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Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

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Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#61

Post by tguvot »

mepian wrote: post #29
shagie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking for some pre 2020 content about Russia and Chernobyl... https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nunn-lugar-russia-pr... > Documents from the highest levels of the Soviet Union, including notes, protocols and diaries of Politburo sessions in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, detail a sequence of cover-up, revelation, shock, mobilization, individual bravery, and bureaucratic tur…

As someone born in Russia, I can assure you that since the 1980s everyone in Russia became well aware of Chernobyl. In my oblast there were furious protests against the construction of a nuclear power plant, and Chernobyl was likely their main cause. My parents told me some horror stories about the cleanup crew of Chernobyl when I was a kid.

as somebody who born in russia you can't represent everybodies in russia knowledge. in case you don't watch them, go watch some of zolkin videos where he asks russian solders questions about history and ukraine. very enlightening

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#63

Post by dralley »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #49
ethbr1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's mostly alpha radiation left which is dangerous only if radioactive particles are inhaled. As someone who's dug a few ditches in my day, I'll testify that dry dirt is pretty easy to inhale.

He is right, that part of the exclusion zone is relatively harmless. Greenpeace has the coordinates in their report, if i am not too far off people still eat mushrooms from such conditions. The story here seems to be tanks driving off the roads, not the digging at the camp site.

I recall seeing a heatmap of residual radiation levels produced in (I think?) 2015 and the reported location of the trenches was very close to the hottest part of it.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#64

Post by defrost »

mannykannot wrote: post #59
defrost wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the reported patterns of the spikes (just a few widely seperated sensors having their stored aggregated data routinely being corrupted at similar times of day) there's another highly probable cause. Brittle software and data management. According to the linked third party piece and the Wired reporting things are going wrong at the first aggregate server that collates all the sensor data. The first port of…

Any such investigation would also want to look for an upgrade or reconfiguration at the time of the invasion, to explain the prior absence of the phenomena. Some sort of reconfiguration to work around problems caused by the invasion, maybe?

No shortage of suspects - see the linked article - gear was ripped out by the Russians left right and centre, very likely data routes | repeaters have been cut | bombed | replaced.

Even with a distributed network of sensors largely remaining untouched there's still been sufficient kicking of the system to make "supposedly robust" data pipelines fail in interesting ways.

On the central aggregate server there's a good chance some well written never failed script is encountering a never before experienced failure mode on one or two checks, causing a cascading issue that spills the coffee at 11:11 pm every third day.

Heiseinbugs are the worst.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#65

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

YeBanKo wrote: post #58
LeonB wrote: post #56

If Ukrainian people (whether state sanctioned or independent) manipulated the sensors to amplify concern about Russia’s invasion —- it would not be remarkable. Deception, misdirection, sabotage, these are all crucial elements in every war.

Agreed, but if would also be self-sabotaging. Their emergency services are stretched thin. And the population does not believe that the government can deal with a nuclear threat. It can cause a panic among population, within and outside of Ukraine and the sentiment might be hard to control.

Obviously we are not privy to all relevant information, personalities, bureaucracies, etc etc, to be able to make such a strong claim as “would also be self-sabotaging”.

A more reasonable claim, may I offer, would be something like “that may turn out to be…”

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#66

Post by mcpackieh »

jncfhnb wrote: post #2

> The IAEA sent experts to do a radiological survey in the CEZ in April, but their focus wasn’t on determining the cause of the spikes. Investigators instead wanted to determine if Russian soldiers who dug trenches in a small section of the CEZ had released dangerous levels of radiation in that area that could have sickened the soldiers or anyone else who passed through that area. (The IAEA determined the radiation l…

> "accused the IAEA of being untrustworthy because IAEA Deputy Director Mikhail Chudakov, a Russian, is a long-term official with ROSATOM, Russia’s state atomic corporation.)"

Fair enough, such a team might be biased..

> "Three months later, the Ukrainian government invited Greenpeace to conduct its own radiological survey"

Lmfao, of all the organizations they could have called on, they picked Greenpeace? Anything Greenpeace says about anything nuclear can safety be assumed a lie until proven otherwise. They have negative credibility.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#67

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

myth_drannon wrote: post #53
newsclues wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of the Russian soldiers come from regions without widespread indoor plumbing, to put some perspective to how backward and disconnected some people are.

Don't see how a country's infrastructure issues are related to people backwardeness. The same people who use outhouses probably also have smartphones. It's like saying people who live in remote Canadian villages without road access are backward.

Russia doesn’t work like that.

The level of brainwashing and propaganda in the terrorist state of russia is truly staggering.

Owning a smartphone isn’t a magical key to free access of objective truth, and even if it was, it certainly doesn’t intrinsically provide motivation for average babushka to go and seek information that contradicts the narrative that they themselves need to believe to continue to have a sense of identity.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#68

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

dylan604 wrote: post #43
sbierwagen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around the time the Shuttle program was ending, I made a casual reference to Soyuz to a Russian national. "Huh? «Union?»" No man. Soyuz, the space rocket. Literally the only way to get to the ISS right now. Your country's manned space program. That Soyuz? "If you say so." Amazing they even kept it going! We've over here twisting ourselves in knots in embarrassment that we let our only spaceflight system sunset and ar…

Would they know who Yuri Gagarin was? I would assume they would teach that a Russian was the first person in space while at the same time ignoring embarrassing things like Chernobyl in the classes. Just like I'd assume that they teach defeating Hitler, but ignoring the things Stalin did.

Yes, they definitely know who Gagarin was, but that’s because that knowledge is a useful tool to further entrench a deep sense of chauvinism in russia.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#69

Post by mcpackieh »

ethbr1 wrote: post #44
cedws wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story of Russians digging holes and getting radiation poisoning was propaganda, just like Ghost of Kiev. The levels of radiation in the soil are not high enough to cause radiation poisoning, except for very few hotspots that they'd have to go looking for. It's mostly alpha radiation left which is dangerous only if radioactive particles are inhaled. I'm more inclined to believe the IAEA. Also, >They concluded that…

> It's mostly alpha radiation left which is dangerous only if radioactive particles are inhaled. As someone who's dug a few ditches in my day, I'll testify that dry dirt is pretty easy to inhale.

Exactly. Dig a ditch and tell me you don't taste and smell dirt. Even in wet soil, you can't dig a ditch without ingesting some of it.

Maybe not enough to hurt you, but that depends entirely on how spicy it is.

Re: Radiation Spikes at Chernobyl

#70

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

Retric wrote: post #50
cedws wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story of Russians digging holes and getting radiation poisoning was propaganda, just like Ghost of Kiev. The levels of radiation in the soil are not high enough to cause radiation poisoning, except for very few hotspots that they'd have to go looking for. It's mostly alpha radiation left which is dangerous only if radioactive particles are inhaled. I'm more inclined to believe the IAEA. Also, >They concluded that…

Ehh, that’s mostly a semantic argument. People without acute radiation syndrome / radiation poisoning can still face significant long term health effects. So yea nobody’s hair was falling out, but they still had sufficient radiation exposure to have long term impacts. However, these are also soldiers in a war. Their risks of being shot or bombed etc drastically outweigh the risks from radiation here.

There’s no semantics about it.

Radiation exposure isn’t binary.

We’d have to know the type, intensity, and duration to make predictions about any possible expected adverse health outcomes.

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