5 ms·

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 meteorolog

by en 10y ago

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_170214%20_I131_Europe_Radioactivite.pdf http://www.criirad.org/balises/CRIIRAD_170214%20_I131_Europe... [1] http://www.criirad.org/english/presentation.html http://www.criirad.org/english/presentation.html

Haldir 10y ago
Are you certain you have your scaling factor correct? Your Link and also https://www.bfs.de/DE/themen/ion/umwelt/luft-boden/spurenmessungen/spurenmessungen.html 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.
- en 10y ago
  9 mBq/m3 mesured for Fukushima (France, Valence). IRSN reports 1.5 µBq/m3 (gaseous + particulate fractions) or 0.31 µBq/m3 (particulate) for this event.
  - Haldir 10y ago
    Ah ok, Thanks for the clarification
- manarth 10y ago
  The '10,000 times' is a quote from the CRIIRAD PDF: "It detected the fallout from Fukushima which was about 10,000 times higher than those measured in January 2017 on France." Il a permis de détecter les retombées de Fukushima qui étaient environ 10000 fois supérieures à celles mesurées en janvier 2017 sur la France.
- rodionos 10y ago
  > 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.
sneak 10y ago
Maybe unimportant from a health standpoint. I'm not worried at all for safety but I sure as hell want to know the root cause. It is extremely anomalous.
- moogly 10y ago
  Same thing happened in 2015.
  - chinathrow 10y ago
    Same thing with or without known cause?
    - kylegordon 10y ago
      "The area concerned, which extended from Poland to Lithuania and across the whole of Scandinavia, indicated a distant source, in all likelihood somewhere in Russia" http://www.irsn.fr/EN/publications/thematic-radiation-protection/Pages/Ring-of-Five-the-European-network-of-experts.aspx http://www.irsn.fr/EN/publications/thematic-radiation-protec...
Keyframe 10y ago
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.
- Natsu 10y ago
  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.
  - aruggirello 10y ago
    The (much higher) concentration detected in Poland, IMHO definitely points east. The readings in Spain are baffling, though.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - neom 10y ago
      Spain might indicate that it happened in the water/sea off the coast?
aftbit 10y ago
Do you have any more info about the authorized iodine-131 releases? Was there a single underlying event?
- en 10y ago
  Many installations in Europe and neighboring countries are allowed to reject iodine-131 in the air. From Nuclear power plants (nuclear power stations, nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, etc.) to medical field (isotope reactors, nuclear medicine, waste incinerators, etc.). source : http://www.criirad.org/balises/CRIIRAD_170214%20_I131_Europe_Radioactivite.pdf http://www.criirad.org/balises/CRIIRAD_170214%20_I131_Europe... (french)
  - datenwolf 10y ago
    > Many installations in Europe and neighboring countries are allowed to reject iodine-131 in the air. Given the very short half-life of 131I being just 8 days and the daughter isotope 131Xe being stable this is a really weird policy. There's no good reason to force nuclear installations to keep 131I in storage for, say, 80 days to dilute its activity down to 0.1%. Heck there's no good reason to release it it all. The decay product is a noble gas, so you even get the separation chemistry for free. Iodine is a halogen so just let it react with some alkaline (pass it through some caustic solution) upon which is forms ionic bonds and turns into saline solution. As soon as the 131I decays into 131Xe it will recombine with an electron and gas out.
    - VLM 10y ago
      The term to google for is "Avogadro’s number" A mole of some chemical is a cardinal number and its a gross simplification but a "handful of stuff" has about ten to the twenty forth molecules or atoms. All to less than one sig fig. The exact number doesn't matter because enough half lives to dilute that much stuff to being statistically unlikely to contain less than 1 molecule is very large indeed. So at some point, where the radioactive activity is lower than say, a banana, or the ore it was dug out of, or a granite countertop, you just dump it. It takes a lot of half lives to take a banana down to zero radioactivity... Probably the accident is somebody dumped the wrong bucket. You're supposed to dump bucket #32525 which has been aging for 100 half lives but accidentally bucket #64256 got dumped which was fresh. Or they reused buckets and markings (whoops there's two buckets labeled #15415)

by en 10y ago

Haldir 10y ago

Are you certain you have your scaling factor correct? Your Link and also https://www.bfs.de/DE/themen/ion/umwelt/luft-boden/spurenmessungen/spurenmessungen.html 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.

