[HN Gopher] Sensors detect rise in nuclear particles on Baltic Sea
___________________________________________________________________
Sensors detect rise in nuclear particles on Baltic Sea
Author : BerislavLopac
Score : 250 points
Date : 2020-06-27 15:01 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mobile.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (mobile.reuters.com)
| Torkel wrote:
| Now, this is probably nothing. The sensors are doing their thing
| and from time to time there is a spike. On the other hand, this
| is how Chernobyl first was reported...
|
| For more radiation horror pease read about the "Goiania
| accident": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiania_accident
| (Learned about it recently and wow. What a story.)
| Arech wrote:
| Wow.. Never heard of it before, thanks.
|
| That heavily reminds me the "Roadside Picnic" (1972) novel of
| Strugatsky brothers (that same novel, that coined term
| "Stalker"). The only difference that the heroes of the novel
| dealt with consequences of alien civilization visit, and
| "Goiania accident" is purely our's own...
| sampo wrote:
| > "Roadside Picnic" (1972) novel of Strugatsky brothers
|
| Before his death, Boris Strugatsky gave a license for writing
| a sequel to Finnish author Ville Vuorela. Vuorela published
| The Hollow Pilgrim in 2014 as ebook. Something went wrong
| with the deal between the small Finnish publisher and Amazon,
| and now the ebook is annoyingly difficult to find.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23354402-the-hollow-
| pilg...
| gorgoiler wrote:
| The filming of _Stalker_ [1] was itself fraught with
| industrial contamination -- possibly with to the extent of
| eventually claiming Tarkovsky's own life, by cancer.
|
| _Zona_ by Geoff Dyer is an excellent discourse on the
| work, which I heartily recommend, and where I first read
| about this and many other fascinating details.
|
| [1] ...or _ker-tan-kep_ as my own ignorant tongue insists
| on pronouncing it.
| fnord123 wrote:
| Roadside picnic didn't coin the term stalker. Stalker is a
| Soviet film based on the book.
| cptskippy wrote:
| Roadside Picnic is the equivalent of LOTR or Neuromancer
| when it comes to defining a genre of pop culture.
|
| It was published 7 years before the movie Stalker.
|
| It is a short novel and a great read, it is also a stark
| contrast to Western SciFi.
| kbenson wrote:
| Both Roadside Picnic from Russia and the Remembrance of
| Earth's Past trilogy from China have made me interested
| in Science Fiction from non-western cultures. There's a
| freshness of view that's hard to describe.
| Arech wrote:
| You'd better read the book first before making such
| statements.
| krick wrote:
| Yes it did. "Stalker" is the name of their profession in
| the book.
| ehnto wrote:
| I'm not a huge film buff or anything, but I did watch
| Stalker. The music and cinematography was captivating in a
| way I rarely get in anything but video games or books.
| Usually movies don't capture me that way, they're far too
| fast, literal and descriptive. Stalker left so much to the
| imagination that I was constantly engaged in trying to
| figure out what they were thinking, where they were going,
| and what it was they expected to find. It gave me all the
| time I needed to think about it too.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Not SF, but watch "Ivan's Childhood", his first film. I
| saw it first on New Years Eve in Scotland. Me and my then
| wife went round to her friends house to pick her up for
| the usual celebrations. While the girls were getting
| made-up I started watching the film on the TV - I had
| never heard of it or Tarkovsky before, and I have no idea
| why it was on at New Year. They eventually came down and
| said "let's go" but I refused - "catch you later" - I
| just had to watch the film. Somewhat later friends mum
| came in and said "X why aren't you out with Y and Z" - I
| said "I HAVE to watch this". And I did, and then I went
| out and got pissed. It's a great film.
| mongol wrote:
| It was interesting but much too slow.
| frankie_t wrote:
| If you like slow paced movies I would recommend checking
| out his (Tarkovsky) other works. Ingmar Bergman and Bela
| Tarr also come to mind. They are definitely slow and
| pretty far from being literal too.
