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Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

irsn.fr

61–70 of 95 posts

Re: Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

#61

Probably related to this recent incident http://nypost.com/2017/02/09/explosion-rocks-nuclear-power-p...

Your guess doesn't match this incident declared nature nor the concentrations peak. Thus probably not the root cause.

Re: Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of total curiosity what does your setup look like? Do you have a mode # of what you use? Never read anything about this before. Thanks.

Not sure about Op's setup, but an easy one to get into is uRad[1]. Along with logging it'll share it around the globe for finding any kind of event like this. Though I'm not sure that they've got any kind of statistical analysis going on. http://www.uradmonitor.com/

How expensive are those sensors?

Re: Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

#63
post #60

Probably related to this recent incident http://nypost.com/2017/02/09/explosion-rocks-nuclear-power-p...

As someone said below, this incident took place 2 weeks ago in a non-nuclear part. And half-life of iodine-131 is 8 days.

What happens with the other half?

Re: Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

#64
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might not be an important event concerning public health. It is extremely important if there was an accident or anything more serious we haven't been notified about.

It's good that the equipment is so sensitive that we can detect this sort of thing. I suspect they'll take maps of the readings and eventually trace it back to the source.

The (much higher) concentration detected in Poland, IMHO definitely points east. The readings in Spain are baffling, though.

Re: Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

#65
post #54
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ISRN appears to be a French government agency. They are claiming to have detected non-natural levels of radioactive iodine across Europe. The implication is that someone, somewhere had a nuclear accident and did not report it.

There was a recent incident in late Jan - explosion at nuclear power plant Flamanville in France: https://www.wsj.com/articles/explosion-at-edf-nuclear-power-...

This incident was not located in a nuclear area and it hasn't been classified as a nuclear incident. Can't be responsible for iodine emission in the atmosphere.

Re: Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

#66

I'm in Germany and I have a Geiger counter running 24/7. I just looked at the data for January and February and the only thing that I notice is a VERY slightly higher reading on February 4th with 0.1727 microSievert/hour. Average for January was 0.1674, lowest was 0.1631, highest was 0.1703. So February 4th was less than 6% higher than the lowest value from January. The difference was so small that I had just attribu…

Out of total curiosity what does your setup look like? Do you have a mode # of what you use? Never read anything about this before. Thanks.

I have the GammaScout Alert: https://www.gamma-scout.com/EN/Home.php

It stores the data in its internal memory which I then transfer via its USB port to my computer once a week.

Re: Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

#67

I'm in Germany and I have a Geiger counter running 24/7. I just looked at the data for January and February and the only thing that I notice is a VERY slightly higher reading on February 4th with 0.1727 microSievert/hour. Average for January was 0.1674, lowest was 0.1631, highest was 0.1703. So February 4th was less than 6% higher than the lowest value from January. The difference was so small that I had just attribu…

Could it be related to the accident in France? The date fits.

https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Flamanville-Unfall-im-Fiask...

http://www.fr-online.de/politik/unfall-explosion-in-akw-in-f...

Could you pleae provide the CSV file?

Re: Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

#68
post #63
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone said below, this incident took place 2 weeks ago in a non-nuclear part. And half-life of iodine-131 is 8 days.

What happens with the other half?

::the noise one's head makes when hitting the desk::

Re: Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

#69
post #63
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone said below, this incident took place 2 weeks ago in a non-nuclear part. And half-life of iodine-131 is 8 days.

What happens with the other half?

It continues to decay; the active fraction is the reciprocal of 2^n in the number of elapsed half-lives.

Re: Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017

#70
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a non zero risk from that dose? I don't know how to apply that result to an individual, but it would seem a likely big extrapolation on the linear no threshhold model. When was the shield moved over Chernobyl, could that have stirred things up?

When was the shield moved over Chernobyl? November 2016, although the side walls won't be up until August this year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement

How about a shield UNDER Chernobyl? Isn't the core still unstable & prone to heat-up / meltdown still?
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