[HN Gopher] Forests around Chernobyl aren't decaying properly (2...
___________________________________________________________________
Forests around Chernobyl aren't decaying properly (2014)
Author : foxtacles
Score : 120 points
Date : 2023-06-05 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| Ekaros wrote:
| Now could this be solution for large scale carbon capture? Seed
| massive amounts of forested areas with radioactive material? So
| we could prevent large mass of bio material from decomposing and
| thus releasing carbondioxide?
| hinkley wrote:
| Sealife sanctuaries are causing commercial fish populations to
| bounce back. We just need rules that are simple enough that
| animals understand them, and we can fix a whole shitload of
| problems.
| klyrs wrote:
| Poe's law strikes again; I came here to make the same comment
| sarcastically.
| bluGill wrote:
| No, because water in all dead material will dry out and then
| lightening strikes will start a fire and turn it all into CO2
| again.
|
| If you want to make a difference make sure that you start a
| forest and grassland fire every single year - the regular fires
| ensure the resulting fires are small and leave a lot of carbon
| behind some of which will get incorporated into the forest
| floor and forever stored away. Plus forests depend on those
| fires to clean up all the under brush.
|
| Note, the above applies to most forests in North America, but
| you need to check with a local expert in forests to understand
| the details and where it doesn't apply. Every location/climate
| has different forests with different needs. There is no blanket
| statement that is right for everything.
| anonporridge wrote:
| There's a scifi or apocolyptic story in here.
|
| Environmental extremists come to the conclusion that
| irradiating large patches of Earth to make it unlivable for
| humans but is a net benefit to the non human ecosystem because
| the damage from human habitation far exceeds the damage from
| radiation. And of course, life evolves and adapts to the
| radiation. Then they start seeding dirty bombs to intentionally
| create more and more of these no go zones that become nature
| sanctuaries.
|
| I suppose "The 100" is partially playing into this concept.
| BasedAnon wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Just deforest the land and dump the logs onto the North/South
| Pole, reforest, and repeat. No radiation necessary.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I have read a similar proposal that you can just drop biomass
| into deep oceanic trenches. The cold, pressure, etc mean that
| decomposition is significantly slower than would happen on
| the surface.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| "Just" move a zillion tons of wood halfway across the earth.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Wood floats the same way rocks don't. It's not an energy
| problem, it's a time problem.
| maxbond wrote:
| That model only works in an ocean without currents, or
| with exclusively favorable currents. The weaker claim of,
| "we can expend minimal energy by taking a very long time
| to get there," perhaps even wind energy, might work
| though. I think we'd have to answer that empirically.
| twic wrote:
| Wood floats, so that doesn't sound impossible.
| [deleted]
| jonplackett wrote:
| Weirdly, there was actually a period of history where this was
| normal.
|
| During the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago trees just
| fell over and lay there because nothing had evolved to decay them
| yet.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous
| jackmott42 wrote:
| And when that huge pile of trees finally started to burn, we
| got our first case of rapid global warming from burned carbon.
| The second one is done by humans right now.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Actually, burning of trees helped _reduce_ CO2 over the long
| term. That 's because burning is incomplete and produces
| charcoal. Charcoal doesn't decay, so when it is buried it
| semi-permanently takes carbon out of the biosphere. Over
| extended time, this would draw down atmospheric CO2. Some
| coal deposits from that period have a significant fraction of
| charcoal in them.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| IIRC, that's lignite coal?
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Did they make big fallen tree piles? What a time that could
| have been for any species interested in burrows, bushwhacking,
| or forts.
| godelski wrote:
| My brain loves to pretend that this is what happened for
| millions of years, but the truth is that it turns into dust
| and "dirt." Things still weather and get broken. Even stone
| turns to sand. But it takes longer than we're currently used
| to and the particles don't get processed. But this same event
| that the parent linked led to all our coal as well as an
| important niche that modern fungi hold today (they existed
| back then, but couldn't process the lignin. Interesting
| thing, there's a term called "evolutionary radiation" and
| this was one of the largest periods of time for this, but it
| is not related to the radiation in the context of Chernobyl.
| dekhn wrote:
| That didn't sound too right for me (but my biology knowledge is
| dated at this point) so I read the relevant section from that
| page. It concludes wiht:
|
| """The delayed fungal evolution hypothesis is controversial,
| however, and has been challenged by other researchers, who
| conclude that a combination of vast depositional systems
| present on the continents during the formation of Pangaea and
| widespread humid, tropical conditions were responsible for the
| high rate of coal formation."""
