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Radioactive Tool Goes Missing In Texas
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."
Looking forward to seeing what the experts think it's worth on next week's Pawn Stars.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Such tools are routinely use to estimate density in pretty much all oilfield well logging.
If the finder does not contact law enforcement, then I feel this issue is best left up to natural selection. First to nominate for a Darwin award.
sudo make me a sandwich
Wait. Who's saying that "the loss of radioactive rods occurs from time to time" in such a nonchalant way, like they're trying to convince the readers that it's no big deal? It's a big deal. You don't just lose stuff like that.. they're transported in large, heavy packages!
while the loss of radioactive rods occurs from time to time
This is a better link
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/
Its pretty interesting reading. I think I heard about it from RISKS digest maybe a decade ago. About a half dozen reports are filed every day. At least one will be interesting, or at least WTF worthy. The story about the weld radiographer getting the source stuck while he was up a ladder so he took the source out and wore it like a necklace as he went down the ladder a couple days ago is WTF worthy.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I don't think the description of purpose is actually accurate. Pretty sure they're talking about a Radioactive Densometer used to measure fluid density, which is used at the surface and attached to pipes pumping fluid, and isn't lowered into a well or whatever. It's basically a section of pipe with a very small radioactive source on one side, and a detector across from it. The measured decay rate tells you the fluid density accurately (the denser the fluid, the more radiation is blocked). They're actually fairly harmless in terms of radiation levels, although it's still important to recover lost ones.
The nuclear density gauges are relatively common in civil engineering.Yeah, they go missing from time to time.
How they usually go missing--some joker steals a worker's truck on a job site. The idiot doesn't realize he has taken a van with a restricted device in the back. Then a world of hurt descends on the person when they are finally caught.
The person who was in charge of the gauge finds they are in trouble for leaving the vehicle unsecured.
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:
It glows, let's use it for makeup.
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BMO