NuclearCrimes.org - The Real Scoop about Containment and Detection of Underground Nuclear Tests

Are you a denier of Fukushima radiation in your seafood?

NuclearCrimes.org

Chapter 10 - The Real Scoop about Containment and Detection of Underground Nuclear Tests

10-1

1 of 5

There are well over 200 different radioactive elements produced in a nuclear explosion and the composition of these elements varies over time. In the first nanoseconds of a nuclear blast, a very large percentage of the 'fission products' is in gaseous form. As time goes by, the percentage of solids increases. (In the arena of atomic elements, solids form usually from the decay of radioactive noble gases. The 'decay' is a energetic 'powerplay' that spews harmful rays called ionizing radiation.)

When a nation hypothetically secretly conducts an underground nuclear blast or openly conducts one but shares no details about the test, the easiest way to learn the technical details of the blast is by detecting radioactive gases before they decay into solids. Most - yes, most - undergroud nuclear explosions leak. They leak for the same reason that radon, a naturally occuring radioactive gas, rises from the soil and through all forms of porous rock.¹. Radioactive gases leaked by underground tests can last up to decades before 'decaying' and can travel distances of hundreds or thousands of miles away from the 'ground zero.' But, as time goes by, and this is the case for all radioactive gases, bit by bit of the gaseous radiation decays into solids.

After a suspected nuclear blast, scientists across the globe search for what is called a 'gas signature' of the atomic explosion. They test the air for two short-lived gaseous isotopes of xenon gas (Xenon-133 and Xenon-135). The snafu in this approach is that North American air has a relatively constant 'mix' of these two radioactive gases that come from nuclear reactors and radiopharmaceutical plants. These peacetime activities release radioactive xenon gases that, like greenhouse gases, mix together to create a homogenous 'blend' in our atmosphere that is constantly refortified by new radioactive pollution. The gases released by a nuclear detonation, however, contain a slightly diifferent mix or blend of these two radioactive xenon gases. This is why scientists look for a 'gas signature' (a blend of xenon gases that differs from 'normal' air) in pockets of 'fresh' contaminated air from the explosion. The problem is that xenon-135 gas transforms every minute into a solid radio-chemical (called cesium-135) and this decay slowly 'brings down' the plume's unique 'blend' until it mimics that of normal air. So, the challenge with detecting nuclear explosions is, firstly, finding an air pocket from the leaked explosion and, secondly, finding it before two or three weeks have passed (beyond that time the 'evidence' has decayed, or 'melted away.')

Nuclear physics experts and international organizations responsible for nuclear weapons treaty verification have issued volumes of reports that detail elaborately complicated schemes for facilitating this often impossible 'manhunt' for gaseous proof that a country blew up a nuke. But there is a very, very easy solution to the detection problem: de-pollute our atmopshere and reduce to zero the atmospheric inventory of xenon-133 and xenon-135 gases by phasing out nuclear reactors and radiopharmaceutical plants. This way we would have near flawless ability, extending well beyond two weeks, to tell if a clandestine nuclear explosion occurred anywhere around the world! Regrettably, nations of the globe don't want to pay this price to gain a huge advantage in curbing nuclear proliferation.⁴

Following North Korea's second nuclear test in May 2009, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. conducted sampling of the air downwind of the North Korean test site but North Korea knew how to stiffle their efforts - they closed the 'window of time' for detection by shooting off test missiles into the air forcing the postponement of airplane 'sniffing' (radioactive gas sampling) efforts as xenon gases dispersed and decayed.

It worked. The U.S. and her allies tried to detect traces of radioactive xenon gases from North Korea's test but they failed. Some speculated that North Korea faked a test. Others believed the reclusive nation's weapons scientists succeeded in a rare 100% containment of the gases.

Containment failure

Global non-proliferation organizations have put so much effort into detecting clandestine nuclear blasts yet they have done little to warn the globe's populations of the dangers of the opposite problem, a 'containment failure' that leaks so much radiation that it would be a repeat of the public health radiation crisis of the 1950s and 1960s. If a North Korean nuclear test results in a containment failure that leads to significant venting, the damaging global public health impacts could be significant. These such organizations even refuse to admit or inform citizens that a public danger exists from late-time seeps from North Korea's, or Russia's, or America's, or France's, or India's, or Pakistan's or China's plugged underground testing shafts, tunnels and cavities. These countries' subterranean test site areas perpetually bottle radioactive gases that could experience ground-level leaks or 're-criticality' of closely-packed fissile materials

North Korea's 2nd nuclear test in 2009 was similar in size (although no one knows what the yield really was) to Baneberry. Baneberry was a U.S. underground nuclear blast at the Nevada Test Site that shot up and broke through the ground in 1970 and spewed fallout in no different a manner than a small nuclear attack on American soil.⁵ According to the book 'Killing Our Own', 'In all of the states where the total radioactivity [from Baneberry's fallout] rose highest--Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Nebraska, and as far away as Minnesota and Maine--infant mortality also rose sharply during the first three months after the test.' The book also states that 'a dangerously high concentration of Iodine-131, a radiation byproduct, was found in the milk of Utah and Nevada cows which had eaten vegetation exposed to Baneberry's fallout.'

