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EU Power

Mysterious Spike In Radioactivity Over Northern Europe, Accident At Russian Nuclear Plant Suspected (ibtimes.com) 204

An anonymous reader quotes the International Business Times: Watchdog agencies last week detected an increase in radioactivity levels in the atmosphere over northern Europe, suggesting a potential damage at a nuclear plant. Authorities noted the possibility that the spike may be the result of accidental release of radioactive material from one of the nuclear plants in Russia, but a spokesman denied any problems with the Russian power plants.

Several Scandinavian watchdog agencies detected elevated levels of radionuclides cesium-134, cesium -137 and ruthenium-103 over parts of Finland, southern Scandinavia and the Arctic. Although the levels are not considered harmful to human health and the environment, radionuclides are artificial, unstable byproducts of nuclear fission, suggesting that the sudden increase in levels may have resulted from a damage in a nuclear power plant.

According to the Associated Press, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority noted Tuesday (June 24) that locating the origin of the radionuclides is "not possible" but by Friday, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands announced that calculations revealed that the radionuclides may actually have come from the direction of Western Russia...

In 1986, it was a similar detection in Sweden that contributed to the reveal that a disaster had occurred in Chernobyl.

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Mysterious Spike In Radioactivity Over Northern Europe, Accident At Russian Nuclear Plant Suspected

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Authorities noted the possibility that the spike may be the result of accidental release of radioactive material from one of the nuclear plants in Russia, but a spokesman denied any problems with the Russian power plants.

    Tomorrow's headline Spokesman for Russian Power Plants falls from window.

    • Re:You get it today (Score:5, Informative)

      by v1 ( 525388 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @11:31PM (#60240454) Homepage Journal

      following accident in Russia:

      step 1: deny it
      step 2: get confirmation
      step 3: continue to deny it
      step 4: get innundated with external evidence you cannot suppress
      step 5: continue to deny it
      (1-2 months later)
      step 6: admit a "minor incident" has occurred, regardless of severity, impact, or loss of life

      yup, nothing unusual here....

      • It was just some vodka, don't worry.

      • Re:You get it today (Score:4, Interesting)

        by mrwireless ( 1056688 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @04:52AM (#60241088)

        This is actually Russian doctrine, linked to the ideas of Vladislav Surkov. The idea is to send out conflicting statements, so that the general public doesn't know what to believe anymore. The same thing happened with MH17.

        Adam Curtis made an insightfull short video [youtu.be] on this. He called the effect it's designed to have on people "oh dearism" - as in "oh dear, I don't know what to believe anymore".

        The short term goal is to create a sense of apathy and powerlessness amongst the general public.

        The long term goal is to chip away at the idea that any truth can be found at all, thus chipping away at the ideals and fruits of the Enlightenment.

        If rival societies like the United States of America and Europe slowly shift towards tribalism and polarisation, this benefits Russia.

        I've summarized it before as "if you can't beat them, confuse them".

        • by Creepy ( 93888 )

          The reality is likely a cover-up, Really, modern nuclear reactors shouldn't melt down. Old reactors certainly can. New designs are foolproof to prevent meltdowns, including already melted fuel.

          • Re:You get it today (Score:4, Interesting)

            by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @06:23AM (#60241260)
            The Russians are not huge on adopting new technology. It's expensive, takes time and the old rickety stuff they currently have is still working well enough, until it doesn't. The Russians will take risks that we wouldn't dream of because they are desperate for power and cannot to spend the rubles on safety or new equipment.
        • Indeed. I immediately thought that Russia could from time to time release a well-chosen mix of radionuclides just to wreak confusion. They're considered bad guys by default, so why not act like it.

        • Trump read that book and claimed it as his.

      • "but a spokesman denied any problems with the Russian power plants."

        To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies -- Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

    • Tomorrow's headline Spokesman for Russian Power Plants falls from window.

      Uh oh, spontaneous defenestration is highly contagious.

