something is leaking in europe - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 04:21:52 am
content: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/20/06/29/0350216/mysterious-spike-in-radioactivity-over-northern-europe-accident-at-russian-nuclear-plant-suspected

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 06:14:38 am
content: Oh good, because 2020 was such adelightfulyear so far. Now we get to have a Chernobyl rerun!

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 09:53:27 am
content: Hmm, another option would be that someone screwed up the disassembly of a nuclear sub:-In order to get such a leak in a normal power plant you have to have a leak in both the fuel cell AND the primary cooling loop, and you normally have detectors to detect if a fuel cell is leaking into the water-> rather unlikely that someone didn't detect the leak AND someone accidentally vented the primary cooling system.-nuclear subs get disassembled in the Kola bay (right at the border to Finland, most northern point), that region is not too far away from the 72h source region-most subs use highly enriched U-235, you get the same fission products as normal nuclear power plants-would also explain the Russian statement that both power plants are working normally

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 10:23:15 am
content: Let's top off 2020 with a nuclear accident. As if Covid-19 and the associated economic disaster wasn't enough.

author: Porenbeton
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 12:18:08 pm
content: Lets just hope that its just a instrumentation fault or the reading comes from some not yet considered/found source (like jogri said, nuclear fission powered submarines sound plausible).I doubt that it could be a plant, they dont build them like they used to when chernobyl was still operating, the plant in chernobyl had positive feedback considering the temperature/power curve.Meaning increase in temperature would increase the power, which would again increase temperature and so on until meltdown. So afaik catastrophic meltdown shouldnt be actually possible with modern reactors (but im not an expert obviously so that is only a thought), since they should react the opposite way (higher temperature -> decrease in power output).Also this isnt the 80s anymore with communist russia. I think if something in this scale happened, that it wouldnt take even 5 minutes until the social medias are full of it with videos/pictures etc.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 05:11:50 pm
content: Quote from: jogri on June 29, 2020, 09:53:27 amThe Russians reported that nothing had happened at the Chernobyl power plant after they knew about the accident which also explains their current statements. Why would you trust anything they say about such incidents?Quote from: Porenbeton on June 29, 2020, 12:18:08 pmRussia is still Russia. If they had a nuclear accident, they will by default initially deny it.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 06:12:22 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on June 29, 2020, 10:23:15 amAhem, as I was reading this reply, I was recalling that 2020 is forecast to be a heavy solar flare year... Imagine closing the year with something like the March 1989 Quebec Canada black out, times 10 and global.The virus problem was made much worst by some government decisions at least here in the USA. I am sure they will make equally bad decisions during a nation-wide blackout. I better start recharging all my batteries.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 06:27:16 pm
content: I have always wanted to buy a Geiger counter or radiometer or other instrument that measures such incidents. I was also thinking to build from schematics and simply buy a Geiger–Müller tube. However, I'm at a loss as to what kind of instrument will do the job. Obviously they cover different types of radiation, calibrated to handle different level ranges, and so on. So what does someone buy? On a budget... Here are examples, many of which are under $100, some under $50. Anyone have experience with something reliable and does the job and good value:https://www.ebay.com/itm/Geiger-Counter-Nuclear-Radiation-Detector-Beta-Gamma-X-Ray-Dosimeter-Monitor/163564446468https://www.ebay.com/itm/GQ-GMC-320-Plus-Nuclear-Geiger-Counter-Radiation-Detector/133436410612Open Source assembled kit with tube:https://www.ebay.com/itm/Geiger-Counter-Radiation-Detector-Module-with-LCD-Display-Open-Source-DIY/114017690530https://www.ebay.com/itm/Handheld-Geiger-Counter-Nuclear-Radiation-Detector-Meter-Digital-for/114017691137And then there are tons of these Civil Defence Geiger Counter kits. I'm not sure what the different components are. I see a "charging box" and some long cylindrical tubes. Can anyone explain a bit about whether these are any use for the type of radiation leaks we are seeing or is this for another purpose:https://www.ebay.com/itm/CD-V-777-Vintage-Civil-Defense-Radiation-Fallout-Detection-Kit-Set-w-Box/163488683740And short of a nuclear catastrophe can we use any of these for fun educational experiments like measuring basement radon leaks, smoke detector radiation source, marble countertops, various rocks and so on?There is one more conclusion which is really none of the above instruments are worth buying, some may be gimmicks and some may be too limited in scope of use or type of radiation capable of being detected. Since alpha would be almost impossible to detect unless you were directly on top of the sample, and beta would also be limited in penetration and you'd have to be very close, that leaves Gamma/Xray and Neutrons. Of course you'd still have no idea what isotope was causing the radiation (unless you knew details on the source) but at least you'd know what and where.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 06:50:41 pm
content: It's not necessary to buy your own detector.There are many radiation level monitoring networks running for years already. Some of them are independent networks, and you can see live radiation overlapped on top of Google maps. Search for "live radiation levels map", or similar words.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 07:00:13 pm
content: Quote from: David Hess on June 29, 2020, 05:11:50 pmChernobyl is in Ukraine near the Belarus border. Not in Russia at all. All of those, and quite a few others, were part of the USSR, which broke up about 5 years after the accident.

