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Has There Been a Nuclear Incident in the Arctic?
- bootload 10y agoupdate on this article ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676570
- tradersam 10y agoSomewhat related, the WC-135 Constant Phoenix is one cool looking plane.
- stuckagain 10y agoIt's a Boeing 707, essentially.
- dingaling 10y agoOnly in general shape. Dimensions, internal systems and even the type and gauge of aluminium were different between the C-135 and 707; Boeing had to go back to the drawing board when Douglas started cutting metal on the DC-8, and the redesign process for the 707 led to a cascade of changes. About 20% of systems and components were common ( such as the cockpit windows ).
- notatoad 10y agothe shape is probably what's being discussed when the parent says it's "a really cool looking plane" though.
- throwanem 10y agoThe epitome of Jet Age style. I don't much care for John Travolta as an actor or a celebrity, but I have no other choice than to admit the man has a refined taste in aircraft. (I'd probably go for one of the larger Gulfstreams, myself, in a world line where choosing which jet aircraft to buy myself were a problem I had - I have just enough hands-on flying experience to really, really want to know how something that size, with that powerplant, would handle. But if I expected a need to carry more than a half dozen or so passengers, I'd go for a 707, too.)
- Animats 10y agoThat's because it's mostly wing. It dates from the Dash-80 era of slim, pure jets and low-bypass engines. Today's high-bypass engines are big shrouded fans with a jet engine at the center to spin them. Fuel economy is much better, but the engines look bloated.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> pure jets and low-bypass engines Any reason a low-bypass engine might be preferred for an atmospheric-sensing platform like this one?
- 0xffff2 10y agoIt's just a function of when the aircraft was designed. The WC-135 aircraft are modified C-135s produced in the 60's. The C-135 was designed in the mid-50's. At the time, high-bypass engines simply didn't exist yet.
- mikeash 10y agoA rare example where the answer to the headline's questions is not "no," although neither is it "yes."
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rchowe 10y agoMy thoughts too. And in this case, phrasing it as a question is more honest than saying "there may have been a nuclear incident in the Arctic", since the statement would still likely cause some panic.
- drharby 10y agoWOW I'm impressed. I literally never open headlines with rhetorical questions because the rule of thumb for media headlines is that the answer is always 'no'
- aisofteng 10y agoThat principle is encoded as Betteridge's Law of Headlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
- tomxor 10y agoWatchout, this site is a disgrace... maxes out my CPU, it's just text for fuck sake what are they doing bitcoin mining in javascript?
- tomxor 10y agoTracked it down to a fucking "typingAnimationFrame" function, woot... lets melt peoples computers because we can't write efficient basic animations.
- hyperdunc 10y agoMaybe the site developer isn't very good. Why don't you send them an email telling them how they can fix it?
- qeternity 10y agoIt's one thing to be inexperienced. It's entirely another to be this incompetent.
- lgessler 10y agoWhere is the line to be drawn? Should the line remain there for everyone even if people vary in endowment in natural ability, opportunity for experience, and access to education?
- synicalx 10y agoThe line is drawn when you make a site, test it, notice that it runs like a pig, and then think to yourself "You know what, this is fine". There's an obvious difference between an honest mistake and just plain incompetence with a dash of lazy. I'm all for equal opportunities and whatever, but when the bar gets set too low then we all suffer.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoAre you any less incompetent if your genetics don't allow you to be competent? Why would the line move if people vary in endowment in natural ability?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- exabrial 10y agoI do have to complement the authors of this article. It presents the facts and leaves out political rhetoric and noise. I'm pleased with the title too; if the article were featured on a mainstream news site in the USA, it would have declared it as a definitive event and give a list of what products to buy from their advertisers.
- hermitdev 10y ago> I do have to complement the authors of this article. Why? for blatantly lying and misrepresenting facts such as Trump was president when these "tests" took place? > It presents the facts and leaves out political rhetoric and noise. It does the exact opposite: it portends to lay out facts, but instead it lies about which president under which these "tests" occurred, so everything else they state is suspect.
- liquidise 10y agoDid i miss something? The only mention i can see to Trump in the piece is: > There has been some talk about even the US restarting its nuclear testing under President Trump, but this is largely speculation mixed with hyperbole.
- hermitdev 10y agoThat's fair, I may have over-reacted.
