Mysterious radiation spreading across Europe after authorities keep it secret - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14778695
The Independent wrote:Mysterious radioactive spikes are being found across Europe – and nobody quite knows why.

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Iodine-131, a man-made radioactive material, is being found in small amounts across the continent. It was found in northern Norway early in January, according to officials, but has been gradually moving across the rest of Europe ever since.

But despite finding the material in January, authorities didn’t announce that it had been found until recent days. That might be because it isn't at all clear where it has come from or how it got to be spread out.

Further information makes the find even more unusual. Iodine-131 is usually found alongside other radioactive materials, but it wasn't. And it has a short half-life – the time required for one half of the atoms of a radioactive substance to disintegrate – but a significant amount of it was found, meaning that it is likely that it was introduced very recently.

It isn't clear where Iodine-131 would ever have been released from. The US has deployed specialised planes to fly over Europe and isolate it – but have mostly failed.

Conspiracy theorists have pointed to the fact that the spread appeared emanate from northern Norway, where Russia may have run a secret nuclear test. Iodine-131 is perhaps most closely associated with atomic bombs, and was found throughout the world after those were tested, as well as after accidents at the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plants.

But it is also being used to treat some cancers and other illnesses. The fact that the material was found on its own likely suggests that it had been isolated, and so makes it more likely that the leak came from a pharmaceutical company that hasn't reported it to authorities.

It's not possible to say where exactly those leaks would have come from, either. Changing winds mean that it isn't possible to isolate the source, apart from a suggestion that it is likely it was released somewhere near eastern Europe.

There is no imminent threat from the amount of material that is currently being found in Europe, according to the French IRSN, or nuclear security body. The IRSN said that it had shared the findings with the “Ring of Five” – a group of similar bodies across Europe – so that they can be further investigated.

The Independent
#14778730
Stormsmith wrote:Well, that's scary weird.


This is how the effects of the Chernobyl disaster were first discovered in Western Europe.

The alarm sounded at Forsmark, Sweden's second largest nuclear power plant, when one of the employees passed one of the radiation monitors on his way back from the restroom. When it showed high levels of radiation coming from his shoes, staff at first worried an accident had taken place at the power plant. However, a thorough scan discovered that the real source of the radiation was some 1,100 kilometres away in the Ukrainian town of Chernobyl.

The early detection by the Forsmark plant, one hour north of Stockholm, played a crucial role in forcing Soviet authorities to open up about the disaster that happened in Chernobyl in April 1986.


When the alarm sounded at Forsmark early in the morning of 28 April 1986, it was not immediately clear where the radioactive materials had been released despite staff scanning all the radiation detection instruments.

“We found nothing,” said Claes-Göran Runermark, who was the operation manager in charge at the time. “We went over all the radiation detection systems over and over again, and there was nothing from Forsmark.”

Despite the alarm, Forsmark employees did not panic. “I would say that we were quite calm during the day,” said Mr Runermark. After an analysis, they could identify the radioactive particles that they found in the grass as specific to the Soviet nuclear power plants. Also, during the weekend the wind had blown from the south-east and it had rained in the north-eastern parts of Sweden, depositing radioactive fall-out on the ground in that area. All the evidence was pointing towards one of the nuclear power plants in the Soviet Union. And late that evening, two days after the disaster, the Soviet Union declared that there had been an accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine, a republic of the Soviet Union at that time.

“Thanks to our early detection we could inform the Swedish authorities at an early stage, who then told the world about the radioactive pollution coming from the disaster in the Soviet Union,” said Mr Runermark.

Today, most harmful materials have decayed. But some harmful materials, such as Caesium and Plutonium, will remain in the environment over a longer period of hundreds, even thousands, of years, though at lower levels.

The Chernobyl disaster showed that pollution has no borders. In order to better protect human health and the environment, the EU takes a leading role to develop policies and international agreements to mitigate the threat of environmental catastrophes spreading, such as the one in Chernobyl.

The EU is, for example, working on creating a better environment through the European Centre for Pollution Research and on setting and enforcing environmental standards. Also the Institute for European Environmental Policy is working to produce better regulation on environmental issues.

In March 2014, the European Parliament backed a proposed update of EU law to make environmental impact assessments clearer and ensure they take account of biodiversity and climate change and involve the public.The Environmental Impact Assessment Directive sets out criteria for the information that must be submitted to national authorities for a project to be assessed for approval. In 2005-2008, the average number of environmental impact assessments carried out in the EU ranged from 15,000 to 26,000 per year.


http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/n ... l-disaster
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#14778770
I read opinion it was most likely Ukrainian reactor. Iodine-131 half life is just 8 days, so it is gone by now. Ukrainian reactors are on the limit of their life, the country bankrupt, no money to build new ones, so Ukraine will most likely keep them running until the next major disaster. Ukraine is also reportedly not using Russian fuel rods but American, but reactors were built for Russian.
#14778796
fokker wrote:I read opinion it was most likely Ukrainian reactor. Iodine-131 half life is just 8 days, so it is gone by now. Ukrainian reactors are on the limit of their life, the country bankrupt, no money to build new ones, so Ukraine will most likely keep them running until the next major disaster. Ukraine is also reportedly not using Russian fuel rods but American, but reactors were built for Russian.



Interesting I heard about that problem with Ukrainian power plants but didnt gave it much attention

they could easily fix their issues with the help of experts from Russia(becasue their power plants work on old soviet systems and western scientists wont help them resolve their problems) but they are stubborn idiots who prefer to ignore such crucial issue because of pride and stupid politics

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