| tpm wrote:
| I highly recommend his other movies too - I love Solaris
| and Andrey Rublev, but others are great too.
|
| And I think currently in his steps is following another
| great Russian director, Andrey Zvyagintsev. The Return
| was mindblowing.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| > _Usually movies are too fast_
|
| _Stalker_ consists of 143 shots in just under three
| hours. A blissful pace.
| kens wrote:
| My favorite radioactive contamination story is the truck in
| Juarez that was unknowingly contaminated with Cobalt-60
| pellets. The truck died (for unrelated reason) and was scrapped
| and melted down in an iron foundry. The contamination was only
| discovered by accident when a truckload of rebar made a wrong
| turn in Los Alamos National Laboratories and set off a
| radiation alarm. They managed to track down the truck, find the
| source of the radiation, and get rid of the contaminated metal.
| Fortunately, nobody died.
|
| https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/accidents/juarez.htm
| qbaqbaqba wrote:
| I live near an aluminum foundry and everything going in goes
| through a radiation detector.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Same with waste incineration plants, for the same resons -
| apparently it is sensitive enough to detect even diapers
| with radio contrast therapy residue inside a full garbage
| truck.
| mcguire wrote:
| Or the Church Rock incident:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Rock_uranium_mill_spill...
| hirsin wrote:
| Thank you for this. It's my first time learning about it. I'm
| almost happy it's unknown since this is such a better
| argument against nuclear power than 3 Mile etc. Although I
| suppose for it to be an effective scare tactic you'd have to
| ask yourself some tricky questions about how much you value
| indigenous lives over corporations...
| perl4ever wrote:
| Highly radioactive materials are couriered around all the
| time for medical purposes.
|
| Edit: my point being, dangerously radioactive materials are
| valuable products of nuclear power, not just pollution that
| comes as a side effect.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Not exactly:
|
| > Approximately one month after the spill, the Puerco River
| had regained normal levels of salinity, acidity, and
| radioactivity at low flow levels, with contaminants being
| detectable only after heavy rains.
|
| Natural uranium is mildly radioactive, but it was a uranium
| mine. The radioactivity was there before they started. They
| managed to move it around some. The damage was at least as
| much attributable to the chemical contaminants which would
| be present in any similar mining incident regardless of
| what they were mining.
|
| Saying that it was worse than Three Mile Island is a low
| bar. Three Mile Island wasn't exactly Chernobyl.
| ficklepickle wrote:
| It's not a tricky question. Human life > profits. Period.
|
| By specifically mentioning the value of indigenous lives,
| it makes me wonder if you value human life differently
| based on ethnicity.
|
| You are glad that an atrocity committed against human
| beings is relatively unknown? I just cannot understand
| that. Is it because you value promoting nuclear power over
| indigenous human lives?
|
| I almost didn't bother replying to your comment. But
| indifference to the suffering of "the others" needs to be
| challenged.
|
| Go spend time with literally any indigenous peoples. Learn
| about their culture and challenges. Meet individual
| indigenous people, look them in the eyes, then tell me
| their lives have no value.
|
| Would it be acceptable to say this about any other
| ethnicity? For example, would it be OK to end a sentence
| "...ask yourself some tricky questions about how much you
| value Jewish lives" ? What about Muslim lives? No, of
| course it wouldn't. "Obviously labour camps of Uyghur
| Muslims are not ideal, but you gotta ask yourself tricky
| questions about how much you value Uyghur lives over
| profit." That is an absurd statement and so is yours.
| perl4ever wrote:
| The comment you are responding to didn't express
| indifference to "indigenous lives", but attributed it to
| others. Attacking them as though they said people
| _shouldn 't_ care about them seems weird and
| inappropriate to me. They clearly implied people _should_
| , but may not.
