> “The environmental group claims the 1.23m tonnes of water stored in more than 1,000 tanks at the plant contains “dangerous” levels of the radioactive isotope

> “The environmental group claims the 1.23m tonnes of water stored in more than 1,000 tanks at the plant contains “dangerous” levels of the radioactive isotope carbon-14” > “Carbon-14 has a half life of 5,370 years and becomes “incorporated into all living matter”, the report said. “It concentrates in fish at a level thousands of times higher than tritium. Carbon-14 is especially important as a major contributor to collective human radiation dose and has the potential to damage human DNA.” Lots of things have the potential to damage DNA. Lots of things in the ambient environment today. Much higher than tritium isn’t surprising, since they must really be talking about tritiated water and that won’t accumulate at all. Easy to be 1000s of times higher than 0. “Since many sources of human food are ultimately derived from terrestrial plants, the relative concentration of carbon-14 in our bodies is nearly identical to the relative concentration in the atmosphere. The rates of disintegration of potassium-40 and carbon-14 in the normal adult body are comparable (a few thousand disintegrated nuclei per second).[46] The beta-decays from external (environmental) radiocarbon contribute approximately 0.01 mSv/year (1 mrem/year) to each person's dose of ionizing radiation.[47] This is small compared to the doses from potassium-40 (0.39 mSv/year) and radon (variable).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14 So what is the expected increase in ionizing radiation from ingesting fish exposed to the level of C-14 expected during release? The only objective relevant fact? The omission in the article suggests...not much. If it all sinks to the bottom before areal dispersal, maybe a bigger deal.