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 07:29:21 pm
content: Quote from: edy on June 29, 2020, 06:27:16 pmLet's just put it this way: If you encounter a nuclear incident that gets detected by one of those you are f***ed. A GM tube doesn't discriminate between different types of radiation, it is charged to a point where any extra energy that gets put in triggers a discharge of the entire tube-> that's why they are so pouplar and why they "click": The discharge is strong enough (and uniform as the entire tube discharges every single time) to power a loudspeaker. The only way you would detect something with a GM tube is when it significantly overpowers the natural background radiation->no bueno for you.If you want to detect such events you need something that can discriminate between ions with different energies: That's a scintillator counter, and it is effing expensive (basically a orange sized monocrystal mounted on top of a photomultiplier).Back to your GM counters: If you want to play around with it and see what emits radiation they are optimal, but you won't be able to detect radon and smoke alarms: All Radon isotopes decay via alpha radiation, the same goes for the Americium used in old smoke alarms: Only alpha, because they needed something that can ionize smoke particles-> let's just shoot them with really fat positive ions and hope they stick. Charged ions-> gamma is out. Alpha, because helium nuclei are way bigger than electrons.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 08:08:44 pm
content: Thanks for the explanations.... I started reading up on the difference and encountered this chapter on the web discussing GM vs Scintillation detectors to help me understand:http://webfiles.ehs.ufl.edu/rssc_stdy_chp_4.pdf

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 08:32:57 pm
content: I don't have the spare $ for such a toy, but if I did I would get a Gamma Scout ($400) or an Automess 6150AD ($400). These are the units used by bionerd23 in her videos at Chernobyl, and both have the ability to measure different types of radiation (gamma, beta, and alpha) either built-in (with the Gamma Scout), or using accessory probes (for the Automess).Cheap geiger counters are generally gamma only, which has limitations since the "hot particles" ejected during a meltdown are alpha emitters. Another important point is that the counters that read in Rads or Rem are not going to be accurate with different isotopes. Dose-equivalents can only be calibrated for specific isotopes and not for unknowns. With unknowns, you are just looking for counts per minute as the detector cannot differentiate between events that trigger a discharge in the GM tube.Scintillation detectors would seem to be less sensitive and less desirable, but the energy of the particle does change the output, so they can be built as spectrometers for profiling different isotopes.

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 08:45:19 pm
content: Quote from: helius on June 29, 2020, 08:32:57 pmYeah, but you don't really need to measure alphas as they are only extremely dangerous when they are airborn and their concentration would be too low to be detected by normal alpha counters (unless you point it at a HEPA filter with a suction fan behind).

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 09:01:02 pm
content: these detectors might not be all you need to measure dust. You might need a accumulator (filter) and air sampling at high rate to normalize levels, and you might need to fly a plane with a filter around to normalize levels.And you might need to use radar to find targets to investigate (i.e. stuff traveling clumped).. it may be a regular occurrence for something to travel in a group in some area but it might not always be in the same exact position.I.e. after this many hours of operation this membrane is normally at this radiation level in this environment.

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2020, 09:09:42 pm
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on June 29, 2020, 09:01:02 pmAbout that...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1211th_Test_SquadronThey basically flew jets through mushroom clouds to collect radioactive dust. So yeah, you can do it but you probably shouldn't.(You probably also don't need a radar to find your target in this case...)

