Good for him. This was an absolute ridiculous case. Lots of everyday items contain radioactive substances: old smoke detectors, uranium glass, old watches with radium dials, anti-static brushes, the list goes on and on. As a side note: coal power plants put quite a bit of radiation into the environment (technically 100x more than nuclear plants, if you sidestep the issue of waste), because coal contains Uranium and Thorium.
The amounts of Pu that were imported were not only minuscule, but also embedded in acrylic for display. As an alpha radiator, this is 100% safe to have and put on a shelf. You would have to completely dismantle it, crush the few μg of Pu into dust and then inhale it to be dangerous to your health.
I understand that people are afraid of radiation. I am too. However, it is important to know that radiation is everywhere all the time, and it is always about the dose. At the same time, we allow for instance cars to pollute the environment with toxic particulates that lead to many cancers, and somehow we accept this as unavoidable. But I digress...
For those interested, here's a video from "Explosions and Fire" on this issue, a channel I highly recommend anyway, this guy is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0JGsSxBd2I
He ordered an old smoke detector online as part of his collection of elements. This contained, as pretty much all old smoke detectors once did, radioactive elements. In minute quantities.
It gets worse the more you look into this too. The hazmat crew that closed off his street? Days earlier they let the courier deliver his old soviet smoke detector in person, no protective gear. As in they knew it wasn't dangerous but put on theater to make a better case for prosecution.
This is the kind of implicit lying that seems pervasive today and I am so tired of it.
This alone is sufficient evidence of their malicious intent and should be enough to punish the people responsible for trying to ruin an innocent person's life.
But it's not gonna happen because the law is not written to punish people using it maliciously against others and most people simply won't care anyway.
Um but smoke detectors don't contain plutonium. Usually americum 241.
Edit: ah so it was a soviet one. They also played loose and fast with nuclear safety. We still have 30+ nuclear reactors hanging over our heads in space that will come down one day. One already did and contaminated a big area in Canada, though luckily a very remote one.
"A 24-year-old Australian man who ordered uranium and plutonium to his parents’ apartment has been allowed to walk away from court on a two-year good behaviour bond.
After ordering various radioactive samples over the internet in an effort to collect the entire periodic table, Emmanuel Lidden pleaded guilty to two charges: moving nuclear material into Australia and possessing nuclear material without a permit.
While his actions were criminal, the judge concluded that Lidden had mental health issues and displayed no malicious intent"
The court established he had mental helath issues and has 2 years probation basically.
"Mental health issues" sounds like both a fig leaf for the prosecution and a last-ditch smear of the man involved. Now he's stuck being publicly associated not just with "criminal", but "criminal with mental health issues".
"Good for him. This was an absolute ridiculous case."
Absolutely so. I watched Tom's Explosions & Fire video just after he published it and as he said this prosecution was a gross overreaction by authorities. I say that as someone who once worked in nuclear safeguards/surveillance (I'm an ardent non-proliferation guy).
Living in Australia one has become to expect such incidents although this was the first one involving nuclear materials. The reasons are complex and too difficult to describe in detail here but it's a combination of poor education in tech matters, a very timid, risk averse and conservative Australian population and the fact that we've precious little high tech industries/infrastructure, concomitantly we've almost no high tech culture to speak of.
Moreover, it wasn't always like this, it has gotten worse over the years. For instance, when I was at school quite some decades ago we had samples of metallic uranium and some small amounts of other radioactive materials to do physics experiments with. Today, the mere thought of that would send shivers down the backs of educators and most of the population.
Such high levels of timidy and concern are not just limited to radioactive materials, the same concern applies to chemicals well and above that necessary to protect public safety—for instance, the state where I live has now banned fireworks (and that's just for starters).
That has ramifications past just safety considerations, one of the reasons I became interested in chemistry was fireworks and that we leaned to make black powder in highschool chemistry and actually got to test it (today, even that's banned in our school system). Similarly, we've even produced a generation of kids and young adults who've never seen liquid mercury.
Let no one say I'm against safety as I'm particularly careful around dangerous substances. That said, you can have both in a well regulated environment and with a well educated population.
Without hands-on experience, Australia is deskilling its population and tragically this unfortunate prosecution is testament to that.
Superstition and witch-burning are natural human behaviors. Philosophy has always required a ceaseless struggle against them. William Kamkwamba was nearly lynched by his neighbors for building a windmill.
If his "plutonium sample" is actually (probably) trinitite which you can just buy online [1], and if we assume an exposure of 1 uR/hr at one inch[2], then convert that to BED (Banana Equivalent Dose[3] - that taken from the naturally occurring potassium-40 in bananas) that's (handwaving actual dose calculations) about, what, 1/10 of a banana?
The case is technically about special fissionable material (regulation of nuclear weapons)—not radiological hazards—but all your points stand. Absurd lack of common sense all around.
Well, the police also said he bought mercury, which "can be used in switches for a dirty bomb", which is such a stupid thing to say, because a mercury switch is just an old form of a tilt switch. The idea that someone would buy mercury for making his own tilt switch is just so wild, but of course, they just put this BS out there to scare people and justify their completely overblown reaction.
Nothing about the law is really about danger. It's all based on an international weapons treaty. In my opinion, the more you know about weapons and weapons laws, the more you realize how often ridiculous cases arise.
Dont forget cobblestone in regions with high natural radioactive materials. If they mine for uranium in the rocks the rocks used to pave the surface and build houses are going to be also mildly active .
This sounds a bit like it involved those glow vials that people use on torches? But those contain tritium. Not plutonium. And it's beta radiation not alpha.
I can imagine that some officials had some concerns when they heard of plutonium to be honest. Besides radiation hazards it's also very toxic. But yeah they should have just taken it away and left it at that, considering the tiny quantity.
Ps this whole story reminds me of back to the future :)
The waste isn't even that bad. There's not that much of it and we have extremely safe storage solutions. We way over engineered the safety by orders of magnitude. Nuclear waste storage facilities can take a direct missile hit and still be safe.
Not sure why you're down voted, but who cares. This is THE issue. I hope you're forgiven, in time, for stepping out of line in the cathedral of modern nuclear power.
Most interesting for Australia and generally society is the fact that a judge has to associate the behavior of collecting different materials from the periodic table with mental health issues in order to not ridicule the current laws.
They have the wrong person with mental health issues. Everyone involved in this whole story, aside from some guy with a hobby collecting elements, are absolutely insane. (I live nearby so I have been following the story closely).
This kid (assuming they go to college, etc) could quite possibly get a job in a lab or some other scientific establishment. At a place like that everyone would know about his case AND know how insane it was.
I get the impression that background checks are basically standard practice in America. That's not generally true in Australia, only in certain industries and roles.
I find it a bit odd for press to name the person and discuss their health matters on top. Sounds like quite a punishment in itself getting branded like that.
In e.g. Finland names are not published by the press unless the crime is severe and there's a conviction or the person is already a public figure.
Yeah, this is despicable. For at least the next two decades, if you Google this guy's name, you'll see these stories depicting this guy as either a dangerous criminal or a sadly misguided, mentally unhealthy man, when all he did was order some cool rocks for his collection.
These laws need to change, given the Internet's long-term memory.
Trials are public. This is a feature. This means everything can be reported unless the court puts a ban on it. Note, too that the guy pleaded guilty in this case and I think it is right to publicise the court's reasons for the penalty, or lack thereof.
In the UK they release mugshots, full names, and approximate address in the media, after a guilt verdict. Names and approximate addresses are published before since trials are public.
Finland, Germany, France, etc. have gone to another extreme. In France they now even withhold the names of people arrested in the act of murder or terrorism because "people are presumed innocent" and "their privacy must be protected"... which is pushing it beyond sensible and common sense, and is fairly recent practice that seems to have spread from Germany.
Hard disagree. It's well known that people who are falsely accused of such crimes end up having to live with the damage to their reputation even after a court finds them innocent, because that's not the news story people remember. In such societies, one's life is effectively ruined the moment one is accused.