en 10y ago
9 mBq/m3 mesured for Fukushima (France, Valence). IRSN reports 1.5 µBq/m3 (gaseous + particulate fractions) or 0.31 µBq/m3 (particulate) for this event.
- Haldir 10y ago
  Ah ok, Thanks for the clarification
manarth 10y ago
The '10,000 times' is a quote from the CRIIRAD PDF: "It detected the fallout from Fukushima which was about 10,000 times higher than those measured in January 2017 on France." Il a permis de détecter les retombées de Fukushima qui étaient environ 10000 fois supérieures à celles mesurées en janvier 2017 sur la France.
rodionos 10y ago
> 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.

sneak 10y ago

Maybe unimportant from a health standpoint. I'm not worried at all for safety but I sure as hell want to know the root cause. It is extremely anomalous.

moogly 10y ago
Same thing happened in 2015.
- chinathrow 10y ago
  Same thing with or without known cause?
  - kylegordon 10y ago
    "The area concerned, which extended from Poland to Lithuania and across the whole of Scandinavia, indicated a distant source, in all likelihood somewhere in Russia" http://www.irsn.fr/EN/publications/thematic-radiation-protection/Pages/Ring-of-Five-the-European-network-of-experts.aspx http://www.irsn.fr/EN/publications/thematic-radiation-protec...

Keyframe 10y ago

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.

Natsu 10y ago
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.
- aruggirello 10y ago
  The (much higher) concentration detected in Poland, IMHO definitely points east. The readings in Spain are baffling, though.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - neom 10y ago
    Spain might indicate that it happened in the water/sea off the coast?

aftbit 10y ago

Do you have any more info about the authorized iodine-131 releases? Was there a single underlying event?

en 10y ago
Many installations in Europe and neighboring countries are allowed to reject iodine-131 in the air. From Nuclear power plants (nuclear power stations, nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, etc.) to medical field (isotope reactors, nuclear medicine, waste incinerators, etc.). source : http://www.criirad.org/balises/CRIIRAD_170214%20_I131_Europe_Radioactivite.pdf http://www.criirad.org/balises/CRIIRAD_170214%20_I131_Europe... (french)
- datenwolf 10y ago
  > Many installations in Europe and neighboring countries are allowed to reject iodine-131 in the air. Given the very short half-life of 131I being just 8 days and the daughter isotope 131Xe being stable this is a really weird policy. There's no good reason to force nuclear installations to keep 131I in storage for, say, 80 days to dilute its activity down to 0.1%. Heck there's no good reason to release it it all. The decay product is a noble gas, so you even get the separation chemistry for free. Iodine is a halogen so just let it react with some alkaline (pass it through some caustic solution) upon which is forms ionic bonds and turns into saline solution. As soon as the 131I decays into 131Xe it will recombine with an electron and gas out.
  - VLM 10y ago
    The term to google for is "Avogadro’s number" A mole of some chemical is a cardinal number and its a gross simplification but a "handful of stuff" has about ten to the twenty forth molecules or atoms. All to less than one sig fig. The exact number doesn't matter because enough half lives to dilute that much stuff to being statistically unlikely to contain less than 1 molecule is very large indeed. So at some point, where the radioactive activity is lower than say, a banana, or the ore it was dug out of, or a granite countertop, you just dump it. It takes a lot of half lives to take a banana down to zero radioactivity... Probably the accident is somebody dumped the wrong bucket. You're supposed to dump bucket #32525 which has been aging for 100 half lives but accidentally bucket #64256 got dumped which was fresh. Or they reused buckets and markings (whoops there's two buckets labeled #15415)