Turkish police seize 1.4 kg of radioactive californium in Ankara | Hacker News Reader

Turkish police seize 1.4 kg of radioactive californium in Ankara

dailysabah.com

23 pointsThorondor22 comments

Article mentions seizure of red mercury (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury) which suggests that either the writer is incredibly misinformed or this is an intentional disinfo piece.

Everything in the article suggests that it’s either moronic clickbait (FB tier) or disinformation.

Implausible amounts of Californium, nonsense about red mercury, the bit about Al... it reeks.

I'm also pretty skeptical about this story to be honest, but FWIW it was repeated by the BBC. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43463195 The link I submitted is the nearest I can find to an original source.

The truth is probably either that a smaller amount of californium was seized (possibly 1.4g) or the californium was part of a 1.4kg assembly including some other elements.

1.4 grams would be more than 4 years total world production.

> radioactive Californium element worth $70 million

> with a worth of approximately $4 million per gram.

> The amount of seized Californium was reported as 1.441 kilograms.

I realize this isn’t the important part of the article, but did the writer really not notice how bad they failed at basic math?

1,441 * $4M = ~$5.8 billion

Perhaps pricing varies by the quantity; like everything else.

Thanks for pointing this out, I'm from the Daily Sabah team and asked the editor of the article to make sure the numbers aren't off. The legit price of it is $4m/g, but apparently the guys were going to sell it for $70m on the black market. The article will be clarified.

It's rather more likely that they seized 1.4 grams.

(even that's questionable as it is much more than the licit, annual global production)

You might also want to ask them to change the way red mercury is referred to near the end, as its existence is generally believed to be a hoax[1]. Charles Stross actually wrote a fun short story that uses references it[2].

1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury 2 - https://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/a-tall-tail/

Some other issues...

Red mercury doesn’t exist.

Californium isn’t used in nuclear warheads, it’s a neutron source with a short half-life. As such it can be used to startup a reactor, or more typically in neutron diffraction spectroscopy.

1.4 kilos of Califorium? No.

Microgram quantities of californium-252 are available for commercial use through the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.[50] Only two sites produce californium-252: the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States, and the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, Russia. As of 2003, the two sites produce 0.25 grams and 0.025 grams of californium-252 per year, respectively.[54]

High purity aluminum is not controlled, is used in aerospace and electronics, and while it would have applications in enriching Uranium, so do concrete and steel.

The entire article is a farce.

> High purity aluminum is not controlled

That’s a separate article, but agree completely. I know multiple people who routinely have it (all build parts for aerospace contracts).

To add to that, https://www.metalary.com/californium-price/ says "Since the discovery of californium in 1950, scientists have only succeeded in producing just 8 grams of californium-252."

Wikipedia has a picture of the 50 ton container used to transport up to 1 gram of californium-252 safely, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium#/media/File:CfShie... .

I suppose there will be a major markdown from this coming from the black market. It's not like a new TV in that it can be easily explained away. I can't imagine trying to bluff where I got >$1Bn worth of radioactive material.

I would also think the lack of accounting and paper trail would limit it's uses.

Also holding onto this material would be expensive and potentially dangerous (especially if it was being looked for), which I imagine would lead them to take a lower than market price.

Right, but the wording of the article said “worth $70M” then went on to describe the worth as something different. I’m not disputing the amounts (even though all of it seems suspect), just pointing out that they aren’t in agreement with each other.

> with a worth of approximately $4 million per gram > The amount of seized Californium was reported as 1.441 kilograms. > The suspects reportedly agreed to sell the element for $72 million.

Seems that some value is off. It should be worth $5,764 million. Selling something that worths $5 billion for just $72 million is a big discount.

I am guessing it's like "drug bust" numbers where they take the highest market price for a small amount, then multiply it by what they seized, ignoring the fact that larger size lots can have a much lower unit cost.

It might be worth $4 million per gram if you can sell it legally and in the open. If you have to keep it quiet, that's a whole different market.

Hard to believe. Worldwide production of Californium is just a few milligrams per year.

With most of that coming from Oak Ridge, where the resulting distribution is intensely scrutinized by the NRC. This is bull.

>In 2016, police seized 13 nuggets of pure aluminum, a material used in nuclear energy production.

Anyone know more about this? I have pure aluminum in my pantry at home.

Depends just how pure, I guess. But it does sound rather weird.

https://www.google.se/amp/s/www.dailysabah.com/investigation...

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