Innocent until proven guilty, and the same goes for the court of public opinion.
Trials are public in Finland, Germany, France etc. In some very severe crimes the name of the suspect may be published. For publicly discussed crimes the names can be usually found in some crime related discussion forums.
People are presumed innocent and their privacy must be protected. The mugshot porn is not good for anybody or the society in general.
Even if you are arrested in the act of killing someone you may have some defence that means you are not committing murder (e.g. self-defence, diminished responsibility, I think France still has ‘crime in the heat of passion’ as a defence)
I think most continental European countries do this. The publishing of names like this seem more like an Anglosphere thing. In Denmark, the press norm is usually first to publish names when they get a prison sentence of 2+ years.
The criminal justice system should be transparent. Anyone should be able to watch any proceedings. This fits with your requirements as long as people don't report it.
You also need people before and after (if convicted) to know. For instance witnesses or if they too were victims of crime. This is the impossible problem.
It's not even the reporting, it's easy search, as old newspapers have been scanned I've seen a few family secrets (of people still alive) that I would never have known and never needed to know.
The court proceedings and decisions are public and can be followed on site and the documents can be acquired by anyone. This is indeed important for transparency and accountability of the system.
However the proceedings aren't streamed and the documents aren't online. Some cases can be published online (e.g. supreme court ones) but with identifying information redacted. I think this is good.
The policy is voluntary by the press, not a law. Although in some cases publishing such information could be deemed violation of privacy if it's not deemed of public importance. And compiling databases of the personally identifying information could be illegal.
good. from what ive read/watched about this case, it was absurd and an absolute abuse of the systems in place in australia. the quantities and material properties of the elements in question should have never, ever resulted in the response or charges that occurred.
the explanation that "the judge concluded that Lidden had mental health issues and displayed no malicious intent" is absurd in its own right, even if it resulted in a favorable outcome. what a sad, offensively disparaging, and fucked up excuse from a government.
> the quantities and material properties of the elements in question should have never, ever resulted in the response or charges that occurred.
This even though “The delivery of the materials – which included a quantity of plutonium, depleted uranium, lutetium, thorium and radium – led to a major hazmat incident in August 2023. The entire street that Lidden lived on was closed off and homes were evacuated” ?
It’s not like his activities had zero impact in his community. You don’t mess around with radioactive materials; even small amounts can be extremely hazardous to life and the environment. There’s a reason they’re not easy to obtain.
To be clear this was initially stopped at the border as the old smoke detector he ordered was clearly labelled "contains radioactive material".
The authorities decided they wanted to build a case rather than stop it there though so they allowed the delivery to proceed. So it was delivered by a courier without protection because they knew it was harmless. They then subsequently sent in a full hazmat crew to close off the street. Not because they had to, they just had the courier deliver it after all. They closed off the street because the drama would apparently help the prosecution build a case of how dangerous this is.
The impact of the Australian Border Force overreacting after they (seemingly deliberately) bungled the situation when they were first made aware of the situation?
None of the elements this man was in possession of were either in a quantity or quality to facilitate any kind of hazard to anyone. The response by government was unjustified, and should have ocurred before the materials ever reached the purchaser.
I urge you to learn about and understand the properties of radioactive materials before making judgement on this situation. The quantities and properties (particularly the encasing) of the materials in question largely render them inert. These specimens are not at all abnormal in the scope of element collection, and the response triggered by the ABF (complete evacuation of an entire street (note, not an entire radius???)) is unwarranted given the quantitites and properties of the elements (both pieces of information they knew beforehand).
I'm encouraged to see Australia has doubled down on its trajectory and declared curiosity a mental health issue. I can't wait to see what the future holds for Australian creativity & innovation!
I visited Australia once. It is an absolute backwater. The top engineers, maybe 1000 in the whole country, come to the USA anyway to work for Google or Tesla. Not to mention, they import 90% of their specialized workforce from Asia.
I think there is something deeply unwell with the governance in many anglosphere countries. The extreme risk-aversion and deference to the 'concerned neighbor'.
It's sheep behavior. Looking out only for themselves and always going with the flock to hide themselves from risk. What is causing it? I would say incentives.
Australia is an island and islands are weird places compared to continental countries. Border security is ridiculously overkill and there’s a mentality that you can just keep x out permanently.
The first time you go from a country like this to the mainlands it seems weird they don’t check for things like having an apple in your bag when crossing borders.
I’m pretty sure you are supposed to declare agricultural products at customs. Sure, if the apples are cooked into a pie that’s probably fine but I believe most countries don’t let people bring in fresh fruit because of the possibility that some pest (insect, fungus) could be hitching a ride on it.
I believe the point is that in other countries they won’t rifle through your bag to verify whether or not you have brought apples. I’m not familiar with Australian customs though so I could be mistaken.
Britain's ecosystem also hasn't been isolated and untouched for many many generations. Isolated islands like Australia have far more unique plants and animals that could be wiped out by an invasive species. It doesn't take much for one to gain a foothold to the point of being impossible to remove, either.
The odds of an apple seed crossing from the US into Canada without a human involved are astronomically higher than one getting to Australia, hence customs are far more diligent in looking for that sort of thing.
Since they're already on high alert, everything looks suspicious I suppose.
Nah, there are many island nations in the world, especially in oceania. Only NZ and AU are particularly overkill and security for x and y.
Case in point, I go to Indonesia and Philippines - I buy produce in either country to bring to the other country, full declare it, show it - no one cares. Several kilograms as in 10kg+.
Meanwhile, airplane gives passangers apples on flights to New Zealand (or was it AU?) and they all get fined $1000 upon entry if they kept it.
Now why do I bring produce from an country to another? Cost and availability. A green pepper costs $4-6+ in Philippines. It's less than 30 cents in Indonesia.
So, to reiterate no - it's clearly Aussie/NZ overkill.
It is this sort of case that makes me think that criminal justice systems should expect to output balanced-ternary outcomes by default: not “guilty or innocent”, but rather “defendant is provably at fault / no one is probably at fault / prosecutor is provably at fault.”
It seems strange that, in cases like this where the charges were dropped as ridiculous, you still have to file a civil countersuit for the value of your wasted time and emotional stress — when the original criminal case already carried within it all the information required to instantly settle such a case in favor of the plaintiff. Why not just have any criminal case with a not-guilty finding automatically transition into being such a case?
> Why not just have any criminal case with a not-guilty finding automatically transition into being such a case?
For the same reason we generally don't allow punishing prosecutors when convictions are overturned. By failing to impose a penalty for losing on the prosecutor, you hope that they'll allow themselves to lose more cases.
"Allow themselves to lose more cases" sounds to me more like "allow themselves to pursue more ridiculous and frivolous cases in hope of extorting more people for profit and status"
The legislation doesn't include americium, and even if it did‚ I presume it will be imported under license.
https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A03417/latest/text says "Nuclear material means any source or any special fissionable material as defined in Article XX of the Statute." and Article XX only mentions uranium, plutonium, and thorium.
In any case, high-schooler David Hahn showed us what's possible with a bunch of smoke detectors, camping lantern mantels, and the like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn His lab became a Superfund site.
Many places have very different opinions on sources inside certified devices vs outside. E.g. in the US you can freely ship an americium-based smoke detector around the place. But the source extracted from it as a cool "element sample", shipping that is not okay and quite likely to get you in trouble.
Americium can’t be used to build a nuclear bomb. I think it’s entirely reasonable for a country to overreact to nuclear arms control, especially if there are escape hatches like the one used in this case to let people off the hook when deserved.
Only plutonium 239 can be used to make nukes. Assume it was plutonium 238 that this person bough. Same thing goes with uranium. Why you're allowed to buy it, because you can't turn it into a bomb.
The amount is tokenistic and would not have caused dissent held by a school for teaching purposes. He is a good person and this is a stupid application of the law to no benefit.
Since it was imported through postal services and identified there were heaps of opportunities to avoid this.
This is the least worst outcome having had charges brought but it was an overreaction to bring charges.