    • Correction: Spokesman for Russian power plant fell to his death from window. Twice.
    • ... exactly what happened with Chernobyl, radiation data recorded a huge spike in Europe, Evidence pointed to the Soviet Union, they denied until they could not deny any longer, then they finally admitted to a problem. Same as it always was.
  • by Keruo ( 771880 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @11:24PM (#60240440)

    If you look at the map, spot on the middle of the yellow sphere is Sosnovy Bor nuclear plant in Leningrad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    They are decomissioning some of the RBMK reactors so perhaps there was a oopsie at the work site and something was spilled?

    • by byrtolet ( 1353359 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:40AM (#60240620)

      If you look at the map, spot on the middle of the yellow sphere is Sosnovy Bor nuclear plant in Leningrad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      They are decomissioning some of the RBMK reactors so perhaps there was a oopsie at the work site and something was spilled?

      It is Leningrad power station in Sosnovy Bor.

    • by Amouth ( 879122 )

      good working theory - that plant's track record is not great either - multiple releases and cover-ups...

    • Would the source be spot in the middle, or would it be slightly upwind?

      • That is highly dependent on wind patterns and source dispersion. Closer to the ground wind is quite chaotic so over any considerable time the centre makes a lot of sense. If on the other hand you're measuring the high upper atmosphere then global wind patterns there are very stable.

    • by zmooc ( 33175 ) <zmooc@nOspaM.zmooc.net> on Monday June 29, 2020 @04:34AM (#60241048) Homepage

      I'm no expert on this, but like most people here I have studied Fukushima and Tsjernobyl rather extensive.

      I believe these isotopes must have comes from inside a (recently) active reactor core. And not just anywhere in the reactor, but inside the fuel rods that are normally constructed in such a way that their contents don't leak out. They have come out in sufficient quantities for them to be detectable very far away. This does not sound like an oopsie during decomissioning. Not someone accidentally dropping a fuel rod (which would typically only be handled indoors anyway) but more something much more violent like an explosion or an emergency pressure valve on an active reactor being triggered. Something that was capable of getting these isotopes high into the atmosphere. This could be a proper meltdown...

      The only odd thing is that Russia explicitly denies this. I wouldn't expect them to do that this time if it were about a nuclear power plant... perhaps a nuclear reactor on a military vessel blew up?

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29, 2020 @06:20AM (#60241254)
        The isotopes detected in the air are somewhat unusual. In particular, the detection of airborne Ru-103 is interesting. Ruthenium is not easy to get airborne - airborne ruthenium was not detected after the Fukushima accident (despite an extensive monitoring campaign) - the only ruthenium detected was found on the ground in very close proximity to the plant.

        Ruthenium is a platinum group metal - so is chemically quite inert, is very dense and has an exceedingly high melting point. It is not expected to become airborne easily. Although particles were ejected from the chernobyl accident and small numbers of particles were found up to 100 km away, the range was very limited compared to other isotopes like cesium which were found thousands of km away in comparatively large quantities.

        In contrast, the detections here are of exceedingly low concentrations - not consistent with micrometer-scale ruthenium particles. So, the assumption is that a different chemical form of ruthenium is probably the cause.

        Ruthenium does have an interesting compound - ruthenium tetroxide, which like the closely related compound osmium tetroxide, is highly volatile. However, due to the inertness of ruthenium, this compound is normally only produced under strongly oxidising conditions (such as in the presence of concentrated nitric acid). This is not a feature of power reactors, but is a feature of nuclear fuel reprocessing or chemical processing for manufacture of radiochemicals. A large airborne ruthenium release in 2017 was never formally traced, but strong circumstantial evidence points towards an accident at a (notoriously polluting) Russian radiochemical plant during the manufacture of a unique and very difficult radioactive source intended for a scientific experiment.

        The short half life of Ru103 is also interesting - because nuclear fuel reprocessing is generally only performed on fuel which has been aged for long enough that the Ru103 has completely decayed. The presumed Russian 2017 release didn't release much Ru103, even though the special source could only be produced by reprocessing of unusually "young" nuclear fuel.

