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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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.
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