Mystery Nuclear Incident Detected

[+OverSword]

Quote

Concerns about a potential, and so far unsubstantiated, nuclear “incident,” reportedly in the vicinity of the Arctic circle, spread in the past week after trace amounts of radioactive Iodine-131 of unknown origin were detected in January over large areas in Europe according to a report by the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, the French national public expert in nuclear and radiological risks. Since the isotope has a half-life of only eight days, the detection is an indication of a rather recent release. As the Barents Observer adds, “where the radioactivity is coming from is still a mystery.”

Link

Apparently one of the US military's Constant Phoenix planes, specializing in detecting and identifying nuclear explosions has been deployed to investigate.

[Nnicolette]

Blame cern

[ExpandMyMind]

The mutant apocalypse has begun!

[+OverSword]

already posted link

[Ashotep]

A leak from a pharmaceutical company makes the most sense to me.  Kind of hard to hide a nuclear test. 

[+OverSword]

1 minute ago, Ashotep said:

A leak from a pharmaceutical company makes the most sense to me.  Kind of hard to hide a nuclear test. 

The leak started in the arctic circle, are there pharmaceutical plants up there?

[+OverSword]

51 minutes ago, Nnicolette said:

Blame cern

nope, it was first detected in Norway, the collider is in Switzerland 

Edited February 21, 2017 by OverSword

[Ashotep]

1 minute ago, OverSword said:

The leak started in the arctic circle, are there pharmaceutical plants up there?

 

The op article says its impossible to say where its coming from.

[+OverSword]

Just now, Ashotep said:

 

The op article says its impossible to say where its coming from.

But we can probably be pretty sure that wherever that it's in the vicinity of where it was first detected, and regardless of what the article says until data from the constant phoenix is analyzed we don't know that they can't find the source.

[seeder]

6 minutes ago, Ashotep said:

A leak from a pharmaceutical company makes the most sense to me.  Kind of hard to hide a nuclear test. 

 

the sniffer plane will get a better result as to what it was. And Russia is a big place, an underground nuke test probably could go unnoticed for a while.. a test bomb doesnt have to be big like Hiroshima

[+OverSword]

1 minute ago, seeder said:

 

the sniffer plane will get a better result as to what it was. And Russia is a big place, an underground nuke test probably could go unnoticed for a while.. a test bomb doesnt have to be big like Hiroshima

I think it could possibly be a meltdown on a nuclear sub or something like that.

[rashore]

This was indeed already posted... Will do a thread merge.

[Ashotep]

9 minutes ago, OverSword said:

I think it could possibly be a meltdown on a nuclear sub or something like that.

Never thought about that one.  Looks like there would be a hot spot though.

[Ashotep]

13 minutes ago, seeder said:

 

the sniffer plane will get a better result as to what it was. And Russia is a big place, an underground nuke test probably could go unnoticed for a while.. a test bomb doesnt have to be big like Hiroshima

I hope so.  Don't like the thought of a unknown source of radiation being out there.

[DarkHunter]

This isn't from a nuclear explosion or a melt down from a nuclear reactor.  If it was from either of those other isotopes besides Iodine 131 would be detected, each of those would produce dozens of isotopes of various quantities.  Plus a nuclear bomb test, no matter the size, if done underground would be picked up my seismic monitors around the world.

The fact that it's just Iodine 131 and in small amounts it has to be from a medical facility that produces Iodine 131 for medical treatments.

[Parsec]

54 minutes ago, DarkHunter said:

This isn't from a nuclear explosion or a melt down from a nuclear reactor.  If it was from either of those other isotopes besides Iodine 131 would be detected, each of those would produce dozens of isotopes of various quantities.  Plus a nuclear bomb test, no matter the size, if done underground would be picked up my seismic monitors around the world.

The fact that it's just Iodine 131 and in small amounts it has to be from a medical facility that produces Iodine 131 for medical treatments.

Not that such a leak is more reassuring! 

[toast]

As per German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) a very low radiation has been measured but also said that such values are not unusual during wintertimes and during weather condition with low windspeeds. But anyway, source unknown.

