I was reading this article about how Chinese vessels have been illegally salvaging steel from sunk British vessels. The article, at one point, says the following:
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>News reports from the U.K. and Australia say salvage vessel Chuan Hong 68 was dredging with a deep-reach crane for the “high-quality steel” used to build the two warships. The steel could be smelted for other uses. The value comes from the steel’s production before the use of nuclear weapons and testing and is important for use in manufacturing some scientific and medical equipment.
So, what impact has nuclear weapons had on steel that makes old steel valuable?
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The steel we have now and the older ones are very, very similar in most of measurable ways. But pre-WWII steel is very useful for low-radiation detectors as it isnt influenced by Hiroshima and other nuclear bombs radio-nuclids.
Nuclear detonations have added a bit of radioactive material to everywhere. If you want steel that does not include this material, you need steel made before any nuclear detonations.
This is important for very sensitive equipment, since a bit of radiation adds a ton of noise to your system. In a machine designed to detect marbles, the occasional bowling ball could be a problem.
Due to a lack of nuclear detonations for the last few decades, this problem is slowly going away.
Look up “Pre-War Iron” and it’ll have everything you need to know.
When we make modern iron from ores a lot of air gets mixed through it, depositing atmospheric radioisotopes leftover from the atomic age that makes the iron a little radioactive. It’s fine for your kids swing set, but sensitive radiation detection equipment needs to not be radioactive itself, so any iron smelted prior to the nuclear age commands a higher premium.
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