        The presence of Ru103, suggests that the processing was done on very fresh material - which is unlikely to be nuclear fuel for reprocessing. Instead, it is more likely to be dedicated fission targets intended for production of short half life isotopes - the main one being Tc99m for medical use, for which the main source is fission of U235, with subsequent chemical processing.
      • Russia is not a monolythic borg unit. It's possible something happened at the Leningrad plant and local management denies it to the local administration who don't take responisility and pass on the denial to Moscow. Then Moscow starts to doublecheck but in the meantime they have to say something.

        • by zmooc ( 33175 )

          Yes. However, after I commented I Googled a bit more and find more recent occassions of unexplained radio active clouds from Russia that could later be traced to specific locations. It seems like contrary to my assumption, denying is still the modus operandi.

          • There was a major oil leak in Russia very recently and the damage is extensive because the authorities kept quiet about it to moscow

      • an emergency pressure valve on an active reactor being triggered

        Oh no, the corn! Paul Newman's gonna have ma legs broke! [youtube.com]

      • If memory serves me, Russia also denied the Chernobyl incident initially too until it was undeniable that something had happened. Then officials tried to downplay it as a minor accident until it was found out that over 100,000 people had been evacuated.
        • by Megol ( 3135005 )

          Soviet, Chernobyl is located in Ukraine. Even Gorbachev didn't hear of the severity of the situation at first.

    • by stooo ( 2202012 )

      Probably not.
      Ruthenium-103 has a half life of 30 days.
      Decomissioning work happens once those kind of short-life materials have disappeared.

    • the man in 7G messed up again

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Most nuclear accidents happen during handling of harzardous material so that is a quite likely scenario.

    • If you look at the map, spot on the middle of the yellow sphere is Sosnovy Bor nuclear plant in Leningrad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      They are decomissioning some of the RBMK reactors so perhaps there was a oopsie at the work site and something was spilled?

      It's been renamed back to Saint Petersburg for a long time now. Why on earth are you people still saying Leningrad?

      • by pknoll ( 215959 )
        The city is now called Saint Petersburg. The power station's name is Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, and both are located in what is still called Leningrad oblast.
    • There was Iodine-131 in the detected elements. It has a very short half life, and by the time you can actually move any fuel elements from a reactor you've shut down, all the iodine-131 is gone.

      The presence of iodine points towards something that has been in criticality quite recently.

  • Expect the worst.
    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Its 2020, expect the worst.

      Maybe we'll get lucky and 2 disasters will cancel each other out, like a meteor plugging Yellowstone up right at eruption.

    • Godzilla's European Vacation

      coming soon...

  • by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @11:49PM (#60240486)

    Not great, not terrible

    • Thank you comrade Brukhanov.
    • Haha... the maximum reading on the old radiation monitors...

      • by Grog6 ( 85859 )

        I once had a job where we measured all of our Licensed sources once a month, and recorded the value.

        I didn't notice the problem until I did a spreadsheet, and noticed a Na22 source listed wasn't changing value over a 10 year period...

        Of our 30 some odd sources, only 5 had changed at all in the last 20 years I had a log for.

        The well counter was pegged at maximum; wrong instrument for that test. :)

  • Isn't there a way to see where does the RA come from based on satellites views?
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Strider- ( 39683 )

      No, the radiation isn't visible.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Alcari ( 1017246 )
      No, because the listed isotopes are all emitting Beta radiation, which can't penetrate very far. Even extremely high-energy beta-radiation will get absorbed readily just by passing through the air.

      Cesium-137's beta radiation will be 99.91% reduced by air after about 50m. The rest of the particles release are on the same order of magnitude of energy (and thus reduction).

      The real risk in ingesting the radioactive material. Your body uses Cesium to transmit electric signals between cells (like potassium)
  • by Orlando ( 12257 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:34AM (#60240702) Homepage

    "According to the Associated Press, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority noted Tuesday (June 24)"

    Tuesday June 23rd, or Wednesday June 24th.

  • by kenwd0elq ( 985465 ) <kenwd0elq@engineer.com> on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:52AM (#60240724)

    Interesting that the RadMon website at https://radmon.org/index.php [radmon.org] doesn't show anything, I'm not sure how the RadMon sensors work, but if they're strictly ground based, they might not detect an atmospheric plume.

    But you'd think that a power station or a submarine would have vented at or near ground level. Maybe they got that nuclear powered rocket to work?