He did something stupid and nobody got hurt. The law needs to be relatively forgiving in these circumstances. A culture that punishes people that we don't know harshly for mistakes is not a good society.
As far as I recall, border force officials seized parts of the material at some point and later returned it - I wish there was an explanation why it was returned. I never found that earlier and I don't see any new information about that now.
> Australian authorities flagged the thorium sample and instructed the courier not to deliver it, which they did anyway
> Australian Border Force superintendent, James Ryan, said he hoped the case would make more people aware of the regulatory frameworks around what can and cannot be imported into Australia
Ah yes, the truth comes out. It was about making an example out of him. They knew immediately it wasn’t a big deal but they figured to have some “fun”. I guess people who weren’t aware are now aware that of the kind of people who work in Border Force.
Last year I returned to Australia from a trip where I passed through 6 countries. Of all the borders I went through, the Australian customs guys were by far the worst.
Total cunts, talked to me disrespectfully, took apart all my stuff, forced me to unlock my phone so they could do a digital scan of the contents. I was literally treated better in Albania where I was the only one with an American passport and didn't know the language.
I've had a similar experience in my 2 trips to Australia and even worse was New Zealand. I've traveled to around 50 countries, mostly backpacking, but only in Australia and NZ was I questioned and searched for 1-2 hours as what felt like a suspected drug or human trafficker.
Not sure who is responsible for confirming whether he had a permit: oversees seller or shipping company, or customs/import upon receipt in Australia.
Guardian article says, "he ordered the items from a US-based science website and they were delivered to his parents’ home.... Nuclear materials can be imported legally by contacting the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office for a permit first."
So maybe all of this fuss was due to not having applied and received a permit?
Several YouTubers I follow have been approached by the feds for some "illegal" project they were doing (NileRed, Backyard scientists...). I was pretty sure that this guy would get a warning at most
I wonder why Oz Customs didn't simply seize the shipment as it seems it was declared on the invoice or packing list. Given the miniscule amount, the authorities would not have known otherwise.
On a similar note a Canadian prosecutor in Halifax got seriously concerned about the large amount of dihydrogen oxide in a hobbyist's container.
If you can't hack STEM, the legal system is a good career option
Everyone should read Oliver Sacks' autobiography "Uncle Tungsten" - the past is a different country.
Back in the day, a child could pick up chemicals and do experiments at home - one day Sacks' parents told him, "We'll install a fume cupboard for you, but can you make less poison gas next time?"
You could also be legally under-age and not allowed to vote yet, but you could just buy pitchblende (uranium) and several other radioactive substances for your experiments.
Maybe covered by the following exemptions of section 3 of Nuclear Non‑Proliferation (Safeguards) Regulations 1987?[1]
(1) For the purposes of paragraph 9(c) of the Act, each of the following kinds of nuclear material is nuclear material of a kind to which Part II of the Act does not apply:
(c) source material that is incorporated in:
(i) the glazing of a finished ceramic product; or
(ii) an alloy in the form of a finished constructional product, being an alloy the source material component of which is not more than 4% by weight of uranium or thorium;
(d) source material that is contained in:
(i) a chemical mixture, compound or solution, or an alloy, in which the uranium or thorium content by weight is less than 0.05% of the weight of the mixture, compound, solution or alloy;
There's probably dozens of other acts and regulations which would also apply to which the exemptions above may not apply--for example, legislation related to import declarations and use of mail services.
Yet another instance of "the public doesn't understand radiation".
Not even a month ago someone making a miniscule amount of uranium paint (on a channel that tries to recreate old pigments, most of them toxic) was accused of "creating a second Goiânia"[1].
He ordered the materials online and displayed them in his room in extremely small quantities. How exactly did the authorities even find out? Let alone evacuate a neighboorhood decide to pursue such a trivial case
Border Force looked into a later order of thorium, and that caused them to go over all his past imports which contained the plutonium. The plutonium had been sitting on the guys shelf for months at that point.
If someone orders something that is illegal for them to possess, the seller should refuse to send it to them. Any other system could only exist to optimize for the number of arrests cops get to make.
"Emmanuel Lidden pleaded guilty to two charges: moving nuclear material into Australia and possessing nuclear material without a permit.
While his actions were criminal, the judge concluded that Lidden had mental health issues and displayed no malicious intent. He is the first person in Australia to be sentenced under the 1987 nuclear non-proliferation act for the importation and possession of nuclear material without the appropriate permits."
He pleaded guilty and then walked away without a conviction or penalty (unless he's convicted for something else in the near future, in which case this penalty would be added to that)
Most commenters here are calling this court case ridiculous, and injustice, but honestly, I think anyone who wants to try this should be gently discouraged and ultimately prevented.
So this guy was a bit mental, and decided that his hobby was to amass a literal "Periodic Table" on display, in his home? Did he have, like, a lot of friends who often dropped by to admire his Table and encourage him in his progress? Or, more likely I suspect, he was a lonely sad sack who would do anything to attract another human being's close interaction.
It also seems that he was amassing a lot of broken junk. Are there, like, photos of his collection, because surely it could not be overly attractive or neat? If he is basically collecting obsolete and unwanted crap then that is a sorry excuse for any "home display".
And yes, perhaps all this material in one place was 100% safe for our hero. Fine. But still, when he has visitors over, can he guarantee their safety too? If a dozen other people got this same "collector's bug" and amassed such a collection, could they also do it 100% safely and legally?
I hope that the outcome from this case is that they can engage a social worker and an agency to help him tip all this rubbish into the bin and find some productive, social hobbies that will enrich him and somehow help with his challenges of mental illness. The last thing a mentally ill person needs is to be isolated with a barely-legal, dangerous hobby. Sheesh.
I am not sure that you and I read the same article, because you seem to be misrepresenting material facts in some sort of attempt to bait or troll us, so I will not dignify this with an actual response.
The item in question, and presumably the rest of his collection, was purchased in the form of an attractive resin display cube containing an absolutely minuscule amount of radioactive material: https://www.luciteria.com/element-cubes/plutonium-for-sale
Okay, this may have been rash judgement on my part. Sources are confusing and perhaps a bit conflicting. I was under the impression that some of this was a pile of junk.
But if he was really just serially ordering attractive cubes of Lucite from this same California website, then it makes a big difference. One, he was truly invested in the aesthetics of a real collection on his shelves. Two, this stuff was not merely "safe" but completely "safed" and legal in California.
It seems if it was illegal to import to Australia then that's a local problem. Perhaps he should've proceeded with more caution, but I can also agree that authorities sort of blew it out of proportion to have the HAZMAT circus come down his street and make his neighbors wonder what sort of bomb-maker they were living with.
People laughing at Australia might be missing the point. It's not only about scientific danger, but also about border security tradition. Australia is an island, and their border mindset is very different from land-border countries. That's why you can get huge penalties for bringing something as deadly as... a wooden chess, to enter Australia without declaration. Not to mention a piece of uranium. Respect the different culture please.
No need to respect a culture of paranoia and overcriminalization. The same culture is in the US with regard to lawful minority immigrants, do you respect it?
Woah, this doesn't sound like over-reaction but the reporting doesn't give enough details to know:
>While his actions were criminal, the judge concluded that Lidden had mental health issues and displayed no malicious intent.... The delivery of the materials – which included a quantity of plutonium, depleted uranium, lutetium, thorium and radium...
Seems weird that the judge said Lidden had mental health "issues". Who knows how severe or debilitating the so-called mental health issues are? Not sure how the judge can make that decision on his own, about Lidden's mental health excusing him for doing something "criminal", although one wonders too how well the 1987 nuclear non-proliferation law was written, and if it was even applicable given small amounts Lidden possessed.
Key question is Lidden's purchase amounts of plutonium, depleted uranium, lutetium, thorium, and radium for his home periodic table display. (I totally understand the motivation for wanting to do that! I would love to have every element, even a tiny bit, for that reason too.)
