Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Radioactive Tool Goes Missing In Texas

Posted by samzenpus on from the where'd-I-put-that? dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Oil-field service companies lower radioactive units into wells to let workers identify places to break apart rock for a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which frees oil and natural gas. Now Bloomberg reports that Halliburton workers have discovered that a lock on the container used to transport one such device has gone missing, along with the unit, after employees drove a truck from a site near Peco to a well south of Odessa and while the loss of radioactive rods occurs from time to time, it has been years since a device with americium-241/beryllium, the material in Halliburton's device, was misplaced in Texas. NRC spokeswoman Maureen Conley says the material would have to be in someone's physical possession for several hours for it to be considered harmful as teams comb the route between the two wellsites searching for the seven-inch tube, which is clearly marked with the words 'DANGER RADIOACTIVE' as well as a radiation warning symbol, "Halliburton strongly cautions members of the public that if they locate this source, they should not touch or handle it, stay a minimum of 25 feet away," and contact local law enforcement or the company's emergency hotline if they find the cylinder, says the company which is also offering a reward for information about the tube's whereabouts."

8 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Not just hydrofrac... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Such tools are routinely use to estimate density in pretty much all oilfield well logging.

  2. Oh boy! by bmo · · Score: 5, Informative

    This reminds me of the Goiania accident, a horrifying incident where someone stole the radiation source to a radiotherapy machine.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

    A choice bit:

    On September 24, Ivo, Devair's brother, scraped dust out of the source, taking it to his house a short distance away. There he spread some of it on the cement floor. His six-year-old daughter, Leide das Neves Ferreira, later ate a sandwich while sitting on the floor. She was also fascinated by the blue glow of the powder, and applying it to her body, showed it off to her mother. Dust from the powder fell on the sandwich she was consuming; she eventually absorbed 1.0 GBq, total dose 6.0 Gy

    It glows, let's use it for makeup.

    --
    BMO

    1. Re:Oh boy! by lobiusmoop · · Score: 3, Informative

      Reminded me more of Davd Hahn - thought he was maybe up to his old tricks again and looking for a large amount of Americium (not from fire alarms this time though).

      --
      "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
    2. Re:Oh boy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Category 3 means this is maybe 1/1000 to 1/100,000 as strong as the source in Goiania, and it's a single metal rod, not a large container of powder. Very different scenario. Industrial radiography sources are ubiquitous and are lost/damaged on a regular basis with minimal consequences.

    3. Re:Oh boy! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Informative

      TFA(to the best of my layman's understanding) suggests that this one is a stainless steel pipe with an Americum source behind a beryllium window.

      If some dumbass cuts it open, or decides to look down the tube for an extended period, things will get bad; but as long as it is mechanically undisturbed it won't be a huge deal.

      The Goiania incident was particularly nasty because the source was opened and Caesium chloride(started out as a dust, also readily water-soluble, for extra pollution potential...) went all over the place. Had nobody opened the source, exposure would have been trivial. Incidents like that are(part of) the reason why the graphic designers behind the nuclear trefoil attempted to come up with something that was overtly threatening looking, even to somebody who might not speak English or even be literate in their local language.

  3. Re:More Thoughts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is a slim chance that the device was left behind at the last well-head where it was used. That would explain both the radioactive source and the container padlock being missing. More distressing is the prospect that an outsider with ill intent wandered into the area of the well-head while the crew was on lunch break/siesta, broke into the container and stole it. That person should definitely be awarded a Darwin Award. That doesn't necessarily explain the missing padlock, as it is just something of little worth to carry off. But the most distressing prospect is that this was theft by an insider who knew the value of the device, and wished to conceal the fact that the padlock was not broken.

    Regardless of whether the device was lost or stolen, the company that owned this radioactive source should be heavily fined, as well as suspended from any further ability to own/possess/use such devices. I would go so far as to propose criminal liability charges brought against this company. Err, wait. This was Halliburton. Never mind. Move along. Nothing to see here.

    Would anyone care to bet against the prospect that the TSA will use this event to perform full body cavity searches everywhere they have now been deployed, far beyond the security lines at airports? I wouldn't.

  4. Re:I've worked with these before I think? NO by DCFusor · · Score: 2, Informative

    Something consisting of Am and Be is going to be a neutron source, and be used to make the minerals exposed to it radioactive via neutron capture. Not long ago, nearly all neutron sources for this were "Active" in that they shot a beam of mixed DT against a target holding more D and T, on batteries. They're hot as hell, and like I said - make things around them radioactive. If you have this, and a gamma spectrometer down the same hole, by the resulting gamma spectrum, you can tell what's there. Am has only about a 6 mo half life, so if it's not found, it's getting weaker fast. I've made my ow such sources with the Am source from a staticmaster brush and some Be to convert the alpha hits to emitted neutrons. I use my source to test neutron detectors for my fusion device. I have to replace the Am fairly frequently to keep the source emitting enough neutrons for this - my homebrew source is very small and not a big risk to anybody - you can barely detect it against the neutrons made in cosmic ray showers. But I could be wrong too - there's not enough info to say.

    --
    Why guess when you can know? Measure!
  5. Re:Thoughts by ChumpusRex2003 · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a neutron emitter. Alpha-particles will interact with Beryllium nuclei to emit neutrons. By encapsulating a mixture of Americium 241 and Beryllium, the alpha radiation (and gamma radiation) can be contained, but the neutrons allowed out, where they can be used for chemical analysis (in this case for analysing the composition of the rocks around the well bore).

    Quite apart from the fact that the source is dangerous in its own right, emitting neutrons which are an ionising radiation, they are a particular nuisance, because they can leave "radioactivity behind" by activating the nuclei of nearby materials (metals are particularly troublesome).