
Detection of radioactive iodine at trace levels in Europe in January 2017 - ge0rg
http://www.irsn.fr/EN/newsroom/News/Pages/20170213_Detection-of-radioactive-iodine-at-trace-levels-in-Europe-in-January-2017.aspx
======
en
The releases of January 2017 are 10,000 times lower than those observed (in
France) following the Fukushima incident[0]

CRIIRAD[1] believes that the meteorological conditions (and air pollution
actually in Europe) and (legal) authorizations of iodine-131 releases by the
industry are the cause of this event which could have passed unnoticed[0]

It is an unimportant event.

[0]
[http://www.criirad.org/balises/CRIIRAD_170214%20_I131_Europe...](http://www.criirad.org/balises/CRIIRAD_170214%20_I131_Europe_Radioactivite.pdf)

[1]
[http://www.criirad.org/english/presentation.html](http://www.criirad.org/english/presentation.html)

~~~
Haldir
Are you certain you have your scaling factor correct? Your Link and also
[https://www.bfs.de/DE/themen/ion/umwelt/luft-
boden/spurenmes...](https://www.bfs.de/DE/themen/ion/umwelt/luft-
boden/spurenmessungen/spurenmessungen.html) report ~50micro Becquerel/m3. Not
sure how you calculated 10000 as the scaling factor.

~~~
en
9 mBq/m3 mesured for Fukushima (France, Valence). IRSN reports 1.5 µBq/m3
(gaseous + particulate fractions) or 0.31 µBq/m3 (particulate) for this event.

~~~
Haldir
Ah ok, Thanks for the clarification

------
mschoebel
I'm in Germany and I have a Geiger counter running 24/7\. I just looked at the
data for January and February and the only thing that I notice is a VERY
slightly higher reading on February 4th with 0.1727 microSievert/hour. Average
for January was 0.1674, lowest was 0.1631, highest was 0.1703. So February 4th
was less than 6% higher than the lowest value from January.

The difference was so small that I had just attributed it to normal
fluctuations when I first saw it. Whatever caused this, so far it looks like
it was a very small event.

I could probably provide a CSV-file with the raw data if anyone is interested.
My Geiger counter stores a value every 5 minutes.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Out of total curiosity what does your setup look like? Do you have a mode # of
what you use? Never read anything about this before. Thanks.

~~~
simcop2387
Not sure about Op's setup, but an easy one to get into is uRad[1]. Along with
logging it'll share it around the globe for finding any kind of event like
this. Though I'm not sure that they've got any kind of statistical analysis
going on.

[http://www.uradmonitor.com/](http://www.uradmonitor.com/)

~~~
cosmolev
How expensive are those sensors?

~~~
simcop2387
Their indiegogo put it at $90 for a kit to solder, and $120 assembled. No idea
what the cost is now since you've got to email them on their website to get
one it appears

[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/uradmonitor-
environment-h...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/uradmonitor-environment-
health#/)

------
jshmrsn
Can someone describe the significance/insignificance/context of this?

~~~
cjensen
The ISRN appears to be a French government agency. They are claiming to have
detected non-natural levels of radioactive iodine across Europe.

The implication is that someone, somewhere had a nuclear accident and did not
report it.

~~~
frik
There was a recent incident in late Jan - explosion at nuclear power plant
Flamanville in France: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/explosion-at-edf-nuclear-
power-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/explosion-at-edf-nuclear-power-plant-
in-flamanville-1486644471)

~~~
VLM
That plant is a PWR, the water/steam in the turbine loop never contacts the
fun stuff in the reactor core, there's a heat exchanger in between.

Hydrogen cooled turbogenerators are a thing, although I don't know if this
plant used them, probably did. Nice and cool, high efficiency. The press
release claims an alternator cooling fan overheated or whatever and that
caused symptoms that sound like a hydrogen cooled turbogenerator having a nice
leak and subsequent fire. Doesn't mention a steam leak. So that's like one
more heat exchanger away from the fun stuff.

Explosions and fires and fire fighting can cause disruption and raise dust in
theory, but the isotope detected has a very short half life so this wasn't a
leak from a decade ago getting washed into the environment by a fire hose.

Its not seeming very likely.

------
sneak
It is amazing to me how effective the Earth is becoming at relaying globally-
affecting information to (for lack of a better term) stakeholders.

Why the month delay?

~~~
21
From what I read in the comments this is a non-threatening event, so there's
no uregency and no need to panic the population.

------
pvaldes
> The detection of this radionuclide is proof of a rather recent release.

Three questions

After rain?

Could be Iodine being generated directly in place from other compounds or
being seeded by suspended dust in clouds?

Could be this "Ukranian war" related?

2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9644685](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9644685)

------
Keyframe
Can this be related to explosion in French nuclear power plant a week or so
ago?

~~~
dragonwriter
Since this was measured in early January, it certainly can't be caused by an
event more recent than that, absent a temporal anomaly that would be a bigger
deal than the nuclear event.

~~~
headShrinker
> absent a temporal anomaly that would be a bigger deal than the nuclear
> event.