Plutonium seems most concerning. It doesn't exist in nature but Pu-239 is the by-product of Uranium-238 used for fuel by nuclear reactors. (Not certain about isotype numbers.) Lidden bought depleted uranium, so that's more okay... I guess. (Don't know what its half life is even after "depletion".) Pu-239 and Pu-240 half-lives are thousands of years. Due to the radioactive alpha decay of plutonium, it is warm to the touch!
I wonder if he even had real plutonium, because even the non-weapons grade costs at least US$4,000 per gram.
Final thought:
Chemical toxicity of (undepleted) uranium U-238 is comparable to its radioactive toxicity.
Chemical toxicity of plutonium Pu-239, Pu-240 etc. is minor compared with its radioactive toxicity. By chemical toxicity, they're referring to the tendency for plutonium to spontaneously combust if exposed to moisture, or in hot humid weather. It can even catch on fire when submerged in water.
Also, via Guardian, this attitude is demeaning and depressing:
>"At a sentence hearing in March, the lawyer described Lidden as a “science nerd” who committed the offences out of pure naivety. “It was a manifestation of self-soothing retreating into collection; it could have been anything but in this case he latched on to the collection of the periodic table,”
Thank you. I only read the second, more recent article, not realizing that their was a prior one.
Case seems ridiculous. Judge's ruling, despite no penalty, is embarrassing because he doesn't seem to understand the lack of danger of such small amounts, AND made gratuitous public statement about Lidden's mental health.
> Who knows how severe or debilitating the so-called mental health issues are? Not sure how the judge can make that decision on his own, about Lidden's mental health excusing him for doing something "criminal
Perhaps the judge made the determination based on evidence, such as testimony from experts? I don't know but does anyone else here?
When I was in grade-school, my classmate's father was a collector of model trains. And he was, in fact, so avid and dedicated with his collection that every shelf and available space in his home was filled with those model trains. I indeed visited them a couple of times and, being the grandson of a railroader and owner/operator of a Lionel set myself, I was quite awed by the variety and cool stuff on display. In fact, his daughter once visited another friend's home, and she was utterly mystified as she looked around, asking "but where are the trains?"
Now there is surely a fine line between obsession and dedication in a collector's spirit, and this particular fellow became quite successful in real estate, so that he was able to open up a storefront in a very busy area of town and dedicate the space as his "private museum". By that time he had branched out into collecting automobiles, yes full-size ones, typewriters, purses (his wife liked those), phonographs and all sorts of other amazing, mostly mechanical, wonders. He took over for the local model train shop just down the way. So anyone in the market for a train set can also linger for a gander at his comprehensive museum setup.
So I am unsure if his obsession presented any sort of disability; he certainly ran a business, had a good wife and children (who also ran businesses), and he was eventually able to parlay this collection into something quite public, if only a breaking-even "vanity project" where his friends dropped by.
So, like, I would never discourage someone from cultivating a cool collection of stuff at home if there's a chance it turns into something like that. But just piling on ugly radioactive waste in your bedroom? I'm not sure that's a sane decision. I'm not sure that's something I would pay to see, or even come over for lunch. I would nod, smile, and call some hotline on the guy, myself.
> just piling on ugly radioactive waste in your bedroom
This is an egregious mischaracterization which detracts from your otherwise excellent comment. Lidden was working on collecting the periodic table in decorative display cases.[1] I don’t get the point of coin collections either, but that doesn’t mean I would describe one as a “grubby heap of heavy metals.”
kids need to learn science and some basic market economy. if they do that, they won't be stupid enough trying to collect the "entire periodic table". with Fr priced at like $100m AUD per gram, how would some dude living in his parents' apartment going to afford that? some primary school knowledge would be enough to teach him that gold is actually one of those pretty affordable elements to collect when compared to all sorts of those stupidly expensive & rare ones.
> with Fr priced at like $100m AUD per gram, how would some dude living in his parents' apartment going to afford that?
You buy a rock that produces Francium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francium: “its most stable isotope, francium-223 (originally called actinium K after the natural decay chain in which it appears), has a half-life of only 22 minutes.”, so buying Francium itself is not a good idea.
Also (same Wikipedia page) “In a given sample of uranium, there is estimated to be only one francium atom for every 1 × 10¹⁸ uranium atoms. Only about 1 ounce (28 g) of francium is present naturally in the earth's crust.”, so you wouldn’t have a gram of it, by a very, very long stretch.
Good for him. This was an absolute ridiculous case. Lots of everyday items contain radioactive substances: old smoke detectors, uranium glass, old watches with radium dials, anti-static brushes, the list goes on and on. As a side note: coal power plants put quite a bit of radiation into the environment (technically 100x more than nuclear plants, if you sidestep the issue of waste), because coal contains Uranium and Thorium.
The amounts of Pu that were imported were not only minuscule, but also embedded in acrylic for display. As an alpha radiator, this is 100% safe to have and put on a shelf. You would have to completely dismantle it, crush the few μg of Pu into dust and then inhale it to be dangerous to your health.
I understand that people are afraid of radiation. I am too. However, it is important to know that radiation is everywhere all the time, and it is always about the dose. At the same time, we allow for instance cars to pollute the environment with toxic particulates that lead to many cancers, and somehow we accept this as unavoidable. But I digress...
For those interested, here's a video from "Explosions and Fire" on this issue, a channel I highly recommend anyway, this guy is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0JGsSxBd2I
To be clear this literally was an old smoke detector. Not even kidding.
https://hackaday.com/2025/04/06/a-tale-of-nuclear-shenanigan...
He ordered an old smoke detector online as part of his collection of elements. This contained, as pretty much all old smoke detectors once did, radioactive elements. In minute quantities.
It gets worse the more you look into this too. The hazmat crew that closed off his street? Days earlier they let the courier deliver his old soviet smoke detector in person, no protective gear. As in they knew it wasn't dangerous but put on theater to make a better case for prosecution.
This is the kind of implicit lying that seems pervasive today and I am so tired of it.
This alone is sufficient evidence of their malicious intent and should be enough to punish the people responsible for trying to ruin an innocent person's life.
But it's not gonna happen because the law is not written to punish people using it maliciously against others and most people simply won't care anyway.
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Um but smoke detectors don't contain plutonium. Usually americum 241.
Edit: ah so it was a soviet one. They also played loose and fast with nuclear safety. We still have 30+ nuclear reactors hanging over our heads in space that will come down one day. One already did and contaminated a big area in Canada, though luckily a very remote one.
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He didn't really walk away:
"A 24-year-old Australian man who ordered uranium and plutonium to his parents’ apartment has been allowed to walk away from court on a two-year good behaviour bond.
After ordering various radioactive samples over the internet in an effort to collect the entire periodic table, Emmanuel Lidden pleaded guilty to two charges: moving nuclear material into Australia and possessing nuclear material without a permit.
While his actions were criminal, the judge concluded that Lidden had mental health issues and displayed no malicious intent"
The court established he had mental helath issues and has 2 years probation basically.
"Mental health issues" sounds like both a fig leaf for the prosecution and a last-ditch smear of the man involved. Now he's stuck being publicly associated not just with "criminal", but "criminal with mental health issues".
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"Good for him. This was an absolute ridiculous case."
Absolutely so. I watched Tom's Explosions & Fire video just after he published it and as he said this prosecution was a gross overreaction by authorities. I say that as someone who once worked in nuclear safeguards/surveillance (I'm an ardent non-proliferation guy).
Living in Australia one has become to expect such incidents although this was the first one involving nuclear materials. The reasons are complex and too difficult to describe in detail here but it's a combination of poor education in tech matters, a very timid, risk averse and conservative Australian population and the fact that we've precious little high tech industries/infrastructure, concomitantly we've almost no high tech culture to speak of.
Moreover, it wasn't always like this, it has gotten worse over the years. For instance, when I was at school quite some decades ago we had samples of metallic uranium and some small amounts of other radioactive materials to do physics experiments with. Today, the mere thought of that would send shivers down the backs of educators and most of the population.
