spent for the design of Fusion energy plants. Not much is going on these days. I am not even convinced about the necessity of the LHC.
Come on kids, grab your high powered laser pointers, massive lipo batteries and ceramic superconductors. We need some fresh ideas

... but take extreme care not to burn down your parents house.

[trash]

Ok kiddies.
The audio quality is lousy, the video quality is worse because I've just compressed the hell out of it since details aren't really all that important.

What is important is that it looks dark and scary. Like we're in one of the store rooms at Chernobyl and the Zombie apocalypse is about to begin.

The first video is just an example of the gamma radiation coming from the box as compared to the (more dangerous) alpha radiation.


Inside the box ... with beta and gamma


Inside the box with alpha

Well that's not really exciting is it ?

But this should be more exciting.
Something that should not be radioactive, but is.

A biscuit tin lid.
This is a wonderful example of several aspects of nuclear physics in one bikkie tin lid.

The reason why the lid is radioactive is actually very simple.
The container houses some Uranium ore. As the Uranium naturally decays, it decays into other isotopes. One of those is Radon Gas.
The ore leaks gas particles very slowly. The tin is sealed so that the gas cannot escape.
The gas only has a short half life of about 4 days. As the gas builds up over about three weeks, it reaches equilibrium. It gets to a point where the amount of gas in the container decays away as fast as the ore can fill it.
This is what happens to nuclear waste storage. When we concentrate nuclear waste, there comes a point where it decays away faster than we can fill it.

So how does the gas make the lid radioactive ?
As the gas itself decays, it's daughter isotopes Polonium, Bismuth and Lead are also in a gaseous state and they are a charged particle, they are attracted to and stick to anything in the tin, including the walls. Even cardboard.

This is an example of radioactive contamination and why I'm wearing rubber gloves.
I don't need that stuff on my hands. And you can see in other parts of the video that my gloves have been contaminated from handling the material.
The gloves themselves have not been exposed as such to any radon gas.
But now they are radioactive because atoms of radioactive material have rubbed off onto them as I have been handing items.


The gloves are now an example of low level radioactive waste. This is the kind of thing that goes into the radioactive waste dump at muckety station. The volume of the waste is the rubber gloves. The tiny amount of radioactive material on them has a half life of about 26 years.
The gloves and the isotopes aren't really a problem, but in commercial terms, we isolate them for about 150 years and then everything in this example is inert.

Back to the tin lid; The daughter isotopes have even shorter half lives than the radon gas, so they are even more radioactive. Two of the next four are about 20 minutes each, and so if we leave the geiger counter on over the next six hours we'll see how the radiation fades away. Most of it in the first 40 minutes.

From the number of counts per second, and the efficiency of the counter we can calculate how many litres of radon gas are in the tin, and even how many atoms of radon gas. It's even possible to calculate how much Uranium ore is in the tin and make a good guess as to its grade.

Which brings us to this..

An example of a good piece of pitchblende. These evil black crystals give those hippie healing people nightmares like a Ridley Scott movie. It's an example of how crystals really do have an "aura". Of death and destruction !

You can see that even though this is really just a harmless rock. I do treat it with some degree of caution. I don't directly handle it and I have edited out a lot of the other safety aspects I took in just opening the tin.
I'd love to have it on display in my home, but it's just not safe to do that.

[trash]

It got quiet in real quick !

[Learjet]

It got quiet in real quick !

That's because when the feds come to take you away we don't want to be known as associates.

[trash]

Yeah, the feds were here yesterday. They just wanted to know if I was buying or selling to Iran.

[Onefella]

Trash it was interesting to see the radiation distance from the pitchblende. The "nuclear boy-scout" was driving around the countryside in his car looking for pitchblende with a home-made geiger-counter mounted to his dash. (according to the story) It doesn't look like he had a hope in hell of actually finding some.

I would love to take your instruments out some of the old uranium mines around here. I'm sure we would find plenty of 'hot' rocks.

I don't think I'll start collecting antique clocks for their luminous paint though.

Noticed the boy-scout was collecting gas mantles as well for the thorium. What about old valves? They have thorium and strontium in them. Just asking, I don't really want to build a reactor.

[Learjet]

By comparison, how would a smoke detector's Americium 241/3 register?

[trash]

Depends on the type of smoke detector Learjet.
Most of the household ones have a ~33kBq source in them.
That's alpha and isotropic. On a hang held beta gamma tube held up against it the source it is more like 500 counts per second. There isn't a lot of gamma or beta radiation emitted.
Am241 decays into the same series as Thorium 232.

with a home-made geiger-counter mounted to his dash. (according to the story) It doesn't look like he had a hope in hell of actually finding some.

Actually, I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but I was going to mount the tube under the bullbar.

A scintillator is a much better detector for prospecting, though they work better from aircraft. The alpha counter in the video is actually a type of scintillator. I have a couple of different scintillators but not set up proper for prospecting at the moment.

I would love to take your instruments out some of the old uranium mines around here. I'm sure we would find plenty of 'hot' rocks.

It's easy enough to just buy a cheap SBM20 tube from ebay, and a disposable camera and a crystal ear piece and you're good to go. I'd love to get back out there myself. Last time I was up there I didn't have the time or my counters with me.

I don't think I'll start collecting antique clocks for their luminous paint though.

It can get quite expensive doing it that way, but a little bit of old radium paint is something you really need for a reference source. Oatley electronics is selling a geiger counter kit. I just looked, $55 is an excellent price ! The old military counter is another type of counter called an ion chamber. The scale on it is huge. If the meter moves, you should already be dead. This counter was designed for being under a bomb !
Funny thing is... the dial is coated in radium paint. It's a radioactive geiger counter duh !
But if you're using that meter for real, chance are radium would be the least of your worries.

What about old valves?

Yes, some of them have thorium, but it's only a tiny amount, less than the mantles.
Strontium isn't radioactive. If you have Sr90, then you have something that was once or still is waste from a nuclear reactor or bomb.
Trinitite is the best source for samples of Sr90. Though you can legally buy small test sources from instrument suppliers.

[Bluedog]

K305C is the kit part number from Oatley Electronics
I have built a few of these and they work well electronically , but the supplied tube tends to let them down . its only a gamma detector CH 3 bR but will get you started. trawl the industrial instruments section of ebay for sbm20 tubes, or better, as they are much longer and brass sided. they are more sensitive and Beta particles crossing them will also register to a degree. they run on 4 AAA cells in the supplied holder, or change it for 4 AA cells for longer run time.
once you have the electronics going you can swap and play with different tubes.

the plan for the next one i am building up is to put the tube in a short rightangle at the end of a piece of plastic electrical conduit so you can walk along and swing it like a metal detector.(except they are fragile)

americium is a good test target, better than a mantle, but the best is wartime aeroplane dials, old watches etc. my brother-in-law produced an old brass compass from his 4wd a while ago, wondered if it was old enough to have been painted with radium on the dial , wow sure was! it was very hot, he had been carrying it around for years in the vehicle
you never know when a target will pop up
73

a handy hint for constructors using the optional military case (with radioactive meterface!) is where to mount the small speaker that makes the clicking sound. i found that instead of drilling lots of holes in the side of the case to let the sound out it was better to remove the cover and the adjusting potentiometer from the front panel under the dial as it leaves a good sized hole there. hotglue the speaker behind it and the sound then comes from the front which is much louder than from the side, especially with its carry cover on.

[JolyV]

well done, +1