It's good we are considering all options... :)

------
mmrezaie
Does anyone know why there is no data for some countries like Sweden?

~~~
chinathrow
I think the readings originate from non-gov detection sources so that might be
the cause that simply no one picked it up there.

------
pyratica
Similar incident was reported last October.

News in Finland's national broadcasting:
[http://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/radiation_safety_watchdog_...](http://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/radiation_safety_watchdog_hunts_source_of_radioactive_iodine_tagged_in_air_samples/9261478)

------
nkjoep
This article talks about France, but highlights also Sardinia which is part of
Italy.

------
pharrington
Could this possibly be the result of damage to a Ukrainian nuclear power plant
during Russian's recent incursions?

~~~
olex
There are no nuclear power plants in areas of Ukraine that are affected by the
conflict. The closest one is the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant, but it's
located in a stable area with no current military activity. Other three are
further to the west and equally unaffected.

------
KVFinn
If someone had secretly tested a nuclear weapon in Asia or Russia, is this the
sort of evidence we might expect to see?

~~~
rospaya
Satellite imagery and seismographs would be more useful.

------
aburan28
Probably related to this recent incident
[http://nypost.com/2017/02/09/explosion-rocks-nuclear-
power-p...](http://nypost.com/2017/02/09/explosion-rocks-nuclear-power-plant-
in-france/)

~~~
en
As someone said below, this incident took place 2 weeks ago in a non-nuclear
part. And half-life of iodine-131 is 8 days.

~~~
pvaldes
What happens with the other half?

~~~
throwanem
It continues to decay; the active fraction is the reciprocal of 2^n in the
number of elapsed half-lives.

~~~
pvaldes
Thus, then you could be seen the remain survivor Iodine released from an
earlier episode, that for some reason went unnoticed (or undisclosed) before.

You could _expect_ to have 25% still at 16 days (I said expect because this is
a game of probabilities still).

~~~
throwanem
True, but if it's been detected at this level of activity, why wouldn't it
have been detected before now at a higher level of activity than this? There
are privately operated and often networked sensors all over Europe.

~~~
pvaldes
Exact. This is the right question here.

Maybe we do not have sensors in the right places that could detect them.

I'll suggest to place some sensors in regular airlines and see what happens
for example.

------
bitL
Poland has the highest reading - something going awry at Chernobyl or somebody
testing low yield nukes?

I am also really disappointed this wasn't anywhere in the news, at least
people could have taken some iodine. I understand the level is low but there
is still non-zero probability of somebody going ill from it.

~~~
KMag
> I am also really disappointed this wasn't anywhere in the news, at least
> people could have taken some iodine.

Edit: I know this is harsh, but the OP should realize their post is somewhere
on the anti-vaxxer-Facebook-post-scale. It's somewhere around a millipost, but
it registers on the scale.

What should the news flash say? "Run from the nearest banana, person,
airplane, or mountain."

I'm really disappointed at your disappointment despite an absolute lack of
critical thought on your part. What fraction of a banana would you have to eat
in order to have the same effect? How many nights would you need to sleep next
to someone instead of alone to get the same dose? How many minutes at 30,000
feet does that correspond to?

Back-of-the envelope calculations: the half life is about 8 days, remembering
your infinite series from high school, 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 ... = 1. So, the total
dose over an infinite time frame is the same as 2 half lives at the initial
level, so 16 days = 1,382,400 at 1.5e-6 Bq/m^3 works out to about 2 decays per
cubic meter over an infinite time frame.

Even assuming you absorbed any decay from 10 cubic meters of air around you,
I'm too lazy to look up the difference in number of Joules between Iodine and
Potassium decay and work out what fraction of a banana you'd have to eat to
get the same dose, or how many days of sleeping next to someone that works out
to, but even assuming at steady state you absorb every radioactive decay from
10 m^3 of air (gigantic over-estimate), this is an absolutely tiny dose.

The danger of someone panicking and accidentally overdosing on iodine, or
suffering a heart attack/stroke from the increased stress following such a
news announcement is almost certainly higher than the risk of someone getting
cancer from this.

I live in Hong Kong, where a fair number of people in finance moved from Tokyo
following the Fukushima disaster out of radiation concerns. The natural
background radiation levels in Hong Kong are higher in Hong Kong by more than
the additional radiation in Tokyo due to Fukushima.

You've done literally over a hundred things in the past 24 hours that pose
much more danger to you than 1.5 uBq / m^3 of iodine decay.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>What should the news flash say? "Run from the nearest banana, person,
airplane, or mountain." //

The news story should say "slightly elevated background radiation levels
detected across Europe" and have an spokesman from the nuclear industry and a
doctor quoted saying it's about as harmful as walking past a banana.

The fact we can't trust the media to report on something without inciting
chaos is pretty awful.

Your position appears to be: we can't let the press report on interesting
environmental anomalies because it could cause a panic. Meh.

~~~
KMag
I think the way the information was published was appropriate. The OP was
openly criticizing the fact that the information went through through the
normal review and publishing process instead of some urgent channel that would
have given some non-negligible number of members of the general public the
opportunity to take potassium iodide tablets.

My position is that it's detrimental to society to pressure the media into
prominently covering non-issues that sound scary on the surface, without first
taking the tiniest amount of effort to attempt to asses the level of danger.
Such people should expect to be called out.

People are generally over-concerned about scary-sounding things of little to
no danger, and vastly vastly under-concerned about mundane lifestyle issues
that statistically pose the greatest threat to their health and lives. Those
who openly criticize the media for lack of urgency in coverage without first
checking if there's any actual danger of note should be made aware that
they're contributing to the problem.