Such high levels of timidy and concern are not just limited to radioactive materials, the same concern applies to chemicals well and above that necessary to protect public safety—for instance, the state where I live has now banned fireworks (and that's just for starters).
That has ramifications past just safety considerations, one of the reasons I became interested in chemistry was fireworks and that we leaned to make black powder in highschool chemistry and actually got to test it (today, even that's banned in our school system). Similarly, we've even produced a generation of kids and young adults who've never seen liquid mercury.
Let no one say I'm against safety as I'm particularly careful around dangerous substances. That said, you can have both in a well regulated environment and with a well educated population.
Without hands-on experience, Australia is deskilling its population and tragically this unfortunate prosecution is testament to that.
Superstition and witch-burning are natural human behaviors. Philosophy has always required a ceaseless struggle against them. William Kamkwamba was nearly lynched by his neighbors for building a windmill.
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> a very timid, risk averse and conservative Australian population
That is completely wrong [1].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_Dundee
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Agreed, this case is bananas.
If his "plutonium sample" is actually (probably) trinitite which you can just buy online [1], and if we assume an exposure of 1 uR/hr at one inch[2], then convert that to BED (Banana Equivalent Dose[3] - that taken from the naturally occurring potassium-40 in bananas) that's (handwaving actual dose calculations) about, what, 1/10 of a banana?
[1] https://engineeredlabs.com/products/plutonium-element-cube-t...
[2] https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/nuclea...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
The plutonium sample is reported to be something similar to this,
https://carlwillis.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/analysis-of-sovi... ("Analysis of Soviet smoke detector plutonium" (2017))
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>Agreed, this case is bananas
banana equivalent doses?
The case is technically about special fissionable material (regulation of nuclear weapons)—not radiological hazards—but all your points stand. Absurd lack of common sense all around.
Well, the police also said he bought mercury, which "can be used in switches for a dirty bomb", which is such a stupid thing to say, because a mercury switch is just an old form of a tilt switch. The idea that someone would buy mercury for making his own tilt switch is just so wild, but of course, they just put this BS out there to scare people and justify their completely overblown reaction.
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So if everyone in Australia ordered one of these, what would they need to do to make it into a bomb?
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I mean, hell, a pack of cigarettes contains polonium and lead -210. And Australians smoke quite a bit, last I checked.
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Nothing about the law is really about danger. It's all based on an international weapons treaty. In my opinion, the more you know about weapons and weapons laws, the more you realize how often ridiculous cases arise.
Dont forget cobblestone in regions with high natural radioactive materials. If they mine for uranium in the rocks the rocks used to pave the surface and build houses are going to be also mildly active .
Granite benchtops.
This sounds a bit like it involved those glow vials that people use on torches? But those contain tritium. Not plutonium. And it's beta radiation not alpha.
I can imagine that some officials had some concerns when they heard of plutonium to be honest. Besides radiation hazards it's also very toxic. But yeah they should have just taken it away and left it at that, considering the tiny quantity.
Ps this whole story reminds me of back to the future :)
> if you sidestep the issue of waste
If you do that, just sidestep the elephant, then nuclear is very attractive indeed!
The waste isn't even that bad. There's not that much of it and we have extremely safe storage solutions. We way over engineered the safety by orders of magnitude. Nuclear waste storage facilities can take a direct missile hit and still be safe.
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Nuclear waste is not released in the atmosphere. You cannot compare solid waste in canisters and what gets out of the smokestacks.
Not sure why you're down voted, but who cares. This is THE issue. I hope you're forgiven, in time, for stepping out of line in the cathedral of modern nuclear power.
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Isn't this the same stuff they used to put in aeroplane tails as a counterweight?
No, it's weapons-grade fissile material (in microscopic amounts); the engineering material used for its weight, depleted uranium, is not such a thing.
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Most interesting for Australia and generally society is the fact that a judge has to associate the behavior of collecting different materials from the periodic table with mental health issues in order to not ridicule the current laws.
They have the wrong person with mental health issues. Everyone involved in this whole story, aside from some guy with a hobby collecting elements, are absolutely insane. (I live nearby so I have been following the story closely).
And because of that he most likely will have really hard time getting a job after this
Would he though?
This kid (assuming they go to college, etc) could quite possibly get a job in a lab or some other scientific establishment. At a place like that everyone would know about his case AND know how insane it was.
Possibly although given the story about it could go the opposite way.
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I get the impression that background checks are basically standard practice in America. That's not generally true in Australia, only in certain industries and roles.
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Don't we all have mental health issues?
Yea
I find it a bit odd for press to name the person and discuss their health matters on top. Sounds like quite a punishment in itself getting branded like that.
In e.g. Finland names are not published by the press unless the crime is severe and there's a conviction or the person is already a public figure.
Yeah, this is despicable. For at least the next two decades, if you Google this guy's name, you'll see these stories depicting this guy as either a dangerous criminal or a sadly misguided, mentally unhealthy man, when all he did was order some cool rocks for his collection.
These laws need to change, given the Internet's long-term memory.
Trials are public. This is a feature. This means everything can be reported unless the court puts a ban on it. Note, too that the guy pleaded guilty in this case and I think it is right to publicise the court's reasons for the penalty, or lack thereof.
In the UK they release mugshots, full names, and approximate address in the media, after a guilt verdict. Names and approximate addresses are published before since trials are public.
Finland, Germany, France, etc. have gone to another extreme. In France they now even withhold the names of people arrested in the act of murder or terrorism because "people are presumed innocent" and "their privacy must be protected"... which is pushing it beyond sensible and common sense, and is fairly recent practice that seems to have spread from Germany.
Hard disagree. It's well known that people who are falsely accused of such crimes end up having to live with the damage to their reputation even after a court finds them innocent, because that's not the news story people remember. In such societies, one's life is effectively ruined the moment one is accused.
Innocent until proven guilty, and the same goes for the court of public opinion.
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Trials are public in Finland, Germany, France etc. In some very severe crimes the name of the suspect may be published. For publicly discussed crimes the names can be usually found in some crime related discussion forums.
People are presumed innocent and their privacy must be protected. The mugshot porn is not good for anybody or the society in general.
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Even if you are arrested in the act of killing someone you may have some defence that means you are not committing murder (e.g. self-defence, diminished responsibility, I think France still has ‘crime in the heat of passion’ as a defence)
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Same in Germany.
I think most continental European countries do this. The publishing of names like this seem more like an Anglosphere thing. In Denmark, the press norm is usually first to publish names when they get a prison sentence of 2+ years.
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In Germany the full name is not published.
In this case there was a conviction. Hence the two year good behavior bond, rather than being free and clear.
No conviction was recorded.
The internet has screw all that up.
The criminal justice system should be transparent. Anyone should be able to watch any proceedings. This fits with your requirements as long as people don't report it.
The Australia Federal Court live streams but it is illegal to yt-dlp / photograph the monitor etc - https://www.youtube.com/@FederalCourtAus/streams
You also need people before and after (if convicted) to know. For instance witnesses or if they too were victims of crime. This is the impossible problem.
It's not even the reporting, it's easy search, as old newspapers have been scanned I've seen a few family secrets (of people still alive) that I would never have known and never needed to know.
The court proceedings and decisions are public and can be followed on site and the documents can be acquired by anyone. This is indeed important for transparency and accountability of the system.
However the proceedings aren't streamed and the documents aren't online. Some cases can be published online (e.g. supreme court ones) but with identifying information redacted. I think this is good.
The policy is voluntary by the press, not a law. Although in some cases publishing such information could be deemed violation of privacy if it's not deemed of public importance. And compiling databases of the personally identifying information could be illegal.
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good. from what ive read/watched about this case, it was absurd and an absolute abuse of the systems in place in australia. the quantities and material properties of the elements in question should have never, ever resulted in the response or charges that occurred.
the explanation that "the judge concluded that Lidden had mental health issues and displayed no malicious intent" is absurd in its own right, even if it resulted in a favorable outcome. what a sad, offensively disparaging, and fucked up excuse from a government.
here is a (arugably biased) relevant video about the subject from an amateur australian chemist that covers this case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0JGsSxBd2I
> amateur australian chemist
I mean, he has a PhD...