    • Wouldn’t surprise me. Working on the missile engine was how Russia nuked itself last time [nytimes.com].
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      A few dozen people across Europe with some homebrew stuff they stuck on windowsills?

      Not surprising at all.

      Some of them are literally "homemade gieger counter with Arduino inside my apartment" and things like that. A £50 kit off Amazon that probably couldn't measure the vast majority of radiation anyway, and certainly not once put indoors. If that picks up stuff, you have bigger things to worry about that what Russia are doing.

      And none of them are within 100 miles of the suspected leak.

      Crowdsou

    • This isn't about a spike in the radiation levels, we're talking extremely minute amounts detected, but rather the detection of radio-isotopes which do not exist in nature. As these isotopes do not exist in nature and hence the natural background level is essentially zero, a release is easily detected and in itself proof that a release has happened somewhere.

      Thus the real concern here is the health and safety of the people who are much closer to this release, not the effect on the people, animals and plan
  • Old Joke (Score:5, Funny)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:57AM (#60240730)

    Question for great Radio Yerevan: Could the catastrophe of Chernobyl have been avoided?
    Answer by great Radio Yerevan: In principle, yes, but the Swedes tattled.

  • by mrthoughtful ( 466814 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @02:13AM (#60240766) Journal

    Russia denies its nuclear plants are source of radiation leak https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/wor... [bbc.co.uk]

    • by jcochran ( 309950 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @03:29AM (#60240932)

      Nice quote from the Russians....
      "No leaks have been reported."

      Not "No leaks have occurred."
      Nor "No accidents have happened."
      Nor many other possible statements indicating no trouble or incidents.

      • Don't apply conspiracy to what can also be explained by accurate statements. The language used does not at all narrow down or even raise suspicion on any of the following outcomes:

        a) nothing happened.
        b) something happened, but the locals didn't inform the government.
        c) something happened, the government was informed and is covering it up.

        I mean it's Russia so it makes sense to default to 3, but the language used would also make sense if it came from the pope. Never promise something that can bite you, and n

        • That would make sense if we didn't have any history.

          We have history. We know what happened the last time the Russians had a nuclear incident - they denied anything happened. The time before that, they denied anything happened.

          As a result, the current denials don't mean much.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        And there are people here who want every country to have nuclear power. This is why that can never, will never happen. We can't trust the ones who already have it, we don't want more of this kind of thing.

    • What's the point to even mention the best estalished serial liars?

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Well, it came out of *somebody's* reactor fairly recently. Ruthenium 103 has a half life of 39 days.

  • Maybe it will kill coronavirus?
  • An interview in local Finnish news with the head of laboratory in the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority says that releases like this happen usually a few times every year. The statement didn't discuss whether the levels seen this time were also usual, but it does seem to imply it. It was also said that most times the source of the release does not get identified.

    So there's no real major news here, stuff like this seems to happen every now and then.

    • by ledow ( 319597 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @07:31AM (#60241462) Homepage

      Which should be even more worrying - because then it either shouldn't be raising any alerts at all, or someone is regularly dumping radioactive material somewhere.

    • by Binestar ( 28861 )

      An interview in local Finnish news with the head of laboratory in the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority says that releases like this happen usually a few times every year. The statement didn't discuss whether the levels seen this time were also usual, but it does seem to imply it. It was also said that most times the source of the release does not get identified. So there's no real major news here, stuff like this seems to happen every now and then.

      Got a link to the local Finnish news article?

  • by MikeMo ( 521697 ) on Monday June 29, 2020 @07:01AM (#60241374)
    This story reminded me of a reality cops show I saw recently. They had arrested a man for suspicion of drug dealing. On camera (you could only hear them), they take the man into a room at the police station and strip search him. Drugs fall out of his ass. “Those aren’t mine”, he says. “I don’t know where those came from”.

    “Those radionuclides aren’t ours”, the Russian spokesperson says. “We don’t know where they came from”.
  • After swimming in government propaganda that devalued human life, they don't care about media propaganda either.

    Even in the one case where the media says something true.

Things are not as simple as they seems at first. - Edward Thorp

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