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2020, 12:16:50 am
content: i meant over the bodies of water where those submarines are supposedly located

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2020, 12:23:38 am
content: I've read that the civil defence ones are extremely low sensitivity, to the point that if the needle moves at all, you're already in big trouble.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2020, 01:04:16 am
content: yes the idea is that they are reliable and allow for soldiers and relief workers to avoid areas that will certainly kill them in order to perform other useful operations. If those are used society is probably so screwed that long term radiation poisoning down the line ending your retirement early is the least of your concerns. Not to mention its going to be cheap since no one wants to use it.

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2020, 01:12:10 am
content: Quote from: jogri on June 29, 2020, 09:53:27 amTrue for pressurized water reactors (PWR), there's a primary cooling loop under enough pressure to not boil, and a secondary loop that boils to provide steam for the turbine.But, there are a fair number of boiling water reactors (BWR) that generate steam in the reactor pressure vessel and pipe this straight to the turbine. The turbine shafts exit from the condenser side of the turbine, where the condenser provides a pretty strong vacuum. That causes air to be sucked in at the shaft seals. So, they have vacuum pumps that remove the air, to keep the condenser working properly.Unfortunately, any radionuclides that leak into the cooling loop end up going through the vacuum pumps. Remember the Fukushima plants had those tall "smokestacks" painted with red/white stripes? Those were to vent off the gas from the turbines, and they had a steady stream of nuclides in them under normal operation.They do water treatment on PWRs that removes the gases and nuclides, but in that case they can capture them in tanks and let them decay before release.Jon

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2020, 08:16:20 am
content: Quote from: jmelson on June 30, 2020, 01:12:10 amYou still need two separate failures before isotopes from nuclear fission get released into the atmosphere:-one of the fuel cells has to rupture/get a tear in order to get those isotopes into the cooling loop-the containment of the cooling loop has to fail to get them into the atmosphereYeah, could be that one of the RBMKs in Leningrad has had a failure (this somehow sounds familiar…). If i remember correctly those designs didn't employ a second containment around the core, so they could have had a ruptured fuel cell, had to remove it from the core and it vented some gas when it was out of the reactor->not everything went through the filters. Makes you wonder how on earth they planned to safely remove broken fuel rods from this reactor design...(Edit: that still wouldn't explain the clearly airborne caesium: Those reactors use light water as a coolant, the caesium would have reacted with it to form highly soluble caesium hydroxide->perfectly bound in the water of the cooling loop. So we can conclude that the source of this radiation spike was probably NOT sitting inside a water pool (water would have also captured dust too).)The isotope distribution (Cs-134 vs 137) could give a hint of how old the damaged fuel cell was (extremely old would point to subs, newer fuel to a power plant), but i'm not sure if they are going to release that data to the general public. And even then, you'd need data at which point in the fuel cycle each isotope gets created, and i'm sure that such data can't be found on Wikipedia.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2020, 09:22:33 am
content: Quote from: edy on June 29, 2020, 06:27:16 pmMost of the Civil Defense instruments using ionization chambers which are much more useful for detecting immediate hazards where a Geiger counter would have saturated resulting in a measured level which could be orders of magnitude low.On the other hand, a Geiger counter is exactly what is needed to test air samples like coppercone2 mentioned. With some care, you could check your basement for radon with one.Quote from: amyk on June 30, 2020, 12:23:38 amBut you would be in even worse trouble with a Geiger counter which unknown to you is saturated producing an erroneously low measurement.Remember at the start of Chernobyl where the radiation reading was "only" 3.5 rems per hour? In a similar incident in the US at Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, when emergency personnel showed up with ionization meters, they backed off because they got a true reading of the incredible radiation hazard which was present.Quote from: Nusa on June 29, 2020, 07:00:13 pmI was keeping things simple. Chernobyl was controlled by and the responsibility of the Soviets. The Russians now saying that nothing is wrong are the descendants, in the continuity and political sense, as the Soviets who brought us Chernobyl. Has Ukraine said anything about it?I am amazed China has not had a similar accident but they have managed to kill more people with failing dams.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2020, 01:36:56 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on June 30, 2020, 09:47:18 amHe's probably referring to this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure.Many of the details were classified by China until 2005, but it's now clear it was a disaster arguably comparable to Chernobyl.It's probably before your time, and the government has changed since then. But one can say the same thing about Chernobyl.

author: Buriedcode
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2020, 09:51:43 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on June 30, 2020, 01:36:56 pmYeah the death toll on that link is "85,600 to 240,000". Chernobyl was "projected" at 4000 (actual reported, 90). Or are you comparing the two in terms of land area affected?