| barrkel wrote:
| > human life > profits
|
| We shouldn't have cars then, or motorcycles. We
| definitely shouldn't have horse riding schools - horse
| riding is 20x more dangerous than riding a motorcycle,
| and the only reason you start a business offering it is
| to profit, thus you're profiting off human death.
|
| Right?
| sfblah wrote:
| It seems like it matters that the people riding horses
| and motorcycles are choosing to do that. No one chooses
| to have a radioactive cloud come kill them.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| That's one of my litmus tests it's one thing if people
| sign up for a risk, another when it's being imposed on
| them.
|
| I see you arguing that necessary risks are a society wide
| decision. Which I agree with. Which means arguing from
| that point is fair. Someone that argues otherwise I have
| no idea what to say about that.
| dmix wrote:
| > how much you value indigenous lives over corporations...
|
| Why is this the dichotomy for supporting modern nuclear
| power plants? Or in this case a uranium processing plants?
|
| Especially compared to burning burning and mining coal.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Take a look at the hanford site if you want to be scared.
| And look at where it is, note that's the Columbia river,
| which rolls right through northern portland. Or if you
| don't care about people, it also powers most of the data
| centers in the northwest. And is right near where most of
| the hops are grown (won't someone think of the beer!).
|
| https://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/AboutHanfordCleanup
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hanford+Site/@46.5656811,
| -...
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Portland+International+Ai
| r...
| mcchew wrote:
| That area also has lots of Bitcoin mining operations. All
| of society is at risk over here.
| pizza234 wrote:
| I find something in this story puzzling - why were the IGR
| owners charged? Based on the story as published on Wikipedia,
| they tried to recover the unit, but they were officially barred
| to do so.
| georgecmu wrote:
| Or this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...
|
| In 1989, a small capsule containing highly radioactive
| caesium-137 was found inside the concrete wall of an apartment
| building, with a surface gamma radiation exposure dose rate of
| 1800 R/year.
|
| The source, originally a part of a radiation level gauge, was
| lost in the Karansky quarry. The gravel from the quarry was
| used in construction. The cesium capsule ended up in the
| concrete panel of Apartment 85 of Building 7 on Gvardeytsev
| Kantemirovtsev Street, between apartments 85 and 52.
|
| Over 9 years, two families lived in Apartment 85. A child's bed
| was located directly next to the wall containing the capsule.
| By the time the capsule was discovered, 4 residents of the
| building had died from leukemia and 17 more had received
| varying doses of radiation. The accident was detected only
| after the residents requested that the level of radiation be
| measured in the apartment by a health physicist. Part of the
| wall was removed and sent to the Institute for Nuclear Research
| (NASU), where the cesium capsule was removed and disposed of.
|
| The total number of deaths is alternately reported as 2, 4 (3
| children and one adult), or 6 (4 children and 2 adults).
| gambiting wrote:
| It looks like China(and potentially other places) are willing
| to accept incredibly dangerous(and expensive to recycle)
| material and melt it into their main steel supply. After all,
| cobalt diluted into a supply of steel is harmless, right?
|
| https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/radioactive-metal-
| tiss....
|
| I would really like to know how much of a problem is it, how
| much of global steel supply is tainted. Can we be buying cars
| and other items made with steel that's contaminated?
| swebs wrote:
| It should be easy enough to check with a geiger counter,
| right?
| fsflover wrote:
| Or this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core
| WhiteSage wrote:
| Or this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acerinox_accident
|
| In May 1998, a caesium-137 source managed to pass through
| the monitoring equipment in an Acerinox scrap metal
| reprocessing plant in Los Barrios, Spain. When melted, the
| caesium-137 caused the release of a radioactive cloud. The
| Acerinox chimney detectors failed to detect it, but it was
| eventually detected in France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany
| and Austria. The radioactive levels measured were up to
| 1000 times higher than normal.
| divbzero wrote:
| This makes me want to get a radiation detector to test the
| places where I hang out.
| xur17 wrote:
| How expensive is something like this?