- cnnsucks 10y ago> Did i miss something? I guess; Trump is thrown out in the context of speculating about where this isotope is coming from, as if the US might be conducting surreptitious tests on behalf of a nuclear war mongering Trump. Timing is way off though; the first reports appeared before he had any authority. It's a gratuitous mention and overlooks the fact that Trump probably ordered the 135 to Europe to investigate, something for which the US deserves credit. But hey, indulging Trump Derangement Syndrome makes for better copy. Anyhow, the most likely source of lofted iodine-131 is a damaged power reactor. The proximity of the detections to Russia -- a nation with a long history of failing to report their nuclear incidents -- means it's not far fetched to suspect they've melted something down. Russia has an incredible legacy of nuclear facilities, most badly engineered and badly neglected and all very old. Sites like Kola (first gen VVER) and Bilibino (unique EGP-6 reactors) go for years without scrutiny by the outside world. Then there is the Russian nuclear navy and other nuclear assets, such as nuclear ice breakers, some of which have had the barnacles knocked off and been redeployed on behalf of Putin's desire to rattle rusty old Soviet sabers. Who knows. Unless it gets worse and somebody fesses up we may never know. The world didn't know about Kyshtym for three decades.
- hermitdev 10y agoThe obvious political slant is obvious. > There has been some talk about even the US restarting its nuclear testing under President Trump, but this is largely speculation mixed with hyperbole. > The first detection of the isotope came during the second week of January, via an air sampling station located in Svanhovd. Both of the above quotes are from the article. Trump didn't assume office until 1/20/17. The THIRD week of January. If this was US testing of nuclear arms, it came under the direction & instruction of Obama, not Trump.
- exabrial 10y agoYes, but the article immediately acknowledges those are fringe theories: > A more likely possibility is that some sort of limited nuclear material storage, research, or power generation incident has occurred
- astrodust 10y agoWhat about a nuclear reactor incident on board a ship or submarine?
- alexeldeib 10y agoThe article mentions sunken Soviet nuclear submarines and reactor cores as possible contributors.
- astrodust 10y agoThat's why I'm wondering if that isn't the case. There's a lot of missing reactors out there, a scary number in fact. The Kursk reactor was recovered but there's bound to be a half dozen in that area that general area that are unaccounted for.
- toyg 10y agoTo be honest, I didn't detect any slant at all. There is basically no suggestion anywhere that the US might be involved in this, with all probabilities pointing to Russian involvement; that line about Trump seems added more to dismiss any US involvement than to point fingers.
- MR4D 10y agoDidn't a Russian ship catch fire some months ago and travel through the English Channel? Seems to me that if it affected the nuclear aspect of the ship, it could pollute the water, and also flow into some of the major rivers of Europe.
- blhack 10y agoI believe you are talking about this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/21/russian-carrier-plagued-by-technical-problems/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/21/russian-carrier-p... It's this ship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_aircraft_carrier_Admiral_Kuznetsov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_aircraft_carrier_Admir... Which is not nuclear.
- hydrogen18 10y agoHow would that work? Does the Atlantic ocean flow into the rivers of Europe?
- wallace_f 10y agoBarring yet-undiscovered, below-sea-level anti-gravity rivers, perhaps through wildlife migration?
- lostlogin 10y agoMost river deltas are hugely tidal, with salt water travelling a long way inland up some.
- MR4D 10y agoClearly I blanked on my geology. :) Thanks for all the humorous replies. :)
- sangnoir 10y agoIodine-131 has a half-life of only 8 days: the incident is much more recent than "months ago"
- advisedwang 10y agoThe discussion of waste and derelict reactors should probably be ignored given the earlier statement that the presence of I-131 means fission took place in the last few days. As the article states, nuclear explosions are unlikely as we would be hearing about seismic measurements too like in the case of N. Korean detonations. My bet is on a small accident on a nuclear vessel or another small reactor around Europe (e.g. university research reactors).
- wallace_f 10y agoAsking for clarification: could the nuclear reactors of atomic submarines carrying nuclear warheads not conceivably release I-131?
- ctrlrsf 10y agoNuclear reactor on the sub, yes. Nuclear warhead, no, unless there was a detonation.
- cperciva 10y agoYou could get I-131 from a warhead fizzling. I don't know exactly how weak a fizzle it would need to be in order to escape seismic detection and whether that would be large enough to produce the measured amount of I-131 though.