|
| It's interesting to think just how much went on before trees
| with lignin showed up. Flowers are also relatively recent -
| 150mya.
| Timon3 wrote:
| And grass is even younger - just ~100-65mya! (depending on
| the source - not sure if it's narrowed down in papers)
| digging wrote:
| In general, it's mind-blowing to travel back in Earth's
| history and realize there were tens or hundreds of millions
| of years where strategies that are commonplace today had
| never been tried before (or they'd tried too early and
| failed). It makes one wonder, what will be the strategies of
| future life which no creature has yet evolved? Can we even
| imagine it?
| Sophistifunk wrote:
| Pripyat seems like an excellent place to look for genes and
| organisms that will help us grow food (and recycle air) on the
| moon / mars.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The Red Forest is highly contaminated, such that surface level
| microroentgens per hour are at least 10X than what's considered
| maximum safe level for humans, and likely a good deal higher in
| the soil.
|
| There are other tests that could have been done, such as
| measuring the ability of soil suspensions taken from the Red
| Forest to breakdown cellulose in a test tube (studies that would
| probably require a lot of care in a radiation-safe lab), but the
| kind of study described in the article (leaving bags of leaves
| around to see what happens to them) seems to be enough to prove
| the point; fungal/insect breakdown of plant matter is inhibited
| in the most severely contaminated areas of the exclusion zone.
|
| Looking around, here's a study on the contamination of fish in
| surrounding lakes (still an issue). Some fish are more
| genetically sensitive to it than others, but you probably
| wouldn't want to eat any of them:
|
| "Impact of Environmental Radiation on the Health and Reproductive
| Status of Fish from Chernobyl" (2018)
|
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b02378
| aeternum wrote:
| I wonder if any studies have looked at potential positives. For
| example the Red Forest is applying a selection pressure towards
| radiation-hardened Fungi, insects, and even potentially
| wildlife. This seems pretty important given the ongoing risk of
| nuclear war.
| pvaldes wrote:
| If this shows something crystal clear is that if the litter is
| let alone it doesn't burn necessarily. Just accumulates and made
| deep soil. The only wildfires in Chernobyl since 2014 were those
| provoked by soldiers. No men messing around + no cattle or
| farmers = no big wildfires.
|
| Of course we want this litter to remain just where it is as many
| decades as we can, but under each rock there is always an idiot,
| so the healing process is never guaranteed.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| It seems the forest conditions/fuel load are very different in
| Ukraine from places like California, the Rockies, or Turkey.
| Lightning starts wildfires completely free of human
| intervention.
| bequanna wrote:
| Apples and oranges. I believe this area in Ukraine is
| considerably wetter vs. many Western US forests that typically
| see large scale wildfires.
| pvaldes wrote:
| All forests in the planet follow basically the same rule. The
| more time left undisturbed, the more water will fix in the
| area. Top ecosystems in the chain have typically plenty of
| water. Lower forms have less and less water and are more
| unstable.
|
| "There are huge wildfires because no water in the area".
|
| This is a lie that we tell ourselves. There is not water in
| the area because wildfires. Many of this fires were
| deliberated crimes and would have burn with or without water.
| The lack of water is a scar of a previous attack.
|
| Somebody should build a forest Matrioska with a tiny cow
| cranium in the inner figure. Maybe this way the people would
| finally understand the obvious rule. After a few thousand
| years untouched, all forests became "rainforests".
| bequanna wrote:
| > After a few thousand years untouched, all forests became
| "rainforests".
|
| Yea... I'm pretty sure this isn't true.
|
| There are many remote forests in Canada for example that
| haven't been logged maybe ever and those areas still
| experience occasional large scale wildfires.
| EB-Barrington wrote:
| I was living in Kyiv during the last Chernobyl fires (2020) -
| they were BIG.
|
| There have been others - it's a very dry place in summer.
| sva_ wrote:
| > The only wildfires in Chernobyl since 2014 were those
| provoked by soldiers
|
| Not exactly true.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone_...
| pvaldes wrote:
| Thanks for the update. This proves my theory
|
| > "At least one suspect was arrested for alleged arson".
|
| > "the local young man has confessed to starting fires for
| fun"
|
| Ok. Lets change "soldiers" by a more generic "human pieces of
| s*t".
|
| I wonder if any fossil were radioactive before to became a
| fossil. That would made the process much easier.