> he has a PhD
> "the judge concluded that Lidden had mental health issues and displayed no malicious intent"
Cause and effect.
> the quantities and material properties of the elements in question should have never, ever resulted in the response or charges that occurred.
This even though “The delivery of the materials – which included a quantity of plutonium, depleted uranium, lutetium, thorium and radium – led to a major hazmat incident in August 2023. The entire street that Lidden lived on was closed off and homes were evacuated” ?
It’s not like his activities had zero impact in his community. You don’t mess around with radioactive materials; even small amounts can be extremely hazardous to life and the environment. There’s a reason they’re not easy to obtain.
>It’s not like his activities had zero impact in his community.
They didn't. The ridiculous and uninformed government reaction caused this. Nothing he did was even remotely dangerous.
>You don’t mess around with radioactive materials; even small amounts can be extremely hazardous to life and the environment.
These materials were not dangerous, it was literally a capsule from a smoke detector. As in, an average person would've had it in their house.
>There’s a reason they’re not easy to obtain.
Right, so difficult to obtain that he was able to simply order them online and have them delivered through the mail.
To be clear this was initially stopped at the border as the old smoke detector he ordered was clearly labelled "contains radioactive material".
The authorities decided they wanted to build a case rather than stop it there though so they allowed the delivery to proceed. So it was delivered by a courier without protection because they knew it was harmless. They then subsequently sent in a full hazmat crew to close off the street. Not because they had to, they just had the courier deliver it after all. They closed off the street because the drama would apparently help the prosecution build a case of how dangerous this is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0JGsSxBd2I
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The article says “the quantities of material were so small they were safe to eat”
If that’s true, the overreaction and evacuation is higher risk than possession of the elements
You can’t blame Lidden for the overreaction of others
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That was a severe overreaction by authorities after they knew he had it for months in trace amounts.
What impact?
The impact of the Australian Border Force overreacting after they (seemingly deliberately) bungled the situation when they were first made aware of the situation?
None of the elements this man was in possession of were either in a quantity or quality to facilitate any kind of hazard to anyone. The response by government was unjustified, and should have ocurred before the materials ever reached the purchaser.
I urge you to learn about and understand the properties of radioactive materials before making judgement on this situation. The quantities and properties (particularly the encasing) of the materials in question largely render them inert. These specimens are not at all abnormal in the scope of element collection, and the response triggered by the ABF (complete evacuation of an entire street (note, not an entire radius???)) is unwarranted given the quantitites and properties of the elements (both pieces of information they knew beforehand).
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I'm encouraged to see Australia has doubled down on its trajectory and declared curiosity a mental health issue. I can't wait to see what the future holds for Australian creativity & innovation!
I visited Australia once. It is an absolute backwater. The top engineers, maybe 1000 in the whole country, come to the USA anyway to work for Google or Tesla. Not to mention, they import 90% of their specialized workforce from Asia.
Are you sure you went to Australia?
I believe the guy got worried he needed to tell his employer, the railway, that he was facing a prosecution. His solicitor advised him not to.
They stood him down and terminated him to minimise risk.
I hope he gets his job back.
I think there is something deeply unwell with the governance in many anglosphere countries. The extreme risk-aversion and deference to the 'concerned neighbor'.
It's sheep behavior. Looking out only for themselves and always going with the flock to hide themselves from risk. What is causing it? I would say incentives.
Fear of predators being the obvious one if we're going with the sheep metaphor.
It is the rule of the old and sick, the moralizing scolding of the middle aged schoolmarm hysterically meddling in other peoples affairs.
Some call it the longhouse.
Australia is an island and islands are weird places compared to continental countries. Border security is ridiculously overkill and there’s a mentality that you can just keep x out permanently.
The first time you go from a country like this to the mainlands it seems weird they don’t check for things like having an apple in your bag when crossing borders.
I’m pretty sure you are supposed to declare agricultural products at customs. Sure, if the apples are cooked into a pie that’s probably fine but I believe most countries don’t let people bring in fresh fruit because of the possibility that some pest (insect, fungus) could be hitching a ride on it.
I believe the point is that in other countries they won’t rifle through your bag to verify whether or not you have brought apples. I’m not familiar with Australian customs though so I could be mistaken.
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England/Wales/Scotland form an island. None of that is true.
Britain's ecosystem also hasn't been isolated and untouched for many many generations. Isolated islands like Australia have far more unique plants and animals that could be wiped out by an invasive species. It doesn't take much for one to gain a foothold to the point of being impossible to remove, either.
The odds of an apple seed crossing from the US into Canada without a human involved are astronomically higher than one getting to Australia, hence customs are far more diligent in looking for that sort of thing.
Since they're already on high alert, everything looks suspicious I suppose.
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There's certainly not a tv show then that follows border agents around like in Aus/NZ.
If there's one thing Australian's all agree it, it's that carrying fruit across certain state boarders is generally a bad idea.
Nah, there are many island nations in the world, especially in oceania. Only NZ and AU are particularly overkill and security for x and y.
Case in point, I go to Indonesia and Philippines - I buy produce in either country to bring to the other country, full declare it, show it - no one cares. Several kilograms as in 10kg+.
Meanwhile, airplane gives passangers apples on flights to New Zealand (or was it AU?) and they all get fined $1000 upon entry if they kept it.
Now why do I bring produce from an country to another? Cost and availability. A green pepper costs $4-6+ in Philippines. It's less than 30 cents in Indonesia.
So, to reiterate no - it's clearly Aussie/NZ overkill.
Follow-up from:
'Naive' science fan faces jail for plutonium import
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43449645
It is this sort of case that makes me think that criminal justice systems should expect to output balanced-ternary outcomes by default: not “guilty or innocent”, but rather “defendant is provably at fault / no one is probably at fault / prosecutor is provably at fault.”
It seems strange that, in cases like this where the charges were dropped as ridiculous, you still have to file a civil countersuit for the value of your wasted time and emotional stress — when the original criminal case already carried within it all the information required to instantly settle such a case in favor of the plaintiff. Why not just have any criminal case with a not-guilty finding automatically transition into being such a case?
> Why not just have any criminal case with a not-guilty finding automatically transition into being such a case?
For the same reason we generally don't allow punishing prosecutors when convictions are overturned. By failing to impose a penalty for losing on the prosecutor, you hope that they'll allow themselves to lose more cases.
"Allow themselves to lose more cases" sounds to me more like "allow themselves to pursue more ridiculous and frivolous cases in hope of extorting more people for profit and status"
When I read things like this it makes Australia look like a penal colony.
I grew up there, but have been away for 20 years.
I went back recently for a year and saw the whole country.
It very, very much feels like a nanny state with an insane amount of rules, and regular folks who try to stop you breaking those rules.
Overreaction much? Should there be a ban on americium-241 in smoke detectors?
The legislation doesn't include americium, and even if it did‚ I presume it will be imported under license.
https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A03417/latest/text says "Nuclear material means any source or any special fissionable material as defined in Article XX of the Statute." and Article XX only mentions uranium, plutonium, and thorium.
In any case, high-schooler David Hahn showed us what's possible with a bunch of smoke detectors, camping lantern mantels, and the like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn His lab became a Superfund site.
In this kind of amounts it follows that import of coal should require this kind of license because of thorium content.
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Many places have very different opinions on sources inside certified devices vs outside. E.g. in the US you can freely ship an americium-based smoke detector around the place. But the source extracted from it as a cool "element sample", shipping that is not okay and quite likely to get you in trouble.
Americium can’t be used to build a nuclear bomb. I think it’s entirely reasonable for a country to overreact to nuclear arms control, especially if there are escape hatches like the one used in this case to let people off the hook when deserved.