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2020, 02:35:37 am
content: Quote from: Buriedcode on June 30, 2020, 09:51:43 pmCounting deaths depends on your criteria, never mind whether you can trust the official information sources that want to minimize the numbers. Do you only count those that died quickly, or do you count the ones that later died a result of the accident. People stranded without food or safe water in one case and radiation sicknesses in the other.As for comparing by whatever criteria, that's been done by others, including TV documentaries.My main point is that the governments have changed since then. China has changed a lot since the days of Chairman Mao. And Gorbachev's USSR isn't the same as Putin's Russa. Even if all the people from the old regimes haven't died off yet. And yes, I'm old enough to remember the previous administrations. I've no idea what's in the history books these days.

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2020, 02:44:02 am
content: Quote from: jogri on June 30, 2020, 08:16:20 amNope, not even close, for a Boiling Water Reactor. The fuel elements are clad with Zirconium, chosen for its VERY low neutron capture cross section. BUT, unfortunately, it is a HORRIBLE metal, expecially in contact with water at 300+ C. The fuel elements leak all the gaseous radionuclides like sieves. So, Xenon, Krypton, Iodine, etc. all just pass right through the thin Beryllium sheath. If they didn't, the cladding would swell up and burst. So, the gaseous fission products get into the water quite easily. Then, they pass out of the reactor pressure vessel in the steam, and go to the turbine. Note, the main steam line coming off the top of a BWR's steam dryer is the most heavily shielded part of the entire plant! Why? Because lots of these nuclides settle on the pipe and are not submerged under feet of water for shielding. So, they have a massive concrete shield tunnel for the pipe to pass through. Then, due to having to pump leaked air out of the condensers as explaind in my previous message, the radioactive gases just go up the vent stacks. This is a continuous process at BWRs. The steam turbines are NOT in the containment building, they are in the turbine hall.QuoteThe RBMK1000 is a Plutonium production breeder reactor where they also use the heat produced for electricity and city heating.A horrible design, with weak containment, some flaky power controls and the horrible feature of positive void coefficient.A ghastly combination of potential trouble.QuoteWell, not in a pool of COLD water, anyway. But, reactor loop water is not usually cold, and a major steam leak definitely can release the cesium and other low-volatility nuclides.Jon

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2020, 02:53:42 am
content: Quote from: jogri on June 29, 2020, 07:29:21 pmThere's a guy selling slabs of Bismuth germanate (BGO) on eBay for $20. That's a chunk 25 x 25 x 10 mm, big enough to make a decent scintillation detector. We had some bits and pieces at work related to Silicon Photomultipliers, so I built up a small detector. It has a bias supply for the SiPM bias voltage, amplifier and discriminator, and a piezoelectric beeper. It works quite well, getting a fewe hundred clicks a second from the Cs-137 check source in my Geiger counter. The only tricky part to get is the Silicon Photomultiplier, they are kind of a new part.Jon

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2020, 05:25:08 am
content: Quote from: jmelson on July 01, 2020, 02:53:42 amWould a mercury-cadmium-telluride detector not work here?

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2020, 07:33:30 am
content: Quote from: jmelson on July 01, 2020, 02:44:02 amNo, they use a zirconium alloy, beryllium is used in moderator rods. It would be an absolutely horrific choice for a pressure vessel as it is extremely brittle, reacts with oxygen (you have a lot of dissolved oxygen in your water, especially in open spent fuel pools) and it absorbs alpha radiation-> gets converted to carbon, you really don't want that.Btw, those rods are quite sturdy, and because they always have an extremely high outside pressure due to the superheated water and quite a bit of expansion room for gases (they have springs to push the pellets together->also a good way of dealing with the gases) they are probably rather good at containing gases, especially really fat ones like Xe, Kr and I.QuoteWell, if there really was a steam leak like you described why didn't we register a spike for iodine and the noble gases? They are a notorious PITA to filter out, so we would have seen a lot of them and not so much stuff that can be filtered quite easily.And i heavily doubt that you would get a lot of caesium leakage from a steam leak as the hydroxide that forms when it comes into contact with water is one of the most soluble hydroxides out there (3kg per litre of water @20°C, let that sink in), you would get a few grams of CsOH in hundreds of tons of water->i doubt that the release of a few kg of water in the form of steam would lead to a spike like that.Let's consider where the Ruthenium and Caesium might have come from:-could they be the decay products of some gaseous fission products that escaped? Well, Caesium can't come from that: Cs can be created via a beta minus decay of Xenon, but neither Cs-134 nor 137 form. What about Ruthenium? It sits between a lot of metals, so no.-could they come directly from U-235 fission? Probably, the products of a fission reaction are roughly the same weight, and since both Cs and Ru are roughly half as heavy as uranium they might have formed in two different fission reactions.

author: aqarwaen
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2020, 03:52:24 pm
content: maybe it is that ship what sinked like 20 or 30 years ago..name was estonia..i readed that they burried and covered something near ship with cement..

