4 ms·

Dumping 1M gallons of radioactive water in Hudson is ‘best option,’

Overtonwindow 4y ago
But Holtec is well within its legal rights and permits to discharge waste at the same rate as it did when operating, and it does not need federal, state or local approval to dump the contaminated water. This practice is standard for nuclear plants.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  Being "well within their legal rights" does not make it right or moral or good or healthy. "Environmental groups and residents are also concerned this could harm their community, as the Hudson River is already a federally designated toxic Superfund site. " “It may only cause a low risk to the environment as far as we know, but there are other options here, and why not try to minimize the harm?” So they are just adding insult to injury to the Hudson River. (I grew up on the Hudson River so I know its history.) The point is that Holtec does not want to pay for the storage for 24 years and want to externalize their costs onto the local people and environment. So it ends up being a little tritium here, a little BPA there, and a little PFAS over there, and then no linked to cancer can be drawn to a single thing but still people die and no one is responsible because they are all responsible.
  - rowanG077 4y ago
    There are always other options. If the current state of releasing the water endangers no one because the radioactivity it low it's a total waste of resources to do anything else.
tekla 4y ago
TLDR; Water is slightly more radioactive than natural, every nuclear plant does this, its normal behavior, and safe since its such a low amount of radioactivity.
- wyuenho 4y ago
  "low" after some 20 years or so of decay. But yes, you are correct.
  - krisoft 4y ago
    Well, we don’t know because the article doesn’t make an attempt to quantify the level of radioactivity. So we are left with our imagination. We have really good analytics. That water, based on the description of the article can be anywhere between “would be legal as tap water” to “kills anything on contact”.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  For the public, radioactivity is a boolean. Something is either not radioactive, or it's radioactive and will melt your face and/or turn you into a cronenberg. In practice, almost everything is radioactive to some degree. This is always handy to show people who don't get this: https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/
- paulcole 4y ago
  Also 1M gallons isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things. An Olympic pool is 660,000 gallons.
madsbuch 4y ago
Seems to feed on fear of nuclear. On the other hand we are happily dumping radioactive contents from coal power into the air: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2022-003567_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2022-00356... > The fact that coal power plants are radioactive has been established not only on the basis of scientific data, but also because some companies have specialised in salvaging uranium from the smoke the plants give off in order to resell it to the nuclear power industry It seems like we have a really hard time focusing on the best option. We are accepting far worse outcomes at the moment while we indulge the scare of nuclear power.
- amelius 4y ago
  Reminds me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    Radiation, PCBs, PFAS, Mercury, BPA, PAHs, Dioxin, Pesticides...all tiny does on their own, harmless. Wonder what happens when all those separate tiny doses are combined? I mean the Hudson is already a Superfund site so what harm can 1 million gallon of slightly radioactive water do? Adding from Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-radioactive-hydrogen-in-drinking-water-a-cancer-threat/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-radioactive-hy... "But there is no definitive epidemiological study to assess the true risk of tritium, and animal studies are also lacking." "Some evidence suggests the kind of radiation emitted by tritium—a so-called beta particle—is actually more effective at causing cancer than the high-energy radiation such as gamma rays, even though skin can block a beta particle. "
    - madsbuch 4y ago
      So, one of the main points about going nuclear is that the externalities are more limited and contained than existing solutions. We already release radioactive waste from coal based power plants (plus all the other bi-products from the ashes).
adhesive_wombat 4y ago
This article doesn't even try to quantify the radioactivity of the water, it's completely, utterly, meaningless outrage bait, sprinkled with technically-true cancer risks for high concentrations and the storage high level dry cask waste in the site as enhancements of the scandalisation rather than as comparatives. If the water was just tap water, technically it's still slightly tritiated (tritiated water is made naturally and rains out of that atmosphere in minute amounts). And technically it could also be so radioactive that the Hudson ecosystem ends instantly. I'll bet that it's many, many of orders of magnitude closer to the former then the latter. Possibly Holtec is proposing a technically-legal ecological and health war crime. But you can't tell from this article.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  It sort of does, it says that the water has to be within the limits that were used during operation, so you can go look up the management plan: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2116/ML21168A062.html https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2116/ML21168A062.html The limit given for tritium in liquid effluent is 0.00001 microcuries per milliliter. That doesn't mean anything more to me than just stating that it has to be inline with the limits they used during operation. They also dilute the effluent as they release it, so the water anything would be exposed to would be well below that.
  - shash 4y ago
    The conversion is hard, but here's some information from https://www.nirs.org/radiation/tritium/ https://www.nirs.org/radiation/tritium/ "The NRC allows a licensee to release an amount of tritium that could result in a radiation dose to a member of the public of up to 100 millirem (one millisievert) per year — in planned air and water effluents (Title 10, Code of Fedl. Regs., Part20.1301). The NRC translates one million picocuries of tritium per liter as the equivalent of 50 millirem/year (10 CFR Part 20, Introductory Notes to Appendix B, Table 2, Column 2). Please note: Table 2 lists concentrations in “microcuries per millileter.” For example, 1E-3 µCi/ml equals one million picocuries per liter." That's roughly two mammograms per year. Not inconsequential, but not earthshattering either. You're probably absorbing more than that from the Potassium in your body (according to https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/).
chiefalchemist 4y ago
Best? For whom? Or is best (for the company) a not so veiled euphemism for least expensive? When did we become so desensitized to such newspeak?
tetrep 4y ago
As others have pointed out, the article contains almost no details about the waste. Here are the details directly from the government meeting: https://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Common/ViewDoc.aspx?DocRefId={9432B456-505D-4E0A-A66B-2B50C5485B40} https://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Common/ViewDoc.aspx?DocR... Full details of the meeting (including video and transcript): https://dps.ny.gov/event/indian-point-decommissioning-oversight-board-meeting-february-2023 https://dps.ny.gov/event/indian-point-decommissioning-oversi... Edit: I have no context as to know if the proposal is good or bad, environmentally or morally, but the slideshow is for public consumption so it's pretty readable (not that it'll give you that context).
- nonplus 4y ago
  I also don't know. I asked some people in field (awaiting responses). I see this quote on page 17 of the meeting notes: "The dose estimate assumes a uniform radioactive contamination concentration in these waters equal to 4.44E-2 uCi/ml" I'm curious what "assumes" means, has someone measured the tritium levels, or is it actually a blind assumption. Edit: Thanks for posting some content with details, the original article seems biased, but I am curious about the topic from better sources. Also I'm on a phone and having a difficult time typing properly today.
mint2 4y ago
Jokes on them, all surface water is radioactive! So are bananas. So are you!
morpheos137 4y ago
A fundamental principle of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison. If the radioactivity is low enough and the emission is diluted enough I don't see it as an issue. We are all subject to a certain level of radioactivity every day. It is natural.
Maursault 4y ago
> ‘best option,’ per Indian Point nuclear plant owner Lies. Cheapest option. This is precisely why nuclear power is dead: operators don't want to foot the cost. They just want the profits of operating without any of the responsibilities of building plants nor dealing with waste. And for good reason: these two major costs make nuclear energy somewhere between unprofitable and economically unviable. Fix this, pro nukes, you can have all the nuclear energy you want. Make it profitable or please stop.
- mindslight 4y ago
  Please read the engineering report linked elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35208699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35208699 There are no zero impact options here. The report is a bit hyperbolic on the other options (storing it for 787 years would be a 1/2^64 reduction which seems unnecessarily long), but overall eminently reasonable. I agree with where you're coming from - companies creating environmental disasters/harm, walking away with profits, while leaving everyone else to suffer their externalities. But this does not appear to be that.