Only plutonium 239 can be used to make nukes. Assume it was plutonium 238 that this person bough. Same thing goes with uranium. Why you're allowed to buy it, because you can't turn it into a bomb.
It's never reasonable to overreact.
Regular old garden variety proportional response should suffice.
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The amount is tokenistic and would not have caused dissent held by a school for teaching purposes. He is a good person and this is a stupid application of the law to no benefit.
Since it was imported through postal services and identified there were heaps of opportunities to avoid this.
This is the least worst outcome having had charges brought but it was an overreaction to bring charges.
He did something stupid and nobody got hurt. The law needs to be relatively forgiving in these circumstances. A culture that punishes people that we don't know harshly for mistakes is not a good society.
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The amount was so small it couldn't be used to cause harm
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Looks like he lost his job though?
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As far as I recall, border force officials seized parts of the material at some point and later returned it - I wish there was an explanation why it was returned. I never found that earlier and I don't see any new information about that now.
> Australian authorities flagged the thorium sample and instructed the courier not to deliver it, which they did anyway
https://hackaday.com/2025/04/06/a-tale-of-nuclear-shenanigan...
> Australian Border Force superintendent, James Ryan, said he hoped the case would make more people aware of the regulatory frameworks around what can and cannot be imported into Australia
Ah yes, the truth comes out. It was about making an example out of him. They knew immediately it wasn’t a big deal but they figured to have some “fun”. I guess people who weren’t aware are now aware that of the kind of people who work in Border Force.
Last year I returned to Australia from a trip where I passed through 6 countries. Of all the borders I went through, the Australian customs guys were by far the worst.
Total cunts, talked to me disrespectfully, took apart all my stuff, forced me to unlock my phone so they could do a digital scan of the contents. I was literally treated better in Albania where I was the only one with an American passport and didn't know the language.
I've had a similar experience in my 2 trips to Australia and even worse was New Zealand. I've traveled to around 50 countries, mostly backpacking, but only in Australia and NZ was I questioned and searched for 1-2 hours as what felt like a suspected drug or human trafficker.
So what about the company selling the restricted material to him? Or the company doing the importing are they also reprimanded in some form?
Not sure who is responsible for confirming whether he had a permit: oversees seller or shipping company, or customs/import upon receipt in Australia.
Guardian article says, "he ordered the items from a US-based science website and they were delivered to his parents’ home.... Nuclear materials can be imported legally by contacting the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office for a permit first."
So maybe all of this fuss was due to not having applied and received a permit?
It isn't actually dangerous in any way. It's just a collectors display piece.
From what I understand, that company is not under Australian jurisdiction.
Several YouTubers I follow have been approached by the feds for some "illegal" project they were doing (NileRed, Backyard scientists...). I was pretty sure that this guy would get a warning at most
tangential: https://xcancel.com/ididathing1/status/1611095209349206046
I wonder why Oz Customs didn't simply seize the shipment as it seems it was declared on the invoice or packing list. Given the miniscule amount, the authorities would not have known otherwise.
On a similar note a Canadian prosecutor in Halifax got seriously concerned about the large amount of dihydrogen oxide in a hobbyist's container.
If you can't hack STEM, the legal system is a good career option
Everyone should read Oliver Sacks' autobiography "Uncle Tungsten" - the past is a different country.
Back in the day, a child could pick up chemicals and do experiments at home - one day Sacks' parents told him, "We'll install a fume cupboard for you, but can you make less poison gas next time?"
You could also be legally under-age and not allowed to vote yet, but you could just buy pitchblende (uranium) and several other radioactive substances for your experiments.
Just a bunch of theater by the government organization to try to justify their existence.
Would ordering e.g. uranim glass beads [0] be acceptable?
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_glass
Maybe covered by the following exemptions of section 3 of Nuclear Non‑Proliferation (Safeguards) Regulations 1987?[1]
There's probably dozens of other acts and regulations which would also apply to which the exemptions above may not apply--for example, legislation related to import declarations and use of mail services.
[1] https://www.legislation.gov.au/F1996B02071/2023-10-27/2023-1...
No percent-by-weight limit on the amount of uranium in the glaze... :-)
Probably would be entirely acceptable if one applied for and received a permit for them.
>can be imported legally by contacting the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office for a permit first.
Yet another instance of "the public doesn't understand radiation".
Not even a month ago someone making a miniscule amount of uranium paint (on a channel that tries to recreate old pigments, most of them toxic) was accused of "creating a second Goiânia"[1].
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js05OEsmsm0
He ordered the materials online and displayed them in his room in extremely small quantities. How exactly did the authorities even find out? Let alone evacuate a neighboorhood decide to pursue such a trivial case
Border Force looked into a later order of thorium, and that caused them to go over all his past imports which contained the plutonium. The plutonium had been sitting on the guys shelf for months at that point.
I wonder how many lost/unaccounted-for medical x-ray machines there have been in Australia since, say 1950.
The mining companies must want the uranium monopoly really badly.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Australia
"Safe enough to swallow" seems like a scary oversimplification for alpha-emitting substances ?
Depends on intensity. Microgram quantities of plutonium should be generally safe (unlike, say, microgram quantities of polonium).
Not all alpha emitters are created the same.
If someone orders something that is illegal for them to possess, the seller should refuse to send it to them. Any other system could only exist to optimize for the number of arrests cops get to make.
That would require every sender everywhere to be aware of every legal requirement everywhere, or at least to every country / state they service.
Kinda curious what site this was - I assumed United Nuclear (which I have ordered non-radioactive items from), but they don't sell Pu.
“item now discontinued“
https://www.luciteria.com/element-cubes/plutonium-for-sale
This title is terrible, he pleaded guilty.
"Emmanuel Lidden pleaded guilty to two charges: moving nuclear material into Australia and possessing nuclear material without a permit.
While his actions were criminal, the judge concluded that Lidden had mental health issues and displayed no malicious intent. He is the first person in Australia to be sentenced under the 1987 nuclear non-proliferation act for the importation and possession of nuclear material without the appropriate permits."
He pleaded guilty and then walked away without a conviction or penalty (unless he's convicted for something else in the near future, in which case this penalty would be added to that)
there was a much more "interesting" incident circa 1995, look up "The Radioactive Boy Scout"
I read that Bill Gates has something like that, but he is obviously situated in USA and also insanely rich
Trying to have FUN? In the police state commonwealth of the UK/Canada/Australia?
NOT allowed.
You know what else is not allowed there?
Everything else!
Collecting the entire periodic table? Noble goal, but good luck with e.g. Einsteinium.
Simon Mayo wrote a book with this premise: Itch (2012). Sequels include Itch Rocks (2013) and Itchcraft (2014).
Most commenters here are calling this court case ridiculous, and injustice, but honestly, I think anyone who wants to try this should be gently discouraged and ultimately prevented.
So this guy was a bit mental, and decided that his hobby was to amass a literal "Periodic Table" on display, in his home? Did he have, like, a lot of friends who often dropped by to admire his Table and encourage him in his progress? Or, more likely I suspect, he was a lonely sad sack who would do anything to attract another human being's close interaction.
It also seems that he was amassing a lot of broken junk. Are there, like, photos of his collection, because surely it could not be overly attractive or neat? If he is basically collecting obsolete and unwanted crap then that is a sorry excuse for any "home display".
And yes, perhaps all this material in one place was 100% safe for our hero. Fine. But still, when he has visitors over, can he guarantee their safety too? If a dozen other people got this same "collector's bug" and amassed such a collection, could they also do it 100% safely and legally?
I hope that the outcome from this case is that they can engage a social worker and an agency to help him tip all this rubbish into the bin and find some productive, social hobbies that will enrich him and somehow help with his challenges of mental illness. The last thing a mentally ill person needs is to be isolated with a barely-legal, dangerous hobby. Sheesh.
This isn't really random behavior from some mentally unwell person. There's an entire Reddit community for element collectors:
https://www.reddit.com/r/elementcollection/
And various companies that sell elements in nice display cases to support this hobby.
