Europe’s radiation cloud is not harmless, if you happen to be near the source

Radiation Cloud Over Europe, Not ‘Harmless’ to Those near Unknown Source, Nuclear Expert Says https://www.environews.tv/world-news/radiation-cloud-europe-not-harmless-near-unknown-source-nuclear-expert-says/, bureau EnviroNews World News ,by Emerson Urry , November 11, 2017 —An airborne plume of radioactive ruthenium 106 from a nuclear accident was detected “in the atmosphere of the majority of European countries,” from late September through mid-October, according to France’s Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute (IRSN) — but the source is still unknown. As of November 10, 2017, the manmade element has been identified in at least 28 countries.

While many news agencies are calling the cloud “harmless” and reporting the good news — that radiation levels are low and that no health consequences have been observed — radiation experts tell EnviroNews the scene may not be so peachy at ground zero where the release occurred. The question is: where exactly is ground zero?In a report, the IRSN used wind and weather patterns, coupled with readouts from radiation monitoring stations throughout Europe, to deduce the “most plausible zone of release lies between the [Volga River] and the [Ural Mountains].” According to NPR, Jean-Christophe Gariel, Director for Health at the IRSN, said, the plume “has been traced to somewhere along the Russia-Kazakhstan border.”

“Russian authorities have said they are not aware of an accident on their territory,” Jean-Marc Peres, Director at the IRSN, told Reuters, adding that he had not yet been in contact with Kazakh officials.

“Whoever released it ain’t talking,” said nuclear expert and whistleblower Arnie Gundersen to EnviroNews, in an email interview. “It’s kind of like passing gas in church. Everybody knows it happened but no one is admitting to be the source!” Gundersen, of Fairewinds Associates, is a nuclear engineer and former nuclear power plant operator, who was also CNN‘s on-air expert during the three-reactor meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi.

What is known is that the release did not emanate from a nuclear power reactor meltdown. If that were the case, the cloud would have been loaded with many other radionuclides generated during meltdowns. The IRSN said the release likely came from a “nuclear fuel treatment site or centre for radioactive medicine,” according to Reuters.

The IRSN also wrote in its report, “there has been no impact on human health or the environment,” and many news agencies have since regurgitated this assertion in their reporting. But this is a difficult statement. The gestation period for the carcinogenic and mutagenic health consequences from even low-level radiation exposure is very long, and medical maladies may take decades to unfurl. The effects of exposure to ionizing radiation can also be multigenerational, deforming the genes of unborn children and grandchildren, predisposing them to medical conditions before they are born.

According to Gundersen, what the IRSN failed to mention in its report, is that while radiation levels over Europe may be “very low,” that may not be the case near the mystery facility where the accident occurred. “The ruthenium 106 concentrations at the detectors in Europe are [quite] low and these are very sensitive detectors,” Gundersen explained to EnviroNews. “That said, the concentration near the release point is likely quite high, and is not ‘harmless’ to those who are close by. That is why pinpointing the location of the release is so important,” Gundersen continued. The esteemed industry expert also noted that the readings in the INRS report “are from mid-October” and that those releases are “supposedly over now.”

NPR concurred with Gundersen’s assessment, reporting, “modeling suggests that any people within a few kilometers of the release — wherever it occurred — would have needed to seek shelter to protect themselves from possible radiation exposure.” The IRSN also added that if a similar incident would have occurred within French borders, it would have required evacuation for an area with a radius of several kilometers.

As EnviroNews has reported in the past, air pollution concentrates most abundantly near its source. In the case of heavy metals and radioactive isotopes, larger particles with more mass, fall out faster and closer to the point of origin, whereas smaller particles can be carried on wind currents for hundreds or thousands or miles, falling to Earth wherever wind and precipitation carry them. The smaller and more vaporous the particle, the farther it can fly. Myriad finely disintegrated radioactive isotopes from both Chernobyl and Fukushima circled the globe for weeks following those accidents, and it has been stated by experts that to varying degrees, virtually every person on Earth has a piece of Fukushima and Chernobyl lodged inside them. Most human bodies also harbor the radioactive footprint from bomb testing — radiation that is still falling out and blowing around to this day.

Ruthenium 106 is a transuranic isotope created in nuclear reactors. The element is not present in nature. It has a half-life of 373 days, meaning it takes about 10 years for it to decay away after it is born as a byproduct of the nuclear fission process.

“It’s an unusual isotope,” Anders Ringbom, Research Director of the Swedish Defence Research Agency, told NPR. “I don’t think we have seen it since the Chernobyl accident.” The Swedish Defence Research Agency is the organization that conducts radiation monitoring for that country.

Multiple nuclear facilities exist in the region in question, the most noteworthy of which is the massive Mayak Production Association — a plant used extensively during the Cold War to recondition nuclear fuel into bomb material. Mayak has raised eyebrows because the site has been the source of multiple past disasters, including a massive explosion in 1957 “that rivaled the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima and Chernobyl,” according to NPR. Still, Russian authorities are yet to acknowledge any accidental releases within their borders.

If the Russians aren’t owning the accident and the Kazakhs aren’t talking, the question is: what’s next? Gundersen pointed out the imperative task of locating the source of the incident. It would seem that only then can an assessment be made of the true “impact on human health or the environment.”

November 13, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, EUROPE

3 Comments »

It is potentially dangerous all over and geiger measures were high in the US in this period too. We need a weather map from those days. Based on what I could find it probably is in the region they said and split with part getting sucked north by the hurricanes into northern Europe and on into the US and part south by another low. Or perhaps as in many accidents (and farts) others decided to vent too. Maybe US and Russia testing new fuels for mars in coordination?

Comment by miningawareness | November 14, 2017 | Reply
“The Swedish Defence Research Agency is the organization that conducts radiation monitoring for that country”

Thats not true. The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority conducts radiation monitoring for Sweden

Comment by Lars Poster | November 14, 2017 | Reply
- AS I read this article, it did mean that The Swedish Defence Research Agency conducts radiation monitoring FOR SWEDEN.
  
  Comment by Christina MacPherson | November 14, 2017 | Reply

1.This Month

above – Nagasaki child victim

Harry Truman and the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Frank Jackson, 9 Aug 20 Whether the bombing of Hiroshima or the entry of the Soviet Union into the war was the crucial event in causing the Japanese surrender can never be conclusively settled (Hiroshima at 75: bitter row persists over US decision to drop the bomb, 5 August). However, very little is said about the motives for the second bomb, on Nagasaki three days later. Few argued that it was necessary to reinforce the message of Hiroshima. Rather, the military and scientific imperative was to test a different bomb design – “Fat Man”, an implosion type using plutonium, as opposed to the uranium of Hiroshima’s “Little Boy”. To my mind that, destroying a mainly civilian city for such reasons, makes it even more of a war crime, if that is possible, than the bombing of Hiroshim.a

Frank Jackson
Former co-chair, World Disarmament Campaign https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/07/harry-truman-and-the-nuclear-bombs-dropped-on-hiroshima-and-nagasaki

“Shinda Onnanoko” (“Dead Girl”), by Nâzim Hikmet, translated into Japanese by Nobuyuki Nakamoto

I come and stand at every door
But no one hears my silent tread.
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead.

I’m only seven, although I died
In Hiroshima long ago.
I’m seven now as I was then.
When children die, they do not grow.

My hair was scorched by swirling flame.
My eyes grew dim; my eyes grew blind.
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind.

I need no fruit, I need no rice.
I need no sweets, nor even bread.
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead, for I am dead.

All that I ask is that for peace
You fight today, you fight today
So that the children of the world
May live and grow and laugh and play.

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