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

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

#71

Post by mschoebel »

digimax wrote: post #67
mschoebel wrote: post #48

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?

Tab-delimited CSV with the raw-data:

https://geekregator.com/files/HackerNews-RawData2017.zip

The timestamps are in UTC+2. I keep the clock in the Geiger counter on daylight savings time. Too lazy to change it. :)

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

aruggirello wrote: post #64
Natsu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by pvaldes »

throwanem wrote: post #69
pvaldes wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thus, then you could be seen the remain survivor Iodine released from an earlier episode, that for some reason went unnoticed (or undisclosed) before.

You could expect to have 25% still at 16 days (I said expect because this is a game of probabilities still).

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

#74

Post by rodionos »

Haldir wrote: post #19
en wrote: post #5

The releases of January 2017 are 10,000 times lower than those observed (in France) following the Fukushima incident[0] CRIIRAD[1] believes that the meteorological conditions (and air pollution actually in Europe) and (legal) authorizations of iodine-131 releases by the industry are the cause of this event which could have passed unnoticed[0] It is an unimportant event. [0] http://www.criirad.org/balises/CRIIRAD_1702…

Are you certain you have your scaling factor correct? Your Link and also https://www.bfs.de/DE/themen/ion/umwelt/luft-boden/spurenmes... report ~50micro Becquerel/m3. Not sure how you calculated 10000 as the scaling factor.

> Die Grafik wird wöchentlich aktualisiert.

Unfortunately, the BfS charts are updated weekly... Do they publish latest readings in raw format somewhere? I couldn't find anything other than the delayed raster chart.

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

#75

Post by manarth »

codecamper wrote: post #70
manarth wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

  How about a shield UNDER Chernobyl?
They recognised the issue right away. Firstly, the bubbler pool was emptied of water (there was fear that if the core reached the water, it would cause a steam explosion). They started using liquid nitrogen to freeze the ground beneath the reactor, then scrapped that idea and filled the bubbler pool with concrete instead.

They started digging a tunnel in May 1986 [1] (7 days after the accident), with a void below the reactor. They planned to fit a heat-exchanger into the void. It's not clear whether it was ever installed, but the consensus is that if it was installed, it was never used, and the core didn't reach the void [2].

[1] https://wiseinternational.org/chernobyl-disaster

[2] http://knowledgeglue.com/amazing-un-seen-photos-chernobyl-di...

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

#76

Post by pvaldes »

chinathrow wrote: post #44
kkarp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a map of air pollution in Europe. http://www.zzit.pl/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Powietrze.jpg Poland is struggling right now because of huge smog. This makes me believe in this part of an article, which says that higher iodine detection might be caused by accumulation in smog.

That sounds somewhat reasonable for the high readings in Poland, but why in Spain?

Is even more interesting if we take in mind that just last week, Spanish government was talking about to extend the lifetime and reopen one of the oldest nuclear plants located not far away from where those high measures were taken.

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

#77

Post by throwanem »

pvaldes wrote: post #73
throwanem wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thus, then you could be seen the remain survivor Iodine released from an earlier episode, that for some reason went unnoticed (or undisclosed) before. You could expect to have 25% still at 16 days (I said expect because this is a game of probabilities still).

True, but if it's been detected at this level of activity, why wouldn't it have been detected before now at a higher level of activity than this? There are privately operated and often networked sensors all over Europe.

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

#78

Post by kpil »

pvaldes wrote: post #63
en wrote: 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?

Xenon, mostly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_iodine

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

#80

Post by headShrinker »

dragonwriter wrote: post #36
Keyframe wrote: post #3

Can this be related to explosion in French nuclear power plant a week or so ago?

Since this was measured in early January, it certainly can't be caused by an event more recent than that, absent a temporal anomaly that would be a bigger deal than the nuclear event.

> absent a temporal anomaly that would be a bigger deal than the nuclear event.

It's good we are considering all options... :)

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