Radiation surveillance detects [large radioactive] iodine leak [across] Europe

[Hamartia Antidote]

http://www.euractiv.com/section/cli...n-observatories-detect-iodine-leak-in-europe/

If the leak had come from a nuclear power station, other substances would also have been detected.


Nobody knows who released the substance, but radioactive iodine has been detected across Europe in recent weeks. EURACTIV’s partner Journal de l’Environnement reports.

The technicians of Europe’s informal network of radioactivity surveillance experts, the Ring of Five, were the only ones to notice the spike in radiation levels. In the second week of January, the alert sounded in the north of Norway, with traces of iodine 131 detected in the air.

Other observations followed in Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain and France, according to the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN).

In France, levels of iodine-131 did not exceed 0.31 microbecquerel per cubic meter of air (μBq / m3), according to the IRSN, a thousand times less than the levels recorded following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.

Iodine-131 is a radionuclide with a half-life of just over 8 days. So for it to have been detected, it must have been released shortly before. The source of the substance is still unknown.

Difficult modelling

But suspicions are rife. “We are leading the inquiry,” said Jean-Christophe Gariel, from the IRSN. “This means we are essentially reversing the trajectory of the iodine pollution in order to find out where it came from. But taking into account the weather in recent weeks, it will not be easy to model.”

The type of radioactive pollution means nuclear power stations can be struck off the list of possible suspects.

“We have only detected iodine. If there had been an accident, like the ones in Fukushima or Chernobyl, we would have had leaks of other substances, like caesium,” Gariel said.

Among the theories considered most likely is that a manufacturer of medical radio-isotopes, probably in Eastern Europe, suffered a leak. This incident closely resembles an episode from 2011, when the Budapest isotopes institute released – legally and harmlessly – an amount of radioactive iodine into the environment.

At the time, this caused a big stir in the European radiological protection community.

 

[war&peace]

That's scary

 

[Foxtrot Delta]

What if someone exploded or experimented a nuke.

 

[Foxtrot Delta]

A nuclear device would have been registered on seismographs, orbital ones too. Even North Korea's fizzled designs, buried deep within subterranean testing chambers make a noticeable tremor, it's how we, the outside world, tend to know a North Korean nuclear test has taken place. That and WC-135s tend to be prowling around afterwards, but North Korea takes steps to limit the exposure of its tests to the surface and that limits the amount of noticeable radiation that a WC-135 can "sniff."

Even its smallest test, at a paltry .7-2 kilotons registered a 4.2 on the Richter scale.

Any nuclear test would be noticeable on seismographs and so far no one, not military, intelligence or civilians have noticed anything resembling a nuclear weapons test, fizzled or otherwise.

Iodine-131 present not only in nuclear reactors, but also in nuclear medicine. A reactor failure or leakage during refitting or maintenance on a reactor is plausible, keep in mind the origin seems to be near the Norwegian-Russian border, around the Kola Peninsula:

What if it was in the North pole

 

[Foxtrot Delta]

Wouldn't matter where it is. Underwater would make the test even more noticeable - nuclear weapons have pronounced effects when detonated underwater like spray columns and dual blast shocks, not to mention a massive, rapidly collapsing cavity that'd provide a large acoustic signature that SOSUS or other listening devices would pick up, and the radiation they'd leave behind - and over water would render it noticeable to multiple detection methods. There's no where to hide in the Arctic, it's heavily monitored.

All Arctic claimants have islands in the Arctic sea, like Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya and some of the islands are former testing (and current in some cases) ranges, including for nuclear weapons (Novaya Zemlya being one), but again, the means to detect nuclear devices have progressed to the point that minuscule, failed detonations smaller then the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, buried thousands of meters below the surface of Earth can be detected by orbital satellites, seismographs, aircraft and a host of other sensors.

There are too many eyes, too sharp of eyes watching to hide a nuclear detonation. The effects are noticeable and linger and would have been detected not just my military and government sources, but civilians too.

North Korea's first nuclear test had a yield smaller then the smallest operational nuclear warhead, the W54 on the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle. It was still noticeable. Nuclear weapons produce noticeable signatures, whether detonated underwater, underground, above ground or in the atmosphere.

With a half-life of 8 days, the Iodine-131 found in elevated levels across Europe, the lack of other radiological contaminants associated with nuclear devices, and the absence of accompanying seismological data points more to a nuclear storage or reactor leakage issue then a nuclear device.

The evidence to support the nuclear detonation theory just isn't there.

Natural ways of radiation spread? Hole in the North pole ozone?