[Mr.United_Nations]

There was an explosion at a french nuclear power plant in North Western franc early this month/ late Jan. Maybe connected to that?

[qxcontinuum]

the fact it started in Russia makes sense ...

[DarkHunter]

2 hours ago, Mr.United_Nations said:

There was an explosion at a french nuclear power plant in North Western franc early this month/ late Jan. Maybe connected to that?

It's not the French nuclear power plant.  First the explosion occured in the turbine area and not the reactor.  From what I understand of most current operating nuclear power plant is that they use atleast two separate water supplies for plant operations.  One closed water supply is circulated through the reactor and super heated to steam, then after being super heated they transfer the heat energy to the second closed water supply turning that to steam which then goes to the turbines to produce the power.  A nuclear power plant may have another system of water to cool both closed water systems but it isn't necessary since there is multiple ways to cool both water supplies.  Of course there is some energy loss with that setup but it tends to be safer.  Since the explosion occured from what I understand closer to if not exactly at the turbine then nothing radioactive would be released, especially since the turbine and reactor are separated by a decent distance and multiple reinforced walls.

Second the fact that only Iodine 131 was detected completely outrules anything other then medical production.  Anything from another nuclear source, like a reactor or bomb blast, will produces atleast a dozen different isotopes all in different quantities and with half lives both much shorter and significantly longer then iodine 131.  If it was from a reactor then strontium and caesium isotopes, among many other isotopes, should of also been detected.

Lastly the low amounts rule out anything on a large scale.  It's important to mention that a explosion or melt down at a reactor that releases radioactive material into the atmosphere, which will be a challenge to do, is going to release an insanely high amount of radioactive material.  For example the exclusion zone for Chernobyl is about 1004 square miles in size.  A nuclear bomb, assuming it's not a dirty/radiation bomb or a neutron bomb, will produce significantly less radiation cause there is far less radioactive material in a nuclear bomb and they are designed to produce little radiation cause in general the more radiation produced the less powerful the blast will be for a given nuclear weapon size, but even then they still produce a decent amount of short lived radioactive isotopes.  It is also important to mention that we are extremely good at detecting radiation and are able to detect extremely low increases in background radiation and the amount detected was while noticable also extremely small.

[Scorpius]

There have been hundreds of nuclear testing over the century.  You only need to do a bit more searching to realize who has done it.  The United States has done hundreds of tests, just like some other countries.  You only need to figure out how long the exposure and exactly where the fallout will occur and spread.  The world is not that big and there are major countries around the world who has done nuclear testing. By analyzing previous nuclear disasters and tests then one will only realize how dangerous any nuclear explosion can be.  The only explosion that would prove to be 0% fatal would be any explosion that takes place far from earth.  It's a matter of the butterfly effect and a nuclear bomb is pretty catastrophic than compared to a butterfly.

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/nuclear-tests/
2. https://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/the-effects-of-nuclear-testing/general-overview-of-theeffects-of-nuclear-testing/
3. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/watch-every-nuclear-bomb-ever-explode-on-this-interactive-map_us_55dcd470e4b08cd3359db602
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine-131

Edited February 22, 2017 by Scorpius

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

10 hours ago, Nnicolette said:

Blame cern

Not unless there is radioactive dragons involved.

[glorybebe]

15 minutes ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

Not unless there is radioactive dragons involved.

lol.  

[Duke Wellington]

13 hours ago, seeder said:

 

the sniffer plane will get a better result as to what it was. And Russia is a big place, an underground nuke test probably could go unnoticed for a while.. a test bomb doesnt have to be big like Hiroshima

It isn't a nuke or a meltdown. While those do release radioactive iodine there would be other isotopes present and detected. I suspect a spillage from shipping that runs between Russia and Europe.

[aztek]

ussr have used small nukes more than once. to stop oil spill from damaged wells under water. not unreasonable to assume rusia is doing same thing. 

if we nuked gulf of mexico spill, it would be stopped a lot faster, i'm not sure what would do more damage, small nuke, or millions of barrels of oil in the water, along with chemicals they used to brake it up