What happened to that report of high radiation near Russia

[HowlerMonkey]

A few weeks ago, there were reports of super high levels of radiation similar to what sweden found when chernobyl ejected core material.

Were these reports in error or have they not yet found the source?

 

[mathman]

Google "ruthenium radioactivity". You will get many news articles about it.

 

[rootone]

I heard something about high levels of a Ruthenium isotope having been detected.
That would not indicate a Chernobyl type of event.
Last I heard was that `it could be accidental release of material intended for use in radiotherapy treatment.

 

[Astronuc]

The isotope ruthenium-106 (¹⁰⁶Ru) was detected by various European agencies.

From Euronews (http://www.euronews.com/2017/11/21/explained-ruthenium-106-and-europe-s-radioactive-cloud)

Both IRSN and Germany’s radiation protection agency said the source of the emission was in Russia’s southern Urals.

Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear energy corporation, contradicted these findings, saying there were no traces of ruthenium 106 anywhere apart from at St Petersburg from September 25 and October 7.

But then Russia’s meteorological agency, Roshydromet, published data on November 20 that was consistent with the German and French conclusions.

From IRSN, Detection of Ruthenium 106 in France and in Europe: Results of IRSN’s investigations
http://www.irsn.fr/EN/newsroom/News...in-Europe-Results-of-IRSN-investigations.aspx

As soon as it became aware of the first detections of Ruthenium 106 in the atmosphere in Europe, IRSN mobilized all its means of radiological monitoring of the atmosphere and conducted regular analysis of the filters from its monitoring stations. For the period from September 27 to October 13, 2017, only the stations of Seyne-sur-Mer, Nice and Ajaccio revealed the presence of Ruthenium 106 in trace amounts. Since October 13, 2017, Ruthenium 106 is no longer detected in France.

Measurement results from European stations communicated to the Institute since October 3, 2017, have confirmed the presence of Ruthenium 106 in the atmosphere of the majority of European countries. The results obtained for sampling periods later than October 6, 2017, showed a steady decrease in Ruthenium 106 levels, which is currently no longer detected in Europe.

From Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz, Deutschland
https://www.bfs.de/SharedDocs/Kurzmeldungen/BfS/EN/2017/1003-ruthenium-106.html

Ruthenium-106 (Ru-106) is used as a radiation source in cancer therapy for the treatment of ocular tumours. Ruthenium can also occur during the reprocessing of nuclear fuel elements. In addition, ruthenium-106 is used in radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG), which serve for the power supply of satellites.

Ruthenium-106 is one of many fission products, and by itself would not indicate an accident of a nuclear reactor. We would also expect isotopes of Te, I, Cs, Xe, Br, Kr, and others.

If it comes from Mayak, then perhaps there was a process upset.

Russia admits spike in radioactive ruthenium-106 over Ural Mountains amid fears of nuclear accident
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-22/russia-admits-ruthenium-106-spike-near-ural-mountains/9178446

 

[jim hardy]

I looked up ruthenium
106 has half life about a year
shorter half life isotope wasn't mentioned so i figured it's not from an operating reactor and pretty much dismissed it as ' a curiosity ' ...

 

[Bigjoemonger]

The Ru-106 was from a leak at a waste processing facility. The only isotope leaked was Ru-106. So it's nothing like chernobyl.
It has a half life of less than a year.
Decays into Rh-106 with a half life of 30 seconds which decays into Pd-106 which is stable.
In two years only 25% will remain. In ten years it'll be entirely gone.

The levels released were about 3-8 Ci. Which is a pretty significant release but no where near the 150 million Ci released during chernobyl. They'd have to take precautions within a few km of the facility but levels in Europe are harmless. Has little to no impact on dose already received from natural background radiation.