- cocoablazing 10y agoIf a warhead fizzled, it would have destroyed the submarine carrying it, which would have detonated hundreds of tons of rocket fuel and the rest of the explosives on board. We would have known about the explosion the same way we did the Kursk.
- VLM 10y agoWhy does it have to fizzle aboard the sub? Whoops launched the nuclear torpedo instead of the training torpedo good thing the self destruct routine is an intentional near zero yield fizzle. My guess is the board and court martial would so classified we wouldn't hear about it for a century.
- dsfyu404ed 10y agoPretty good article. I'm betting on Russian scrap yard accident. I'm sure the CIA knows what's really up.
- patcheudor 10y agoIt's interesting the author mentioned the nuclear generators and whatnot used in lighthouses and for small portable power generation. Those use strontium-90 and other byproducts of nastier energetic fissions which if my amateur nuclear physics brain is functioning correctly don't produce iodine-131. Iodine-131 is a byproduct of uranium-235/238 decay & fission. Since practical fusion doesn't yet exist, iodine-131 can only come from more energetic reactions like U235/238 fission. It's hard to imagine Russia left fissionable uranium abandoned, even in the Arctic.
- xelxebar 10y agoKind of off topic, but mind sharing how you molded such an amateur nuclear physics brain?
- cperciva 10y agoI suspect he was being sarcastic. The fact that a 90 amu atom doesn't yield 131 amu atoms when it decays doesn't require you to know about anything beyond conservation of mass.
- patcheudor 10y agoIndeed.
- twic 10y agoThere are plenty of people whose nuclear physics isn't even up to that, so i think it was a reasonable question, even if the answer is "i paid attention in physics at high school and remembered it"!
- jonwachob91 10y agoThe US Navy has multiple study guides to help prepare future nukes for school. You won't find any classified material or functionalities of the US Fleet, but it does cover the introductory work. http://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/NNPTC/Power-School/StudyMaterial/ http://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/NNPTC/Power-School/StudyMate...
- prdonahue 10y agoCame here just to say if you're interested in this type of material, highly recommend following Tyler Rogoway. He was the heart and soul of Foxtrot Alpha before Thiel torpedoed Gawker.
- ebcode 10y ago> Even the US left its own portion of nuclear waste in the northern latitudes, such as the once secret reactor at Camp Century, in Greenland, although this is minuscule compared to what the Soviets left behind. The pro-US bias in this article is strong. It appears to be more of the same wardrum-beating, anti-Russian propaganda that took hold of the mainstream media towards the end of the US election. On one hand, Russia does appear to have adopted a more aggressive military stance, especially with regards to Crimea and The Ukraine. On the other hand, the present military stance of the US looks not unlike the full-tilt, batshit-crazy world domination plans of Germany during World War II. It appears obvious to me that our current US military leaders are not above conducting false-flag operations for the purpose of gaining public support for foreign aggression, and it would not surprise me if they were responsible for this release of Iodine-131. After all, they've done it before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Run https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Run
- nradov 10y agoGo back and read Tyler Rogoway's earlier articles. He has never beat the drum for war with Russia. Do you have specific evidence that anything he wrote is wrong?
- BEEdwards 10y agoOr you know, the USSR's collapse literally left a lot of nuclear material odd places. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/world/asia/a-secret-race-for-abandoned-nuclear-material.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/world/asia/a-secret-race-f... Not everything is a realpolitik double blind.
- hexane360 10y agoAnd also generally released a lot more radiation than the US: https://www.damninteresting.com/in-soviet-russia-lake-contaminates-you/ https://www.damninteresting.com/in-soviet-russia-lake-contam... (ignore the bad title)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bahularora 10y agoRecently a small blast occurred in Flamanville station in France. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-nuclear-power-plant-explosion-latest-injured-flamanville-la-manche-normandy-accident-fire-a7570876.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-nuclea...
- alexeckermann 10y ago> Authorities said there was "no nuclear risk" following the blast in Flamanville shortly before 10am local time (9am GMT) on Thursday. > Officials said the blast took place in the turbine hall and confirmed there was no radioactive leak.
- jbg_ 10y agoThe measurements were taken before this incident in France occurred.
