IAEA reports unusual radiation in Europe

No doubt some old lady has a jar of iodine in the attic.

...or the CERN experiment going wrong???

Stuxnet still active in Irans "peaceful" Busheer reactor?

some KGB dude got drunk and dropped his suitcase somewhere in the Check Republic?

Can pockets of high radiation occur naturally?

Deplore:

" Can pockets of high radiation occur naturally? "

Yes, they can. But the article talks about Iodine 131 in the atmosphere, not about some local hotspot in in the ground (of which there are many.)

Iodine 131 in the atmosphere indicates that somewhere there has been man-made nuclear fission recently, and its products got out in the open.

Which way have the winds over Europe being blowing recently?

If the prevailing winds, then look SW of the Czech Republic to...

Hold it a sec.

When they reported fission had been happening in no 1 reactor at Fukushima in October, Xenon was being given off, but they definitely mentioned that the one thing you might expect, ie radioactive Iodine 131, had not been detected.

One reason given was that the low temperature reactions could mean that the Iodine was solidified.

Could Iodine have been given off and gone straight up and away over the Pacific, I wonder, to be picked up in Europe? I know the IAEA say it is not from Fukushima, but they gave no reason. How can they be so sure, unless they know something we don't...?

Well, SW of the Czech Republic there is also Armenia, which produces most of its electricity from a block of aging Tchernobyl type reactors, and further SW there is Iran, which has started up it Busheer reactor, which is an bizarre combination of old German technology, grafted together with Russian, Pakistani, and Iranian copycat components.... all based on what the engineers could cobble together, since the German team took the documentation with them when they pulled out. Both extremely iffy, and certainly bigger candidates for an accident than the Czech reactors.

The second thing that came to mind was some of those old reactors at the Dukovany Nuclear Power Station in the Czech Republic, but I guess it's not.

WilliB, your geography is a LITTLE off. ;8) Iran is way ESE of Europe.

Well...two explosions with fatalities at a military base in Iran being reported by the BBC.

hatsoff:

There is no indication anywhere that the military base in Iran had anything nuclear on it though.

Actually, now Debka reports that Iran lost its top missile expert in explosions sparked by failed bid to fit nuclear warhead on Shahab-3 rocket.

So... yes, there was definitely nuclear material involved in the Iranian explosion. Interesting.