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2020, 08:10:05 pm
content: Quote from: helius on July 01, 2020, 05:25:08 amNo, I think they are slow, and deep IR-sensitive. The BGO gives extremely fast flashes of blue light, and youneed either a Silicon photomultiplier or vacuum photomultiplier to respond to the fast flashes and verylow light level. When biased correctly, the SiPM gives about 1 million electrons per photon input.Jon

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2020, 01:56:57 am
content: Quote from: jogri on July 01, 2020, 07:33:30 amYes, you are absolutely right, I typed the wrong element.Jon

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2020, 09:03:54 am
content: Quote from: jogri on June 30, 2020, 08:16:20 amSmall cracks and ruptures of the fuel rods (what you are calling "cells") happen time-to-time in fully operational plants, and are not considered accident-level events; not necessarily even incident-level. Then, if not earlier, at latest during the refueling, the containment is opened and the small amount of radionuclei are vented into atmosphere, possibly through some level of filtration.This is considered normal operation and the amount of "leak" is regulated, and monitored.Traditional boiling water reactors don't even have a full "containment" building, the steam enters the turbine building which is outside of containment. The idea is that you could close these steam valves during a serious loss-of-coolant accident, but it allows minor leak incidents whenever there is a rod clad leakage.I find it extremely funny how people who try to give an impression of "nuclear safety" do not know such basics. Especially counting the fuel rod zircaloy cladding as an "independent safety layer" is beyond laughable, it does sometimes crack even during normal operation; and during loss-of-coolant accident conditions it takes some seconds max to break. This isn't any kind of safety layer against accidents, and isn't even supposed to be. I have seen "nuclear safety" posters by actual professors, and from the 4-5, maybe 6 claimed "layers" of safety, there actually is approx. 2. (Electronic equivalent: if you put a 1000W TVS and a 1W TVS in parallel, how many layers of safety against overvoltages do you have?)Nuclear power is a low-probability-high-risk endeavor where the risk seems to realize every 30 years, every time followed by explanations "how this was a special case with special circumstances and it can't happen again", followed by explanations of "multiple safety layers", regardless the fact they all can fail, and there are nonewlevels introduced.It's OK to be either pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear and actually I think both stances can be argumented quite well with real facts, so it's an interesting discussion, whenever the participants are truly knowledgeable.

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2020, 11:13:34 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on July 05, 2020, 09:03:54 amLike i described in other posts, the fuel rod has to crack and you need a leak in the primary cooling loop... And such a leak doesn't get any bigger than a partially disassembled pressure vessel for switching out fuel elements.Did this happen here? Probably not, i still don't see how you would get such Cs emissions from a steam vent/fuel element change (source: i have worked with Caesium, one of the most unstable/reactive elements i ever handled). So let's make an educated guess about where those isotopes might have came from:-They detected Ru-103 with a half life of 30d, so we can probably assume that the uranium was last radiated in the month/weeks before the incident (it wasn't an old fuel element that sat in a spent fuel pool for years)-the fuel element could have been older as the Cs-134 predominantly gets created via neutron capture from Cs-133 (which is one of the main fission products). Take this with a grain of salt as i neither know the neutron flux, nor temperature of graphite reactors nor the cross section of Cs-133 at those conditions (wiki says 29 barns, but not at which energy)-probably got released as dust (see Caesium+ water pools)Edit: Forgot to add that the amount of material that was released was probably tiny as they only managed to detected the isotopes with the shortest half-life (except for the not reported, but expected Sr-90 peak, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if that was just due to "naturally" elevated Sr-90 levels [see russian lighthouse RTGs])

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2020, 11:29:20 am
content: Wouldn't they censor sensors, so as not to cause devaluation of stocks and investments, etc?Quote from: RoGeorge on June 29, 2020, 06:50:41 pm