- droopybuns 10y agoThis is the nuclear version of "who farted?"
- Findeton 10y agoCan it be Fukushima? From what I read there has been a recent incident in another reactor in Fukushima.
- arisAlexis 10y agoI read that particulate vs gaseous iodine can only come from detonation. can anybody comment on that?
- acd 10y agoThere is a lot of Nuclear waste left from the cold war. https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1995/9504/950406.PDF https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1995/9504/950406.PDF The US version of what can happen is documented in the movie Command and control. When a service engineer accidentally drops a wrench that rips up a fuel rift in a missile. http://www.commandandcontrolfilm.com/ http://www.commandandcontrolfilm.com/ We should cooperate in trade and peace as that is a better strategy for all according to game theory.
- dewiz 10y agoIt could also be that something came to air due to the continued melting of polar ice
- edem 10y agoSo what are the Russians planning in the Arctic? The article hints on it but does not explain it.
- keithpeter 10y agoProbably resource exploitation, trying to manage the nuclear waste and a bit of sabre rattling. http://www.geopoliticsnorth.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=153:russias-arctic-strategy-ambitions-and-constraints&catid=35&Itemid=103 http://www.geopoliticsnorth.org/index.php?option=com_content...
- dll 10y agoMany European countries share radiological monitoring data with each other, and this is made available to the public through the Joint Research Council: https://remon.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ https://remon.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ I'm not sure if it's possible to get historical data, but if so it could be interesting to have a look at data from January.
- puzzlingcaptcha 10y agoThere are also communities of hobbyists that track radioactivity with custom or home-brew stations. While less sophisticated in what they measure they can be an another point of reference. One of the oldest around is http://radioactiveathome.org/map/ http://radioactiveathome.org/map/ another is http://www.uradmonitor.com/ http://www.uradmonitor.com/
- jnsaff2 10y agoObligatory Omega Tau Podcast episode if you you want to understand how these things get measured and what kind of data is available. http://omegataupodcast.net/185-nuclear-test-monitoring-and-the-ctbt/ http://omegataupodcast.net/185-nuclear-test-monitoring-and-t...
- chris_overseas 10y agoI travelled on a (non-nuclear) icebreaker out from Murmansk back in 2012. On the way out to the open ocean we passed several moored nuclear powered icebreakers and other vessels in various states of decay[0]. It was both fascinating and disturbing to see - many of these had not yet been decommissioned and it seemed to me that they were huge disasters waiting to happen. In Murmansk itself there is a nuclear icebreaker (The Lenin) that has been decommissioned and converted into a museum where you can tour the vessel and see everything including the engine rooms and nuclear reactors. Despite it being decommissioned, I discovered some systems were clearly still functioning when I accidentally leaned on a random control panel and a bunch of lights lit up! Photos from the trip are here[1], with the first seven photos being taken of or onboard the Lenin. Note that one of the most powerful nuclear icebreakers in the world, The 50 Years of Victory, is available for tourists to travel to the North Pole[2] [0] http://www.redyeti.net/FranzJosefLand/content/bin/images/large/AH5A5916.jpg http://www.redyeti.net/FranzJosefLand/content/bin/images/lar... [1] http://www.redyeti.net/FranzJosefLand/index.html http://www.redyeti.net/FranzJosefLand/index.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Let_Pobedy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Let_Pobedy
- pratyushag2 10y agoThese are incredible pictures. What kind of camera did you use to click these?
- coldtea 10y ago>What kind of camera did you use to click these? This is an incredible comment. What keyboard did you use to write it? (Camera choice doesn't matter beyond certain ergonomics and certain capabilities (low noise, more room for cropping, shallow DOF, etc, a lot of which depend on the lens as well). Any $300+ DSLR can give you the exact same results, as can a lot of mirrorless with a speedy lens. And for most of the pictures shown, any modern compact or even smartphone will do just as well).
- Tepix 10y agoThe role of the camera is generally overrated, however there are certain characteristics that you only get with expensive full frame cameras such as the Canon EOS 5D Mark III he appears to be using: * very low noise * very shallow DOF * long bursts of rapid images * weather proofing (including cold) * improved dynamic range * high resolution (lets you crop the part you are interested in and retain good quality) There are also other improvements such as better autofocus. Which means, no a $300 camera will not be good enough for some of these shots. PS: I use a MFT camera myself and it's good enough for my needs.
