The Orphan Source Incident - EMF 2026

[applause] Uh I have to say I don't normally do crowds this big. Um there's not that much uh big crowds involved in nuclear engineering when you go and do a talk. tends to be all very niche topics of which there are maybe five or 10 people in the world who really understand it and other people who are there for the free stuff. Um, so this is the biggest crowd I've talked to. Thank you. [applause] So the usual disclaimers, uh, I've been working in the UK civil nuclear industry for 11 years and before and including that I've done about 15 years of nuclear assurance. How you do nuclear without working in the civil nuclear industry I will leave to your imaginations. Uh my opinions are my own and do not reflect my employer. Uh and it's just as well that I was sent to check in because I had my work hat on. Uh not yeah do not reflect my employer EMF or any regulatory bodies living or dead. Is there anyone from the office of nuclear regulation in the audience? >> One. Okay. Okay, I need to watch what I say. Uh, please do not mess with radioactive stuff. Uh, caveat, unless it's specifically designed for use in an educational context. And caveat to the caveat, follow the manufacturer's guidance. Treat ionizing sources with respect. Uh, the danger from them is not immediately evident and you only find out afterwards when you've got a nasty light, red bit, and an itch. Um, caveat to the previous caveat. I'm not a radiation protection adviser and this is not safety advice. Uh I will often use non-serious language to deal with serious topics. Uh I have a military background and that gives you a really warped sense of humor and a way of coping with stuff that isn't necessarily healthy. Um and the last one, please leave your ionizing sources at home when you come to EMF. So [applause] what happened? Uh quite a few people know that I work in nuclear and uh one day at EMF in 2024 I start getting telegram messages from people sending me photos saying haha look what I found in the swap shop. Now, being the moral and ethical person that I am, once I was aware of this, I couldn't actually not do anything about it because that's a conscious active decision to leave something potentially dangerous in the field. Uh, so I wasn't at the time. Uh, I was just some random. Uh, and it was like, okay, I better go do something. Um, so I went and got it. Uh, yes. So what do we know about these items? Um so they were made in Denmark by and I apologize to any Danes uh electronic central uh which is now called a company called Force Technology. Um they were for calibrating smoke detectors. So if you've got a smoke detector that's supposed to go off at a specific density of smoke in the air within certain errors, you need to be able to test that. And the way that you do that is you put it into chamber with one of these and you put smoke in. But you need a way of measuring how much smoke you've got, which is what this does. So instead of just giving you a beep beep beep when you burn your bacon, it gives you a number to say how much or how dense the smoke particles are and then they can check that it's working properly. Each unit uh contains about a microgram of amarissium 241 uh which is an alpha source and a weak gamma source. So, it's a strong alpha particle source and a weak gamma source. And I'll get to why that's important. And it's about 12 to 15 times spicier than your typical home ionization smoke detector. So, enough to give cause for concern. So, how did they actually come to be at EMF [laughter] at the time? >> [applause] >> At the time we were desperate to get more information about them and we were very very clear that uh the people involved would not be named and this continues to this day. I don't actually know who brought them to EMF. That is a secret that is being kept within a close circle of Orga and I don't mind and the reason for that is so that when we do have incidents like this, no one should be afraid that they are going to be penalized for doing something that they possibly in retrospect shouldn't have. The idea is that we're all safer if we feel safe to speak up. Um, so yes, they were manufactured back in the naughties by uh this Dutch uh Danish company. Sorry, I'm going to get banned from lay your land. Um, they went to a UK company uh to calibrate smoke detectors. It was very easy to buy radioactive items from other EU member states at the time. There were two forms involved. Uh, and basically you send a form. You you fill out what it is. You send the form to the recipient. They sign it to say yes, we can look after it. They send it back to you. You sign it to say that you've seen their signature. And then you send it to your regulator and that's it. piece of cake. Uh Brexit happened. All of that went away. Uh and I assumed that at that point the company involved discovered that it was going to be very difficult to get rid of them then. Um so they probably sat on a shelf for a long time and then were given to a well-meaning and entirely blameless hacker space uh who then tried to figure out what to do with them. Uh and then eventually went, "Oh, EMS got a swap shop. We'll just drop them there. Someone will make use of them. Well-meaning. That's important and entirely blameless. So, is amarissium 241 dangerous? Uh, it's kind of like the daddy long legs of radioactive sources. Um, so it's got teeth and poison in the form of the alpha particles, but alpha particles are too uh big to penetrate the layer of dead skin that's on your body. Now, this is important. It's the layer of dead skin that's on the outside of your body, not on the inside. Don't eat them. uh alpha particles because they're so big and because they've got a strong positive charge to them um they're about 20 times more damaging than an equivalent amount of other forms of ionizing radiation. So yeah, multiply by 20 when you're going from grays to sever. Is anyone nuclear in the audience who understood what I just said? One, >> two, three. Okay, we've got at least three people who understand the difference between a gray and a >> sever. Probably not. >> Ask your RPA. Uh but yeah, so big chunky boys cannot