| ilogik wrote:
| you can build your own
| https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14209
| Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
| That's cool, and cheap at 70. But it doesn't detect alpha
| radiation. Unless I missed something.
| Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
| $130 or less, shipped.
|
| https://soeks-usa.com/collections/radiation-
| detectors/produc...
| thesz wrote:
| You already have your smartphone, most probably:
| https://phys.org/news/2014-06-smartphone-detector-app-
| positi...
|
| Smartphone cameras are sensitive to radiation (radiation
| produces additional spurious reading in camera sensors -
| additional noise over thermal one) and it is possible to
| use these cameras to more or less accurately measure
| radiation levels.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Well There's Your Problem did an episode on that:
| https://youtu.be/34rdxDgpaaA
| jl6 wrote:
| It's probably not a problem... probably... just a showing a
| small discrepancy. It's well within acceptable bounds.
|
| Seriously, I'd be interested in some stats on how various
| nuclear accidents have been disclosed/reported. Feels like a
| good litmus test of transparency.
| ixfo wrote:
| Set anti-mass spectrometers to 105%.
| highhedgehog wrote:
| I read about that story. it's incredible. love it (in a weird
| way I guess, but it was so fascinating)
| noja wrote:
| Nuclear energy is very safe, but to be safe it relies on the
| systems that support it. One of those systems is the economic
| system. I hope nothing bad has happened.
| godelski wrote:
| Since everyone is saying Russia, I just want to include a map of
| reactor locations. It _may_ be Russia, but there are quite a few
| reactors in the area.
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/%D0%90%D...
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| I wonder, could it be related to the Nyonoksa radiation
| incident in Russia in 2019?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident
| imrelaxed wrote:
| As someone who follows Russian news and political atmosphere.
| Here's what's been happening there as of late: Corona,
| sanctions and the tremendous drop in oil prices have hit the
| Russian economy very hard and the situation is projected to get
| worse. Putin's rating is the worst it has ever been and the US
| is currently bipartisan on new, much worse sanctions (rightly
| so). Putin is becoming desperate. The last time his rating
| began to drop the invasion of Crimea propped it back up to 90%+
| (Russians apparently love invading weak neighbors for
| territory) and staid that way for a long time despite sanctions
| and western pressure. Recently, in consistence with the drop in
| ratings, the saber rattling against Ukraine has picked up a
| lot. Russia has massed even more troops on the Ukrainian border
| and preformed a huge mock invasion exercise from Crimea (US
| reacted by flying stealth bombers in the area). Last week Putin
| also gave a huge inflammatory interview claiming that Ukraine
| and other exsoviet countries illegally left the USSR with
| rightfully Russian territories (a lie). Many see these events
| as the preparation for another invasion of Ukraine. These
| nuclear fission byproducts can potentially be the result of
| Russian weapons tests in preparation for military action that
| may result in NATO reaction (Ukraine received enhanced NATO
| status earlier this month, likely in response to the saber
| rattling). The last time nuclear fission byproducts were
| detected in the region (last year I believe), it was due to
| Russia testing a new nuclear engine powered missile with near
| unlimited range and maneuverability. This missile spews
| radioactive byproducts as it flies and creates a mini Chernobyl
| (along with an explosion due to a payload in addition to its
| reactor engine) where ever it hits. A similar missile was
| tested in the US but scrapped due to the potential damage to
| the environment. This of course is just one of many possible
| explanations for this detection.
| sergeykish wrote:
| They believe USSR won WW2 by itself - no Lend-Lease, without
| Allies they would seize entire Europe. And no, not _free_ ,
| no self determination allowed [1]. Then they would certainly
| beat Japan by themself - it is just an island. Afghanistan
| was another territory that could be _ours_.
|
| Putin plays on ideology created by USSR. Lie, lie, nothing
| but lie. Bolsheviks invented a lot in terrorism. It takes
| century to unfold. ISIS follows same book.