- rodionos 10y agohttp://www.feerc.ru/RadiationMonitoring/ http://www.feerc.ru/RadiationMonitoring/ - gamma ray parameter shows all green at Feb-20 13:00 GMT.
- Tepix 10y agoWhat equipment does it take to take these kinds of detailed readings (iodine 131)? I've considered running a simple DIY geiger counter RadMon monitoring kit (https://sites.google.com/site/diygeigercounter/gk-radmon https://sites.google.com/site/diygeigercounter/gk-radmon ) however that would only give me CPM and µSv/h.
- cocoablazing 10y agoYou need a concentrating system and a spectroscopic radiation measurement system to produce a signal with sufficient SNR.
- cocoablazing 10y agoThis could also be leakage from peaceful isotopic production operations, which are and will be a persistent source of false positives for the global iodine detection system.
- jefe_ 10y agoReally shows the size and capability of U.S.A.F. when they have a plane and team they can casually deploy to what appears to be a highly specific situation. The article says the aircraft is specifically designed to use atmospheric data to determine cause and nature of nuclear incidents. Imagining the manpower and testing and everything that goes into designing and implementing a system like this, and then multiplying it by all of the other teams and special aircraft and systems at their disposal, it really is impressive. All done over a period of 70 years.
- ad-hominem 10y agoYeah, it's pretty badass. That being said, is it worth spending 60% of your whole nation's budget every year to have a military this badass? I am seriously asking. I feel like there is a better place to be spending that money.
- chiph 10y agoWith North Korea testing weapons rather frequently, it still has a mission even today.
- njharman 10y agoConsidering nuclear warfare has been there primary mission for 60+ years, I'm not impressed.
- captainlego 10y agoAnd the insane size of our military's budget...
- anovikov 10y agoI-131 can be only a consequence of recent nuclear reaction taking place. Sudden criticality and explosion of an old submaride won't produce enough of that - while will release whole lot of other isotopes, so no one would mention iodine. It can be little but a reactor meltdown or a nuclear explosion (while that must have seismic signature hard to not mention)
- mmaunder 10y agoCould be a satellite reentry. It's not unprecedented. In 1978, Soviet satellite Kosmos 954 crashed into the atmosphere and spread 50kg's of Uranium across western Canada. They only recovered 1% of the fuel. One of the pieces recovered was radioactive enough to kill a person in a few hours. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954
- westbywest 10y agoComment made in other threads is that this particular isotope of iodine is very short-lived (8 days) and a known product of uranium and plutonium fission. So, its source is assumed to be recent fission event, or medical radiotherapy generation. Any unrecovered material from defunct satellites probably no longer undergoing active fission.
- anovikov 10y agoThe quoted levels are unimaginably small! Almost invisible. I wonder how they manage to detect them. Just calculated that if whole of the Earth's atmosphere was filled with I-131 with maximum reported concentration (0.5E-6bq/m3), it would be an amount of iodine that is produced with a nuclear explosion of 0.00024kt, i.e. 240kg TNT equivalent. That is so small that it hardly qualifies as a nuclear explosion - more like 'critical assembly accident'. And YES, this could be explained by a disposed nuclear reactor of an old submarine suddenly going prompt critical and blowing up! In the split second when it explodes it could release that and even much larger amount of iodine. I just couldn't imagine that levels so low are detectable. It could be also an explosion on non-disposed, fresh nuclear reactor. That can explain lack of other detectable isotopes. And that is an event too small to produce a detectable seismic signature.
- julienchastang 10y agoOn the general subject of the Arctic, I would recommend the book Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez.
- mmaunder 10y agoMystery solved. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_European_iodine_mystery_solved_1711112.html http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_European_iodine_mystery...
- 205guy 10y agoThat's the incident from 2011, and the article has a clear dateline.
- lexsys 10y agoIodine-131 is used in cancer treatment so there may be a leak from pharmaceutical company. [0] The similar case was observed in 2011 when the some I-131 isotopes leaked from the laboratory in Budapest. [1] [0]: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nobody-is-sure-what-caused-a-mysterious-radiation-spike-across-europe https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nobody-is-sure-wh... [1]: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172312 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
- eldiablochetan 10y agoWhat's going on with the trace amounts of uranium across EU