| flangola7 wrote:
| At one time there were natural nuclear reactors. Veins of
| uranium rich enough to fission.
| bboygravity wrote:
| One hypothesis is that the moon was basically spat out by
| a supercritical natural fission reactor inside earth at a
| time when the earth was still rotating much faster.
| Basically slinging a part of itself into space to form
| the moon.
|
| I love that hypothesis.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Sadly the current most popular hypothesis in the
| scientific community is the collision of a smaller
| version of the Earth with another planet
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Moon
| wongarsu wrote:
| It's also worth noting that Ukraine gets 5-10 days of rain per
| month year around (or snow or other precipitation), and the
| driest month is comparable with San Francisco's October in
| terms of total precipitation.
|
| No humans messing around plays a big role, but everything being
| wet most of the time certainly helps.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Presumably the exclusion zone shrinks a bit each year as
| previously unsafe areas become safe to live again?
| [deleted]
| ftxbro wrote:
| > "Forests around Chernobyl aren't decaying properly"
|
| i hope they can decay so their spirits can finally be laid to
| rest. the last thing ukraine needs right now is to be flanked by
| some restless undead radioactive ents
| franky47 wrote:
| Wagner and the Radioactive Ents would be a cool band name.
| garganzol wrote:
| Radiation has a notable sterilizing effect - this is why the
| speed of a natural decomposition is diminished. Fewer microbes
| leads to a slower decomposition.
| arcticbull wrote:
| The average US background radiation dose ranges from
| 1.5-3.5mSv/yr, or 0.25-0.6uSv/hr. This guy went into the
| exclusion zone and took various measurements [1] and outside of
| hotspots, the radiation level there seems to be just at or
| above the average US background radiation level.
|
| Now I'm sure if you go digging in the Red Forest like the
| Russians did at the start of the war you're going to have a bad
| time, but the exclusion zone has settled down significantly.
| Most of the highly radioactive isotopes have by definition a
| very short half-life.
|
| Are you confident there are fewer microbes?
|
| [1] http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-
| disaster/radiation...
| hammock wrote:
| He took surface measurements. Is the same true below the
| surface? Bugs and microbes live deep in the soil
| whoopdedo wrote:
| It's probably a good thing that the exclusion zone hasn't
| become a breeding ground for mutant radiation-resistant
| bacteria.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Most of the exclusion zone is pretty low levels of radiation so
| I'm not sure how effective those are other than that they're an
| elevated background level. The FDA says <2 kGy delays sprouting
| of vegatables and fruit aging 1-10 kGy decreases the levels of
| bacteria and >10 kGy is used for actual sterilization. Most of
| the zone is <1 Sv/h so you need 10k hours or more to get above
| the 10 kGy used for sterilization.
|
| https://www.fda.gov/food/irradiation-food-
| packaging/overview....
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| thrashh wrote:
| But that to me just says that radiation definitely delays
| growth and a little radiation already affects a much larger
| organism like a plant, it's probably hurting smaller
| organisms much more.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Why would it hurt smaller organisms more?
| Beldin wrote:
| There are 365x24 = 8760 hours in a year. So after 1 year and
| 52 days, we've crossed this threshold - at current levels.
|
| So: thoroughly sterilised, if the FDA isn't totally off.
| tomohawk wrote:
| The Russian takeover of the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has
| pushed it to the edge of another catastrophe.
| lamontcg wrote:
| And they may create another catastrophe in order to try to halt
| the current Ukrainian offensive.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I keep looking at the word "properly" and thinking that is
| implying some negative judgment. I'm all for using radiation to
| preserve food from decay -- as we do already, and should do more
| of. But I suppose it may be considered proper to preserve food
| meant for storage, transfer, and human consumption, while
| considering leaves in the woods not decaying to be improper.
| FredPret wrote:
| ...oh boy
| jmkni wrote:
| Fascinating but needs a '2014' marker, I wonder what the
| situation is nearly another decade on?
| sampo wrote:
| https://nypost.com/2022/04/09/russian-troops-dug-trenches-in...
| sapiogram wrote:
| > The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy
| Agency, said it has been unable to independently verify
| reporting that suggested Russian forces have received "high
| doses of radiation."
|
| All you need to know from the article.
| thepostman0 wrote:
| My house is full of woodworm and Chernobyl is welcome to take the
| timbers.
| godelski wrote:
| > including some [wild boar] bagged as far away as Germany--
| continue to show abnormal and dangerous levels of radiation.