|
| Sorry to bring it here, it is awful they want to start it
| again.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| An unreported release of radionuclides from a Western European
| reactor would be much more surprising.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Unless they too were unaware of it.
| legulere wrote:
| In Germany they tried to use Chernobyl to hide a reactor
| accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300
| tobias3 wrote:
| Yeah, I was surprised that there are a handful of reactors of
| the same type as Chernobyl (RBMK-1000) still online. For
| example west of St. Petersburg (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leningrad_Nuclear_Power_Plant )
| wbl wrote:
| They did substantial renovation to control the more
| interesting characteristics of the design. CANDU has an
| excellent safety record despite the same external
| moderation technique.
| m4rtink wrote:
| The power power/to cost radio of RBMK is still pretty
| good, as well other aspects (online refueling, isotope
| production, good scalability - there were plans for RBMK
| 2400 and RBMK 4800 etc.).
|
| If it just were not for the few desing flaws that make
| them unstable and dangerous in some situations.
| gdubs wrote:
| "On the next episode of 'This Old Reactor'..."
| fyfy18 wrote:
| There's also the Astravets plant in Belarus, of which the first
| reactor is due to come online later this year. The initial
| batch of fuel was received last month.
|
| The plant has sparked some tensions in the area, especially
| with Lithuanian, as it's being constructed on the border, 28
| miles from the Lithuanian capital.
| eganist wrote:
| The likely region in yellow:
| https://twitter.com/SinaZerbo/status/1276559857731153921
| unnouinceput wrote:
| Quote: "We are able to indicate the likely region of the
| source..."
|
| Then tell us who. And since they didn't said it in the first
| place, I bet is mother Russia again.
| norenh wrote:
| They do indicate the region, and it does include sweden,
| finland, large parts of baltics and certain areas in russia:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/SinaZerbo/status/1276559857731153...
|
| Had you included the full quote you would have known why they
| did not point out the exact location: "We are able to indicate
| the likely region of the source, but it's outside the CTBTO's
| mandate to identify the exact origin"
|
| If I interpret it correctly it means that they do not know the
| exact location and other organisations will now have to
| investigate it further to get the exact origin.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| The article itself lacks the region. As I don't have twitter
| I don't care about following links to it and furthermore,
| because of NoScript that I have, it didn't even appeared in
| the first place. In order to see the twitter link I had to
| temporarily allow it to see that as well.
|
| And including the entire quote would've made no difference on
| the region, but the origin. I differentiate between source
| region (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia as indicated in the
| twitter post) and origin (a nuclear plant, a mining operation
| etc - that's for me meaning origin of radionuclides).
| ip26 wrote:
| _If I interpret it correctly_
|
| Sounds more like they are pretty sure where but aren't
| allowed to say.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| I think that's the point. They are only "pretty" sure.
| There is always room for error, and not pointing out the
| likely culprit protects them from retaliation.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Or they _are_ sure, but relations with the guilty party
| are not conducive to revealing it.
| beervirus wrote:
| Yeah that wording was strange. If they don't know, they
| should just say that.
| valuearb wrote:
| What? You think the same Russia that offered bounties to the
| Taliban to kill US soldiers might be up to nuclear shenanigans,
| again?
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghan...
| Mugwort wrote:
| Do you think it might be related to this event? (linked below _)
| I 'm going to make a guess, that there might have been a nuclear
| detonation. It probably wasn't a test. This seems to be an
| accident. Not all weapons are accounted for, e.g. there a
| American hydrogen bombs lost in Spain (I know... it sounds crazy
| but look it up.). Could there have been a bomb laying around
| someone in a place everyone forgot existed maybe some forgotten
| relic from the Soviet day?
|
| _ A GLOBAL MAGNETIC ANOMALY: On June 23rd, Earth's quiet magnetic
| field was unexpectedly disturbed by a wave of magnetism that
| rippled around much of the globe. There was no solar storm or
| geomagnetic storm to cause the disturbance. So what was it?