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2020, 11:57:53 am
content: Quote from: Rick Law on June 29, 2020, 06:12:22 pmWhere did you hear that? It's not true. Solar activity is at very low levels, due to solar minimum. There's a load hype about it causing an ice age but it's BS, as solar activity hardly makes any difference to global temperatures. There's a grain of truth that it can affect the jet stream, increasing the likelihood of colder winters in Europe and parts of the US, but when that happens, other regions warm, so the net global temperature remains the same.https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1285749/Solar-minimum-2020-NASA-mini-ice-age-climate-change-global-warming

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2020, 08:03:07 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 05, 2020, 11:57:53 amI don't recall exactly, but it is probably news radio. I tune to news whenever I am driving.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2020, 01:44:20 am
content: It's worth noting that the radiation release being referred to in the news recentlyactually happened between 28th October and 4th November 2017. The thing that's put it into the news is a recent paper in Nature Communications analysing possible sources based on environmental isotope monitoring being done (for other purposes) in Austria. Typically, the news stories do not lead with the fact that this is a nearly three year old release and folks don't bother to read to the end (if it's there at all) that this is now a historical release, not a current one.Paper here:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16316-3.TL;DR - probably related to reprocessing of spent VVER reactor nuclear fuel at the Federal State Unitary Enterprise (FSUE) Production Association Mayak in Ozersk, Russia (Southern Urals).

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2020, 04:00:44 am
content: what, the twitter is clearhttps://twitter.com/SinaZerbo/status/1276559857731153921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1276559857731153921%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibtimes.com%2Fmysterious-spike-radioactivity-over-northern-europe-accident-russian-nuclear-plant-3002064The news reportsEstonia, Finland and Swedenlast weekmeasured higher-than-usual levels of ruthenium and caesium isotopes and detected some other artificial radionuclides. They said nothing on their territory had happened to explain their presence, as did more than 40 other countries that volunteered information to the International Atomic Energy Agency.https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/agency-north-europe-radiation-linked-reactor-71592576https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Source-of-low-level-European-release-remains-unsolthe first half of June 2020, small amounts of artificial (man-made) radioactive substances have been detected at several measuring stations in Northern Europe. The Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish radiation protection authorities have reported this on their websites. RIVM National Institute for Public Health and the Environment has analysed the available data to determine a possible cause and source location.https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/radioactive-substances-in-the-air-over-Northern-EuropeI think you confused something. RIVM owns the detector data.They even say, if you read thebottom of the article,Asimilarsituation occurred in 2017: radioactive ruthenium-106 was found in the air in several European countries. Because many more measurements were availablethen, RIVM was able to locate the source more accurately. The calculated source was in excellent agreement with an existing nuclear facility that was pointed out as the most probable source in multiple international investigations.TL;DRcurrentandold datais accurate.Attackon threadunnecessary. This is a serious issue, please double check before you come off like a kremlin troll. Think about how much bad can happen if one of these things goes off.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2020, 04:57:40 pm
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on July 06, 2020, 04:00:44 amThere's no need to be such a dick, no "Attackon thread" is involved, neither is the Kremlin (In English proper nouns get capital letters). No need to go off like a knuckle dragging redneck who's just discovered that Budweiser isn't regarded as beer in the rest of the world. It is, you know, possible to correct someone politely without being vituperative, you might like to try it some time.The stories I read in the news recently linked to the old release. So I was mistaken, there's another new release as well - mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2020, 05:38:10 pm
content: Quote from: jogri on July 05, 2020, 11:13:34 amit was a fantasy of the original nuclear industry that the Zirconium (thanks for correcting my mistake earlier) cladding would hold in all fission byproducts for the life of the fuel element. They have now been forced to admit that at least gaseous fission products will seep out of the fuel elements at a steady rate. When the reactor is running at full power, the neutron flux is intense, and it breaks down much of the Iodine and Xenon fairly quickly. But, still, some DOES seep out through microscopic pores and into the cooling water.As for BOILING water reactors (please study up on those) The primary coolant is the ONLY coolant, and it runs from the top of the reactor pressure vessel STRAIGHT to the turbines, which are OUTSIDE the containment. Even without any malfunction, the gaseous isotopes are sucked out of the condenser by vacuum pumps and piped up the "smokestacks". This is a small, but steady, release of radioactive byproducts. It DOES add up over time. On the other hand, the amount of radioactive isotopes held in the fuel elements that can be released in a major accident is staggering, and (I think) millions of times worse than the steady leakage of Iodine, Xenon, etc.Jon