Why does when the steel was produced affect the background radiation? A girder that existed in 1938 still existed in the 40’s and 50’s, why is it not contaminated but new steel was/is?
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Steel production uses oxygen from the atmosphere to drive out impurities from the iron ore. The air today still has a lot of radioactive elements left over from nuclear-related activity (mostly bombs) in the last century. As a result, new steel is contaminated with those elements. Yes, we are breathing these elements in all the time. But the amounts are low enough that it doesn’t cause (much) harm to humans, but it’s still high enough to cause issues for sensitive equipment made using steel.
We can make new low-background steel today but it’s expensive. You have to expend a lot of energy to filter/clean the air of radioactive contaminants. For now it’s still cheaper to reclaim it from old sunken warships.
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