|
| https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/25/weird-out-of-nowhere-...
| m4rtink wrote:
| It basically impossible the lost bombs from old broken arows
| woild detonate i nuclear way (the conventional explosive might
| still explode and contaminate a small area).
|
| Even if you discount machinery still working after being
| embedded in the ground or unde water any neutron initiators or
| bateries would have lomg sonce became unusable.
| sebastialonso wrote:
| What the hell? Thanks for this, haven't seen anything about
| this anywhere.
| qayxc wrote:
| Maybe because only specialists even took note of this. The
| article itself states that it's more like "hearing a pin
| drop".
|
| If you look at the scales on the included diagrams, you might
| note that these "ripples" are on the order of a few nT.
|
| The natural variation of the magnetic field can be 2 orders
| of magnitude higher, so the real story here is that they were
| even able to pick this up in the first place...
| theophrastus wrote:
| This couldn't be the leakage from that nuclear powered cruise
| missile 'test' lost by the Russians 2017-2018[1]? That is, is
| Barents sea too far from the Baltic for a couple of years of
| tides?
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/21/17766426/russia-
| nuclear-p...
| eitland wrote:
| If it was transmitted through the sea, then more or less
| (depending on where in the Barents) the whole Norwegian coast
| and then some is between the Barents sea and the Baltic.
|
| And the Norwegian coast is long. Really long.
|
| That said this seems to be airborne.
| joezydeco wrote:
| The anomalous readings were airborne. Would that be possible
| from a missile lost at sea?
| rurban wrote:
| To those saying it's nothing: Lookup the historical data and
| compare. Chernobyl caused 0.1 mSv/h in radiation in Sweden, this
| incident caused 0.18 mSv/h in Helsinki. Only two short spikes
| over one week, Chernobyl was over two weeks, but certainly not
| harmless. These are deadly poisons.
| https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/contentassets/66f4f...
|
| It's either one of the old Chernobyl-like pressure water reactors
| in Tallin or St Petersburg. Really interesting is also why the
| control commission in Vienna is not allowed to call them out.
| ProblemFactory wrote:
| > old Chernobyl-like pressure water reactors in Tallin or St
| Petersburg
|
| You must be confusing Tallinn with some other city - Estonia
| does not and has not had any nuclear power plants.
|
| The map covers Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Russia.
| Estonia and Latvia have no nuclear power or weapons programs,
| and the first four are EU countries where staying silent about
| an incident would be very unlikely. That leaves Russia.
|
| Interestingly enough the possible source area includes the
| Arkhangelsk naval base, where the Russian nuclear submarine
| fleet is stationed. An incident there may explain the lack of
| information.
| catalogia wrote:
| I think Arkhangelsk being involved seems likely. The Russian
| ship "Akademik Aleksandrov" aka _Project 20183_ was
| apparently in that area recently[1], and seems obviously
| related to Poseidon[2]. If the source of the radiation were a
| Poseidon, that would certainly explain the secrecy.
|
| As for claims of the fission products coming from a "civil
| source", I don't think enough is known about Poseidon's
| reactors to rule that out. I could be wrong, but as far as
| I've read the details of that reactor are up in the air
| (besides being small, obviously.)
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/FrankBottema/status/1276930424170844162
|
| [2] http://www.hisutton.com/Akademik-Aleksandrov.html
| ksaj wrote:
| Mandates are mandates. You can only say and do what you are
| authorized to say and do. Overstepping other agencies'
| jurisdictions is a guaranteed way to garner negative attention.
|
| Eg: In Canada people are trying to push the Prime Minister into
| releasing Meng back to China. But the government is strictly
| separate from the legal/court system to avoid the type of
| corruption one sees the US Dept of Justice accused of right
| now. So yes, he very well might be able to push the matter
| through loopholes or influence, but the very same people
| pushing him to do it would also decry corruption and call him a
| dictator if he did so. So he won't overstep that boundary.