Sure, it's not your typical model car/train or card collecting hobby, but it's a harmless hobby nonetheless not a cry for help.
Fascinating that you take the court's ruling that he has a "mental illness" at face value.
How would you like it if one of your harmless hobbies was declared illegal overnight and your home raided?
How would you feel if the only way the court lets you go home without a prison sentence is to agree to be declared "mentally unfit"?
I am not sure that you and I read the same article, because you seem to be misrepresenting material facts in some sort of attempt to bait or troll us, so I will not dignify this with an actual response.
The item in question, and presumably the rest of his collection, was purchased in the form of an attractive resin display cube containing an absolutely minuscule amount of radioactive material: https://www.luciteria.com/element-cubes/plutonium-for-sale
Okay, this may have been rash judgement on my part. Sources are confusing and perhaps a bit conflicting. I was under the impression that some of this was a pile of junk.
But if he was really just serially ordering attractive cubes of Lucite from this same California website, then it makes a big difference. One, he was truly invested in the aesthetics of a real collection on his shelves. Two, this stuff was not merely "safe" but completely "safed" and legal in California.
It seems if it was illegal to import to Australia then that's a local problem. Perhaps he should've proceeded with more caution, but I can also agree that authorities sort of blew it out of proportion to have the HAZMAT circus come down his street and make his neighbors wonder what sort of bomb-maker they were living with.
Try not to be a cunt.
People laughing at Australia might be missing the point. It's not only about scientific danger, but also about border security tradition. Australia is an island, and their border mindset is very different from land-border countries. That's why you can get huge penalties for bringing something as deadly as... a wooden chess, to enter Australia without declaration. Not to mention a piece of uranium. Respect the different culture please.
If the point is that bringing items into Australia could have a negative impact as they are not present (such as cane toads, rabbits, etc) then sure.
However, Australia already has much uranium. The mine at Rum Jungle has quite a lot left. Multiple nuclear explosions have taken place there.
This is not equivalent to keeping rabies out, nor a cultural issue.
No need to respect a culture of paranoia and overcriminalization. The same culture is in the US with regard to lawful minority immigrants, do you respect it?
Woah, this doesn't sound like over-reaction but the reporting doesn't give enough details to know:
>While his actions were criminal, the judge concluded that Lidden had mental health issues and displayed no malicious intent.... The delivery of the materials – which included a quantity of plutonium, depleted uranium, lutetium, thorium and radium...
Seems weird that the judge said Lidden had mental health "issues". Who knows how severe or debilitating the so-called mental health issues are? Not sure how the judge can make that decision on his own, about Lidden's mental health excusing him for doing something "criminal", although one wonders too how well the 1987 nuclear non-proliferation law was written, and if it was even applicable given small amounts Lidden possessed.
Key question is Lidden's purchase amounts of plutonium, depleted uranium, lutetium, thorium, and radium for his home periodic table display. (I totally understand the motivation for wanting to do that! I would love to have every element, even a tiny bit, for that reason too.)
Plutonium seems most concerning. It doesn't exist in nature but Pu-239 is the by-product of Uranium-238 used for fuel by nuclear reactors. (Not certain about isotype numbers.) Lidden bought depleted uranium, so that's more okay... I guess. (Don't know what its half life is even after "depletion".) Pu-239 and Pu-240 half-lives are thousands of years. Due to the radioactive alpha decay of plutonium, it is warm to the touch!
I wonder if he even had real plutonium, because even the non-weapons grade costs at least US$4,000 per gram.
Final thought: Chemical toxicity of (undepleted) uranium U-238 is comparable to its radioactive toxicity. Chemical toxicity of plutonium Pu-239, Pu-240 etc. is minor compared with its radioactive toxicity. By chemical toxicity, they're referring to the tendency for plutonium to spontaneously combust if exposed to moisture, or in hot humid weather. It can even catch on fire when submerged in water.
EDIT: Reduce verbiage
You’re questions are already answered in the article:
1. The items were on display in this bedroom
2. The quantities were so small that they were deemed safe to eat.
This sounds like more of a case of the border force wanting to raise awareness rather than any actual danger being presented
The article only said that his solicitor (lawyer?) described the quantities as being so small they were safe enough to eat.
I read some more about it (Guardian) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/11/scien... and entirely agree with you that the border force over-reacted, and could have spent the money and resources more effectively than by pursuing this.
Also, via Guardian, this attitude is demeaning and depressing:
>"At a sentence hearing in March, the lawyer described Lidden as a “science nerd” who committed the offences out of pure naivety. “It was a manifestation of self-soothing retreating into collection; it could have been anything but in this case he latched on to the collection of the periodic table,”
Plutonium was in form of an old soviet smoke detector, containing micrograms of it. This case is whack.
Thank you. I only read the second, more recent article, not realizing that their was a prior one.
Case seems ridiculous. Judge's ruling, despite no penalty, is embarrassing because he doesn't seem to understand the lack of danger of such small amounts, AND made gratuitous public statement about Lidden's mental health.
> half-lives are thousands of years
This means it isn't very radioactive at all.
> Who knows how severe or debilitating the so-called mental health issues are? Not sure how the judge can make that decision on his own, about Lidden's mental health excusing him for doing something "criminal
Perhaps the judge made the determination based on evidence, such as testimony from experts? I don't know but does anyone else here?
When I was in grade-school, my classmate's father was a collector of model trains. And he was, in fact, so avid and dedicated with his collection that every shelf and available space in his home was filled with those model trains. I indeed visited them a couple of times and, being the grandson of a railroader and owner/operator of a Lionel set myself, I was quite awed by the variety and cool stuff on display. In fact, his daughter once visited another friend's home, and she was utterly mystified as she looked around, asking "but where are the trains?"
Now there is surely a fine line between obsession and dedication in a collector's spirit, and this particular fellow became quite successful in real estate, so that he was able to open up a storefront in a very busy area of town and dedicate the space as his "private museum". By that time he had branched out into collecting automobiles, yes full-size ones, typewriters, purses (his wife liked those), phonographs and all sorts of other amazing, mostly mechanical, wonders. He took over for the local model train shop just down the way. So anyone in the market for a train set can also linger for a gander at his comprehensive museum setup.
So I am unsure if his obsession presented any sort of disability; he certainly ran a business, had a good wife and children (who also ran businesses), and he was eventually able to parlay this collection into something quite public, if only a breaking-even "vanity project" where his friends dropped by.
So, like, I would never discourage someone from cultivating a cool collection of stuff at home if there's a chance it turns into something like that. But just piling on ugly radioactive waste in your bedroom? I'm not sure that's a sane decision. I'm not sure that's something I would pay to see, or even come over for lunch. I would nod, smile, and call some hotline on the guy, myself.
> just piling on ugly radioactive waste in your bedroom
This is an egregious mischaracterization which detracts from your otherwise excellent comment. Lidden was working on collecting the periodic table in decorative display cases.[1] I don’t get the point of coin collections either, but that doesn’t mean I would describe one as a “grubby heap of heavy metals.”
[1] https://www.luciteria.com/element-cubes/plutonium-for-sale
kids need to learn science and some basic market economy. if they do that, they won't be stupid enough trying to collect the "entire periodic table". with Fr priced at like $100m AUD per gram, how would some dude living in his parents' apartment going to afford that? some primary school knowledge would be enough to teach him that gold is actually one of those pretty affordable elements to collect when compared to all sorts of those stupidly expensive & rare ones.
> with Fr priced at like $100m AUD per gram, how would some dude living in his parents' apartment going to afford that?
You buy a rock that produces Francium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francium: “its most stable isotope, francium-223 (originally called actinium K after the natural decay chain in which it appears), has a half-life of only 22 minutes.”, so buying Francium itself is not a good idea.
Also (same Wikipedia page) “In a given sample of uranium, there is estimated to be only one francium atom for every 1 × 10¹⁸ uranium atoms. Only about 1 ounce (28 g) of francium is present naturally in the earth's crust.”, so you wouldn’t have a gram of it, by a very, very long stretch.