penetrate skin, but if you ingest an alpha particle source, it's really really bad because those alpha particles are so damaging and they are directly in contact with your tissue. uh they are very damaging indeed. Um it's why alpha particles actually get used in radiotherapy sources. So uh for treating cancer uh they will combine whatever alpha emitter with a drug that's with a chemical that's going to accumulate in the target order uh organ. So if you've got liver cancer, they will stick something that accumulates in your liver to some amoresium or some other alpha emitter and give it to you as a medicine. Um but you know that's a small that's a very very small amount pog. Uh this is a microgram which is a thousand times more. Okay. Oh, wait until you see the next slide. I wasn't planning to eat one, so why all the fuss? Uh, so they're not particularly dangerous, like I said. Um, provided that they are not disassembled and the source is in good condition. Uh, and your exposure is time limited. So, why all the fuss? There are a lot of curious sources, uh, curious sources, curious souls, EMF with screwdrivers. [cough] And initially, we didn't know how many of these there were, which is why there was all the fuss on the socials to find out more. Um, and we didn't really know what state the sources were in. So, I'm going to get in trouble for this one. Good trouble. >> [applause] >> And I'll just point out it took me less time to get at the source than it took for John Ty to read the manual. So his fears were justified. Okay, so some nice photos taken at home uh to show you what they look like. It's basically a big metal can with a grill around it that allows the smoke to uh get in. It's got a little port on the back for a vacuum pump. So, it's continuously drawing and sampling air. Um, and then on the right hand side there, that's the source. Um, and it's a gold foil source. So, it's a very small amount of amorissium suspended in gold. Uh, kind of like this. So, if the blue dots are the amarissium, they're suspended within a gold matrix. And uh gold is vapor deposited onto the surfaces to make a covering that is microns thick. And it has to be that thin to let the alpha particles escape through the gaps between the atoms because otherwise they get stuck inside and you've got a nice gold thing that doesn't do much. So with that in mind, they're kind of fragile, right? So, can anyone spot the issue? Yeah. There. So, that gave me pause. Right. So, the next question that's probably in a lot of the minds of people who didn't eat an amoresium sauce last time, uh, but did go to the swap shop. I handled one of them. Do I need to worry? Short answer, no, full stop. I've got this nasty habit of answering long emails at work that end in a close question with yes, full stop, or no, full stop. And it always gets me into trouble reviews, but yeah, the short answer, no. Um, I checked over the uh the housing with after removing the source checked over the housing with a contamination meter that is sensitive to alpha particles specifically and did not find anything above background. So, as far as I'm aware, those sources contained all of their amarissium. Uh, please do not sue us. Um, but yes, this one is this detector is sensitive to alpha particles specifically. It's not the same as a radio code. And I'll have some numbers to prove why in a moment. Uh, radio codes or radio codes are quite limited in what they can do. Um, so don't use one to figure out if something's safe to eat or not. It's it's basically a fancy decimter. What happened to the sources? So once I was aware of them, obviously I couldn't stand by and do nothing. That's a conscious decision to be a bystander. Um, I collected them from the shop with, and I kid you not, this is the technical term for this technique, the poop scoop technique. Well, you get a plastic bag and you put it over your arm and you grab the thing and you then put the bag over it. But actually, I took it out of the hand of a friend like that who then went a little bit pale. Um, because I didn't have anything to drop at the swap shop, I had to pay real cash monies >> for these. It gets better. I have to pay to get rid of them as well. Uh, package them appropriately and they're now stored securely. They are not at EMF. Oh, [applause] I I was actually approached [clears throat] by some other installation people who wanted to use them uh or one of them within an installation and I felt that it wasn't a responsible use of radioactive material. Um bit of a prude whatever but if work found out I was assisting with that kind of thing. Yeah. So the next step finding out who to talk to. This is why I asked if there are any regulators. So there is no single regulator in the UK for things relating to nuclear and radiation. It depends who you are as to who you talk to uh and what you do. So my regulator is the office for nuclear regulation. They license nuclear activities at licensed nuclear sites. Okay. ENF is not a licensed nuclear site. yet. We might take a very drastic solution to our power generating problem. At some point, [laughter] um the Health and Safety Executive regulates most, you know, nearly all workplaces in the UK, including EMF. It's classed as a workplace. Uh for the people who volunteer here and build everything, um big thanks to them because they've been here all week in the heat. [cheering and applause] >> [applause] >> Uh but yeah, the HSC will regulate businesses that may foreseeably come into contact with ionizing sources. Scrap dealers is one of the main ones. People bring pieces of metal to get them weighed in for scrap and then it turns out to be a radiotherapy machine that's been stolen from a hospital in Brazil. Uh and the last one is the Environment Agency. So they regulate u possession disposal of non-exempted sources. So if a school has sources for educational purposes or a hospital has sources for radiotherapy purposes so on so forth [clears throat] it is the environment agency that regulate that. Excuse me. Oh tell you what if you brush your teeth and drink vimto it's not a good combination. So the the important bit at the bottom there that's for non-exempted sources. So the next question to answer are they exempted sources or how much legal trouble am I in? Uh European Union council directive uh which is known as a basic safety standards directive. Um it's part of UK law. We retained it after Brexit. Uh, article 12 sets a dose limit of one millisece per year. Is anyone a radiation worker? One. Two. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's 10, isn't it? >> Yeah. >> Yes. So, radiation registered radiation workers are allowed to have 10, but we have to be 10 times more careful with the public. Um, but always has to be Oh, yeah. And one me is about 10,000 bananas, which you could conceivably eat in a year. hold on to that nugget. But some sources are exempt. Uh there's a whole bunch of them. And uh article 26 part D any electrical apparatus provided that dot dot dot uh it does not cons cause a dose rate exceeding one microceiver per hour at 10 cm from any accessible surface. that was pretty much written into the regulations uh for ionizing smoke detectors. So your ionizing smoke detector at home is an exempted source. That means you can buy it in Tesco, stick it in your house, it's fine. Most of them these days tend to be optical. So unless it's got a TF oil foil on the back, it will be an optical one. Uh [sighs] so yes, I measured it. There was basically nothing. So they passed. This is good. Has anyone ever tried to eat 10 bananas an hour? No. Good. Oh, that might work. You're not going to have many friends afterwards. Yes, it'd be interesting to have a chat with you later >> in the bar. >> I've already been reminded that I'm running out of time. Um, so that's all that exemption is fine provided that you don't disassemble it. So, I went or just how spicy are they if you take them apart? Uh, so this is my personal detector. It's a uh RD alert ranger. It is sensitive to alpha, beta, and gamma radiation and x-rays. Uh, it's intended for rock handing, I think. Um, it has the advantage of not being ruinously expensive. uh a radio code by comparison uh will measure beta and gamma radiation only and we did these measurements at uh 4 cm uh because alpha particles do not travel very far in air normally you would do this at 10 um and then we divided by 600 to get disintegrations per second which is this fancy unit called a beckerel I I'm classic uh I trained as an electronic engineer so I think in hertzarell herz but it's not a periodic signal, so it can't be hertz. So, it's back around. The results with the Rad Alert Ranger, uh, we measured a dose of 2.4 microceiver per hour, which is equivalent to eating 24 bananas an hour or one banana every 2 and a half minutes. I love the banana equivalent dose. The radio code only measured 0.163 microceiver an hour, which is the small amount of gamma radiation that amarissium gives off. So you could get a reading from a radio code that says this is fine cuz that's about a Brazil nut, not.1 or that is close to a banana actually. Um but is really not safe to eat. Um the counts per second with the scintillator was weird. Uh, I don't understand enough about crystal structure to really understand how cintilators work. Um, they're just strange. Um, and yes, do not try and eat a banana every 2 and 1/2 minutes. Seriously, we got nerds to went on a side uh side calculation and um this is equivalent of 69 kg of bananas per day. You will die. Can I get rid of them? So, the electronic parts of this setup went away as e-waste. No problems. My low-level waste. So, this is my personal protective equipment like gloves. Uh, that was disposed of through my very understanding and patient employer of the last decade. Uh, and that included some other bits and bobs and paper that I've been using to work on the 241 work. Unfortunately, doesn't have a waste route for this. So, when you're trying to get rid of radioactive stuff, you have to have an established process to do it, which is safe and all the rest of it. And that's known as your waist route. We've got waste roots for this and that and the other. Um, but two that I know now know that we definitely don't have uh is amorissium and gold. And if you want to know about the gold story, find me in the pub. Uh the original manufacturer actually got in contact with EMF and then with me uh to arrange taking them back cuz that is normally what would happen to a piece of equipment like this. You return it to the manufacturer at the end of its useful life. Unfortunately, Brexit has made that prohibitively timeconuming and expensive. Yes, exactly. Uh, if anyone spots my European Union flag on camp, it still has the correct number of stars. >> It'll be accurate again one day. [cheering] Yeah. [applause] >> Fortunately, uh, commercial companies exist that will take radioactive material off you for a fee. Uh, it's a few hundred quid, but that will be the problem got rid of. Yeah, that's also a key point. If you do, if you did bring something radioactive here and we had to get rid of it, it does cost money to do that. So, please don't. Can I use them for something else? Interesting. Is it anyone on the explosions and fire discord or is at least familiar with explosions and fire on YouTube and the kind of people? Yeah. Uh so the first suggestion came from there which was to combine it with some burillium and make a neutron source. And I thought that's really interesting because neutrons are really interesting and they have interesting properties. And one of their interesting properties is they make other things radioactive. Do I really want more radioactive stuff in my life? No. Uh I could make an alpha voltaic battery for like a long life uh Laura sensor or something maybe. But that means leaving radioactive material unsupervised and insecure. Uh I can make a genuinely random random number generator because radioactive decay is entirely random. I need to talk to installations and Russ as potentially something to bring to EMF next time. But we have to think about the security and safety. If you have any ideas on a postcard, please emfris.cat. Uh if you want to find me later, I'm also aware. trrist.cat and thank you for not bringing your ionizing sources and other radioactive stuff to [applause]