|
| Additionally, I used to provide technical expert witness
| services in certain types of court cases. I had to state only
| things that I can back up as part of my expertise. I had to use
| the word 'apparent' and 'presumed' a lot, even when file names
| were so extremely obvious. I couldn't refer to a hacker as a
| hacker in certain contexts - they're simply "suspects" etc. As
| a technical expert, I spoke to the technology and not the
| person or any literal content.
|
| It's exactly the same reason you see the word "alleged" used in
| the news even when it is super obvious the "alleged" facts are
| obviously true -- Jurisdiction and authority to state specifics
| as fact.
| chronicsunshine wrote:
| Probable sources would be:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Nuclear_Power_Plant or
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leningrad_Nuclear_Power_Plant
|
| Notably the second uses RBMK-1000 reactors, the same as used in
| Chernobyl.
| [deleted]
| Nginx487 wrote:
| Can't even guess, who's riding the horse with the naked torso
| could be responsible.
| rantwasp wrote:
| that's speculation. i could be a horse, it could be a bear, a
| moose, you name it
| aaron695 wrote:
| Russia, damaged fuel rod.
|
| https://www.rivm.nl/nieuws/radioactieve-stoffen-gedetecteerd...
|
| 21st century and the current top comment on HN is it's a random
| spike. Even though the article says it's not. This shouldn't be
| hard people.
| highenergystar wrote:
| Could this be from the test of the nuclear powered hypersonic
| missile that Russia is developing [0]? Those things aren't
| designed to 'land' no pun intended
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik
| catalogia wrote:
| My first guess is their nuclear powered torpedo, 'Poseidon',
| aka STATUS-6, or Kanyon:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpose_...
|
| I'd sooner expect it in the Arctic Ocean, but who knows.
|
| Edit: Some supporting evidence from twitter:
| https://twitter.com/FrankBottema/status/1276930424170844162
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Wouldn't be surprised if nuclear fission waste is being dumped
| canada_dry wrote:
| Hell, with all the regulatory rollbacks by the EPA [i] that
| might happen here soon enough.
|
| [i] https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/tracking-
| deregulation...
| catalogia wrote:
| I would be surprised if they were doing that in the Baltic
| Ocean. Traditionally Russia has dumped their nuclear waste near
| Novaya Zemlya, into the Arctic Ocean.
| sradman wrote:
| I understand the political reason for not naming the
| reactors/nation-states most likely responsible for the release
| but I don't understand the lack of context. Why wasn't short-
| lived iodine-131 detected along with the caesium-134, caesium-137
| and ruthenium-103? How do the measured levels of the long-lived
| caesium/ruthenium isotopes compare to known events like
| Fukushima? How do these measured levels compare to known nuclear
| weapon tests?
|
| I'm worried about the geopolitical implications, not the global
| health implications.
| cowboysauce wrote:
| The release likely happened during fuel reprocessing. Since
| fuel is left to cool for at least several months before
| reprocessing, there's essentially no I-131 left at that point.
| ISL wrote:
| 103Ru has a 39-day half life. 134Cs has a 2 yr half life, 137Cs
| has a 30-year half life.
|
| 131I has an 8 day half-life.
|
| One can use those numbers to infer, in the absence of
| supporting chains, how-recently the released material was
| involved in a fission reaction.
| Nodraak wrote:
| The original data seems to be available at [^1] but I dont see
| any spike around the 22-23 of June ... Let's wait to know more
| before saying anything stupid (looking at you Greenpeace)
|
| [^1] https://www.stuk.fi/aiheet/sateily-
| ymparistossa/sateilytilan...
| syvanen wrote:
| That system you linked only measures radiation. While the
| sensor in Sweden actually sample the air to detect certain
| isotopes. STUK does have this type of sensors also and did see
| these same type of isotopes in the air[1]. [1] Announcement in
| Finnish https://www.stuk.fi/-/helsingin-ilmassa-pienia-maaria-
| keinot...