The Youtube video above contains an illustration showing what it would look like - more or less - if a North Korean underground nuclear bomb test behaved (leaked) exactly like Baneberry (NTS, 1970); the radiation would fall-out extensively over extremely heavily populated areas of China, and parts of Japan and Russia's Maritime Province. (A plume (or mushroom cloud) created from an atomic explosion conducted aboveground or leaked from underground has several components, such as the base, stem, top, etc...Oftentimes, mushroom clouds would separate into these components, which would travel in their own direction and at different altitudes.)

In 1970, Baneberry's plumes [fallout map], of course, continued to travel across the globe, circling it many, many times, eventually dropping all of its radioactive contents, over North America, Europe, etc...The path of the clouds from a radioactive release from a leaked underground nuclear test can linger, zigzag and cross over anywhere within thousands of miles of the ground zero. The path of fallout from a North Korean nuclear accident can cross over population centers in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, U.S., Canada, etc...The Chinese government fears such an outcome, which would lead to public health problems and a severe refuge crisis. A rare insight into China's fear of a North Korean nuclear testing accidnet was provided - courtesy of Wikileaks - in a cable written by a U.S. diplomat in Beijing on June 17, 2009 that reads:
09BEIJING1634, CDA AND MFA ASIAN AFFAIRS ON DPRK (June 17, 2009) 'He reminded his hosts that Punggye, the site of the DPRK nuclear test, was near the Chinese border and that any accident there could have had dire consequences for Northeast China. XXXXXXXXXXXX insisted that China was as concerned as the United States about proliferation from North Korea.' See cable Here

Prefixes, conversions and equivalents

Tables about atomic elements, decay charts, fission yields

NuclearCrimes.org's sitemap and various public and government documents of interest we uploaded online: 1. 2.

'The greatest irony of our atmospheric nuclear testing program is that the only victims of U.S. nuclear arms since World War II have been our own people.'
- Forgotten Guinea Pigs Report, 1980

Tips for arguing with radiation PR people
When they belittle your claims...	by comparing any exposure from their facilities to...	You say or ask...
...about your exposure to fallout from nuke plants or weapons testing fallout...	....background radiation...	'Background radiation doesn't mean it is harmless - it probably does cause a small portion of cancers. If you are adding to the background radiation, you are adding to someone's risk.' 'How many more defective children will be born and how many cancers will be induced by this increase in 'background radiation'?
...about your exposure to fallout from nuke plants or weapons testing fallout...	...flying in a airplane...	'That is not a realistic comparison. Radionuclides in fallout are incorporated into our bodies (tissue, bones). Most of the radiation from cosmic rays is external.'
...about your exposure to fallout from nuke plants or weapons testing fallout...	... a chest x-ray...	'You don't ingest or inhale the radiation source from x-rays. An x-ray lasts for a millisecond. Fallout lingers in body tissue and bones for decades .'
...about your exposure to fallout from nuke plants or weapons testing fallout...	...eating a banana	'Potassium-40 is a naturally occurring radioisotope that has been present in foods and the environment on Earth for billions of years. Potassium 40, which at normal body levels delivers an annual internal dose to the soft tissue of 20 millirem and 5 millirem to the bone, is not as hazardous as many forms of anthropogenic (meaning: artificial; manmade) radiation for several reasons. One main reason is, unlike many types of manmade fission products, its environmental levels rarely peak to hundreds or thousands of times normal levels. Since 1945, we've seen a cycle of drastic rising and falling of levels of environmental anthropogenic radiation with nuclear accidents, non-accident releases, radioactivity blowing around, etc... Another reason: some forms of anthropogenic radiation in the body do much more damage than potassium-40 for the same quantity of radiation. Dose tables printed in a 1970s document (NUREG 1.109 rev. 1 Oct. '77) by the NRC paint a spooky, yet realistic, picture for what happens to a radiation sensitive organ, the thyroid, when iodine-131 is consumed. A NRC formula indicates that 1,000 picocuries of iodine-131 gives a dose of 80 millirems to the adult thyroid and 140 millirems to the thyroid of an infant. Consider: one liter of 'Sunrise Dairy' (Kansas) milk in April 2011 had 1,518 pCi/L of Iodine-131. That was from Fukushima.
...about your exposure to fallout from nuke plants or weapons testing fallout...	...standing next to a smoke alarm....	'You don't ingest or inhale the Americium-241 from smoke alarms. You're talking about the small gamma component of Am-241. That's external exposure.'