Nuclear Fission occurring in that thunderstorm over your head?
Yes, it is possible thanks to the Fukushima disaster.
One of the great unknowns out of the Fukushima nuclear disaster is the effect of the long term pumping of high atomic weight elements into the atmosphere. I have previously discussed one such large scale threat, the nuclear spallation of Fukushima fallout (both radioactive and non-radioactive) resulting from Earth directed Coronal Mass Ejections. But, there is another much closer and more frequent nuclear fission source in thunderstorms.
The lightening in thunderstorms actually produces potentially deadly levels of high energy gamma radiation, when that gamma radiation strikes higher atomic weight elements it will cause nuclear fission to occur. That photo-fission effect is not just limited to fissile materials. What makes the situation potentially more deadly is that the high atomic weight fallout from Fukushima may actually seed the formation of thunderstorms resulting in the creation of fresh radioactive materials from photofission. The strong correlation between the Fukushima disaster and the largest out break of thunderstorms / tornadoes in decades may be indicative of this affect.
The first indications of such nuclear fission occurring in the thunderstorms above our heads would be the detections of significant short half life radiation; much like the detection of radioactive fallout SIXTY-TWO TIMES greater than background radiation in the Saint Louis rainfall of 5/25/2011 seen in the videos below.
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You could also add muon induced fission from cosmic ray interactions to this list. On the plus side though, I'd much rather any radioisotopes released in nuclear incident were photodisintegrated or photofissioned so they decay quicker. I can't see how these effects would substantially increase any risk of radiation as the overall radiation exposure, given the millisecond increase over background, still averages out to a reasonable background (unless you happen to be in the thundercloud, in which case there's chance of biologically significant exposure with or without radionuclides from human nuclear power incidents in any event).
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting area that you're studying though but personally I'd study it from a physics perspective rather than a human health one.
Keep up the good work.
Our perspective is mostly one of rapid cost, effective risk-mitigation; in which we err on the side of health.
ReplyDeleteCertainly Photo-Fission is a way of "cleansing" the atmosphere; and I suspect it was occurring at significant levels over Europe last year resulting in widespread indeterminate detections of radio iodines. see
http://pissinontheroses.blogspot.com/2011/11/european-radioactive-iodine-spallation.html
Possibly explaining the flooding in Illinois after the release at LaSalle station?
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