| [deleted]
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I wonder where this is from. First thought was Fukushima. As they
| say it's from a civil nature. It's very far from the Baltic
| though. Wouldn't really be possible.
|
| Or one of the many nuclear subs that have sank perhaps? I believe
| most ship reactors are quite similar in design to civil power
| plants, just much smaller.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Has this been verified / confirmed by a second or third sensors
| location? Wouldn't multiple locationns help pin point the
| possible source?
| albntomat0 wrote:
| What's the base rate for this type of detection? Another
| commenter mentioned this is how Chernobyl was first reported, but
| I can't find anything on how often such things happen randomly
| without a catastrophic root cause.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I am quite disturbed to find that this is not a zero level base
| rate.
|
| I remember the "CIA Whole Earth" from Snow Crash. I always
| thought that Google Earth would be something like that - some
| cross between a weather station and wikipedia.
| re wrote:
| > the "CIA Whole Earth" from Snow Crash
|
| I was curious about this so here's some of the references I
| found (in the novel, it's "a piece of CIC software called,
| simply, Earth").
|
| http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=843
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Influence_on_the_Wo.
| ..
| m4rtink wrote:
| IIRC this was an (acknowledged!) inspiration for Google
| Earth.
| serf wrote:
| > I am quite disturbed to find that this is not a zero level
| base rate.
|
| speaking of disturbing factoids about radiation.. This is one
| of those nerdy cocktail topics I spout out about when i'm
| bored at a bar.[0]
|
| [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel
| mongol wrote:
| I saw this tweet a short while back. It does not add anything to
| the article but is an official source
|
| https://twitter.com/SSM_Nyheter/status/1275416038755139584
| guerrilla wrote:
| Tack. Do they have a live map like Finland does [1]?
|
| [1]. https://www.stuk.fi/aiheet/sateily-
| ymparistossa/sateilytilan...
| alkonaut wrote:
| The Leningrad plant looks suspicious given the pattern in
| southern Finland.
|
| And in that I case we'll never find out.
| mongol wrote:
| Not that I am aware of. Kind of disappointed actually.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Yeah, same. I found a couple [1][2] of live maps but I'm
| not really sure how seriously to take them. Especially
| since they don't appear to show this spike.
|
| [1]. http://radioactiveathome.org/map/
|
| [2]. https://radmon.org/index.php
| swebs wrote:
| English Link
|
| https://www.stuk.fi/web/en/topics/environmental-
| radiation/ra...
| rurban wrote:
| So they know where the emission originated from, but they are not
| telling it?? Please. Are we still in the 80ies?
| user_50123890 wrote:
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbdAa9qXQAYji-z?format=jpg&name=...
|
| Spoiler: 99% chance it's from Russia.
| rurban wrote:
| 50/50 Either Tallin or St Petersburg. One of them is not in
| Russia, but both are Russian-style (ie Chernobyl) water
| pressure reactors. One of them leaked in a massive scale, but
| thanksfully only twice.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I'd expect Estonia to have admitted it already if it was on
| their side.
|
| For Russia, my expectations are completely different.
| ProblemFactory wrote:
| I'd expect Estonia to be very surprised and alarmed if it
| was on their side, given that there are no nuclear power
| stations or weapons in Estonia.
| catalogia wrote:
| Despite what the article may say, I think it's premature to
| rule out a naval reactor.
| guerrilla wrote:
| 80% of that area covered is not in Russia btw.
| user_50123890 wrote:
| ? Nuclear accidents don't come out of thin air, they are
| caused by humans, some countries/areas have higher risks of
| accidents, and most areas have zero risk.
|
| Russia is definitely a high risk area (if not THE high risk
| area), considering their soviet legacy of ancient nuclear
| power plants etc.
| krick wrote:
| I guess it's not 80's, it's a silly mistake of making an
| assumption that "now we are living in the different times".
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