Air Force monitoring increased Iodine-131 in Europe

a reply to: Bedlam

i know nothing...i see nothing....i hear nothing

but it looks like this was Pharma replated....i wonder where they get there iodine.

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: Bedlam

i know nothing...i see nothing....i hear nothing

but it looks like this was Pharma replated....i wonder where they get there iodine.

They make it out of tellurium using a reactor, but to lose it to atmosphere requires an inordinate amount of #ery, more than once. It is unlikely to the extreme. What you ought to ask is, who would they cover up for, and for what? Like the "v" thing.

eta: and if it's obviously a pharma spill (how?) why are we still flying the sampler around?

a reply to: Bedlam

Here's a crazy suggestion, maybe one that Zaph will answer, but I assume all blackjacks are accounted for ?
( this is ATS after all !)

a reply to: Bedlam

very good point.....

things like this get my conspiracy juices flowing

Response to no one in particular...

Amazing what those old 'retired' satellites will pick up, huh?

With all this crazyness and Simone asking g if all black jacks were accounted for...Could it be the x37 ?It's crazy how it's been hushed.......Not CNN or Fox not that we could trust them but still no news .....I betting reactor leak or x37!!

a reply to: Bedlam

Whilst i hear what you are saying, how do you explain the lack of other radioactive chemicals being detected? All the reports i have read have said it is limited to I-131. If they really can ONLY detect the I-131 then pharma leak is certainly the most likely.

The thing is, it is Eastern Europe centric and spreading westwards. Anything going boom or even an accident would have been monitored / observed somewhere in the world. Reactor leaks would have seen serious HAZMAT responses - which, again, are hard to hide. Whereas as unscrupulous factory boss is fairly common place!

That said though, if some other tracers turn up though then all bets are off........

originally posted by: Flavian
a reply to: Bedlam

Whilst i hear what you are saying, how do you explain the lack of other radioactive chemicals being detected? All the reports i have read have said it is limited to I-131. If they really can ONLY detect the I-131 then pharma leak is certainly the most likely.

So, which European pharma processor of radioisotopes is likely to be venting multiple batches of I-131 without knowing, or caring?

That's the other shoe. It's not like it's a little bit, either, the quantity vented is going to be major. And they have to be doing this on an ongoing basis, and not knowing. It's not like neutron bombardment of tellurium is cheap, either. Or it's not pharma...

And on top of that, you have to lose it when it's in gaseous form. What you get from the reactor is a sludgey mess of mixed material, but when you heat it, you evaporate the I-131 off and collect it in a condenser. After that, it's not a gas, it's either purple crystals or a solution that, if evaporated at room temp, will ALSO result in purple crystals. So you have to lose it at the first step. It would be awfully obvious you lost it all.

So, I'm not saying it absolutely CAN'T be, but in order to be, you have to:

1) not notice you lost the batch, or more than one batch
2) lose it during the distillation process, or at the reactor site
3) not have any filters
4) having lost it, try to cover by saying nothing

It seems sort of Mr Bean-y at best. I guess it could happen, but you know, it seems unlikely. But stupider things have happened.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Bedlam

I wondered what actually happened. I never did hear anything that actually made sense about that.

Um, our 'buddy' was involved under the table on that one, and we don't mention the drunk uncle.

eta: also, damn, it's going to be savage if they read this move it to RATS lol

Lol, too late to put the beans back in the can. The threat of nuclear stupidity seems 200% more likely than leaders pushing big red buttons.

a reply to: Bedlam

If it is pharma, it will be a plant in eastern Europe (not necessarily big western pharma company).

Just for the sake of leftfield thinking though, is it possible that one of the old Soviet dumping grounds has been stirred up? That could be anywhere from Ukraine westwards. Or any of the Baltic states as they were basically Soviet rubbish dumps.

originally posted by: Flavian
Just for the sake of leftfield thinking though, is it possible that one of the old Soviet dumping grounds has been stirred up?

An early thought of mine on the thread is that it could have been an accidental criticality. Like too much of the wrong sort of sludge in a conical bottomed vessel or whatnot. It's happened a number of times, and it's not pretty.

a reply to: Bedlam

That's the rub. Yes, the levels detected are relatively low, but it would be entire production runs of product, and ongoing. This would be a hugely expensive thing to miss.

originally posted by: Crumbles
Shouldn't we be getting readings of other by products aswell. Why only 113?

(131) is the least dangerous by product of fission.

Down playing the extent of whatever 'accident' is standard procedure when it comes to the nuclear industry.

They are informing people, but only a little bit.

a reply to: Bedlam

Poor Hisashi Ouchi and Masato Shinohara. As someone with lots of experience working the horrifically injured, I can say with confidence that the only medical images that to this day make me feel physically uncomfortable when I look at them are the ones that came out of the Tokaimura criticality "whoops!".

It's like a real-life version of the part in Robocop when the guy drives into the toxic waste.

Make mental note: if you work with sub-critical fissile material, keep a pistol with you at all times, so that if you see a blue flash where one shouldn't be, you'll be able to go out on your own terms before your internal organs slough away into mush.

What do nuclear scientists eat for lunch?

a reply to: Barnalby

That poor man....i saw pictures and read a few reports about that, seems he saved a few lives at the cost of all his skin.

You know they kept him alive to see what would hppen....you know....for science.

Fyi....i saw the post here some one said it was pharma and thats where i got that from, obviously not some plant manager letting his cold fingers with the iodine sublamate off in kilogram amounts.

I cant see the link with the map but where wad it first detected?

a reply to: Caver78

Explosion in a French, Flamanville, Reactor a few days ago.

a reply to: penroc3

The initial reports were from Norway, near the border with Russia.

So a question or two, humbly asked from ignorance.

Since the implication appears to be that this almost certainly isn't pharmaceutical, that it's continuing to leak given the detection big guns being sent to the area long after the half life compared to the initial detection, and that it originated somewhere other than that Flamanville France reactor...

... how bad is this? What if any risk to life is there (sounds like unless directly exposed not much in all likelihood, right)? And, what if anything are the wider implications of it?

Is it just of interest, or it is an actual health concern?

Or, is it also a strategic/security concern depending on the source?

Thanks.

Peace.

a reply to: AceWombat04

Right now, the levels are low enough that there is little to no health risk, unless you have some kinds of preexisting condition that makes you more susceptible.

With it being ongoing, it becomes less strategic in my opinion. I-131 could be indicative of a nuclear test, which is why they watch for it.