|
| This really needs to stop. I remember doing the calculation a few
| years back due to another HN post (and the German obsession
| around boar) and you'd need to eat roughly 0.55lbs (0.25kg) of
| the most radioactive boar you could find every day or 3lbs
| (1.4kg) of the median. That is to just hit EU radiation limits,
| not to hit a level where you're at risk. This also doesn't
| include that you'll heal over that period. The problem here is
| that if you're eating this much pork every day you're going to be
| at far higher health risks for heart disease than radiation
| sickness. Recommended is not more than 50g/day or 0.05kg/0.11lbs.
| For reference, Germans eat about 55kg of meat a year, so you'd be
| eating 220x the average German if you had a craving for the most
| radioactive boar and ate it exclusively. Germans used to eat more
| meat, and especially pork, and these stories have just done wild
| damage to the population. Especially because farm pigs aren't
| affected. But a side benefit is that less Germans are dying of
| heart disease, so I guess that's nice.
|
| As for the forest, you may notice if you google it you'll see
| this story limited to 2014 and maybe a BBC article from 2019 as a
| result of the HBO series. [0] You may be interested to know that
| wildlife flourishes in Chernobyl and this is almost an accidental
| nature preserve. Life is shorter, yes, but life is flourishing
| and wildlife populations are far higher now than they were prior
| to the disaster. Population levels are similar to uncontaminated
| regions. It is really a fascinating area to understand from a
| biological perspective (same with Fukushima, which has similar
| results). When you dig into these they really challenge your
| preconceived notions of radiation damage. There is danger, don't
| get me wrong, and I don't think people should go inhabit these
| places just yet. But neither are these places dying. They're more
| like the post-apocalyptic movie scenes where animals and plants
| take over. There's far more nuance and interesting things
| happening in these regions and I wish we'd discuss these from a
| more holistic perspective.
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190701-why-plants-
| survi...
| maxbond wrote:
| That might be an argument humans aren't endangered by
| contaminated boar, but is not an argument that the _ecosystem_
| isn 't threatened. Presumably predators and scavengers _are_
| eating a significant amount of boar and other contaminated meat
| relative to their body weight.
| godelski wrote:
| If you read the second paragraph, this is addressed. If you
| follow the links in the BBC article you'll find data on the
| wildlife. The only thing abnormal about population sizes in
| the area is that there are a larger number of wolves than
| compared to non-contaminated regions. But we also need to
| consider that due to the size of this area, that it in
| essence is akin to the largest nature preserve and has far
| fewer human visitors. Probably important to remember that
| humans are a big reason for the decrease in wolf populations
| in most regions.
|
| Fwiw, I did mention that the animal lives are possibly lower
| quality and definitely shorter lived. So I'm not quite sure
| what you're rebutting from my comment. It appears that you're
| just rephrasing part of it but without any source and clear
| suppositions from a misunderstanding of the data in the first
| paragraph I wrote.
| beders wrote:
| Oh, a nature reserve... Never mind the 200,000 people that had
| to be relocated...
|
| It doesn't matter how we perceive as nature coping with this
| disaster. The fact that it shouldn't have happened, the fact
| that there are still other reactors in operation of the same
| type, the fact that billions of tax payer dollars went into
| preventing more severe consequences should be a warning sign
| that this madness we call nuclear power needs to stop.
|
| What's one thing the engineers of Fukushima and Chernobyl had
| in common: They all thought the reactor would be safe.
| godelski wrote:
| > Never mind the 200,000 people that had to be relocated...
|
| This is definitely a traumatic event. I'm not going to
| downplay this or the harm done at Fukushima. But I also don't
| think it is helpful to exaggerate the damage. The context of
| the discussion here was about nature and wildlife, so that's
| what I talked about. If you want to bring people into the
| conversation then I think that's a different matter. The cost
| of disruption to people's lives is large, both economic,
| mentally, and physically. But we also need to be clear that
| these costs are not because of radiation. It is important
| because we have these same costs when it comes to matters
| like oil spills, ground water contamination, and other such
| events that are far more common but do not receive yearly
| articles on (despite these events happening yearly).
|
| > What's one thing the engineers of Fukushima and Chernobyl
| had in common: They all thought the reactor would be safe.
|
| This is not a good faith argument here and not actually
| accurate. If you would like to engage in good faith I'm more
| than happy to. But if you want to just vocalize your non-
| expertise opinions and berate anyone who doesn't agree, then
| that's not a conversation, that's a hostage situation and
| violates HN rules.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-06-05 23:01 UTC)