But Holtec is well within its legal rights and permits to discharge waste at the same rate as it did when operating, and it does not need federal, state or local approval to dump the contaminated water. This practice is standard for nuclear plants.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago
Being "well within their legal rights" does not make it right or moral or good or healthy. "Environmental groups and residents are also concerned this could harm their community, as the Hudson River is already a federally designated toxic Superfund site. " “It may only cause a low risk to the environment as far as we know, but there are other options here, and why not try to minimize the harm?” So they are just adding insult to injury to the Hudson River. (I grew up on the Hudson River so I know its history.) The point is that Holtec does not want to pay for the storage for 24 years and want to externalize their costs onto the local people and environment. So it ends up being a little tritium here, a little BPA there, and a little PFAS over there, and then no linked to cancer can be drawn to a single thing but still people die and no one is responsible because they are all responsible.
- rowanG077 4y ago
  There are always other options. If the current state of releasing the water endangers no one because the radioactivity it low it's a total waste of resources to do anything else.

tekla 4y ago

TLDR; Water is slightly more radioactive than natural, every nuclear plant does this, its normal behavior, and safe since its such a low amount of radioactivity.

wyuenho 4y ago
"low" after some 20 years or so of decay. But yes, you are correct.
- krisoft 4y ago
  Well, we don’t know because the article doesn’t make an attempt to quantify the level of radioactivity. So we are left with our imagination. We have really good analytics. That water, based on the description of the article can be anywhere between “would be legal as tap water” to “kills anything on contact”.
marginalia_nu 4y ago
For the public, radioactivity is a boolean. Something is either not radioactive, or it's radioactive and will melt your face and/or turn you into a cronenberg. In practice, almost everything is radioactive to some degree. This is always handy to show people who don't get this: https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/
paulcole 4y ago
Also 1M gallons isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things. An Olympic pool is 660,000 gallons.

madsbuch 4y ago

Seems to feed on fear of nuclear. On the other hand we are happily dumping radioactive contents from coal power into the air: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2022-003567_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2022-00356... > The fact that coal power plants are radioactive has been established not only on the basis of scientific data, but also because some companies have specialised in salvaging uranium from the smoke the plants give off in order to resell it to the nuclear power industry It seems like we have a really hard time focusing on the best option. We are accepting far worse outcomes at the moment while we indulge the scare of nuclear power.

amelius 4y ago
Reminds me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  Radiation, PCBs, PFAS, Mercury, BPA, PAHs, Dioxin, Pesticides...all tiny does on their own, harmless. Wonder what happens when all those separate tiny doses are combined? I mean the Hudson is already a Superfund site so what harm can 1 million gallon of slightly radioactive water do? Adding from Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-radioactive-hydrogen-in-drinking-water-a-cancer-threat/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-radioactive-hy... "But there is no definitive epidemiological study to assess the true risk of tritium, and animal studies are also lacking." "Some evidence suggests the kind of radiation emitted by tritium—a so-called beta particle—is actually more effective at causing cancer than the high-energy radiation such as gamma rays, even though skin can block a beta particle. "
  - madsbuch 4y ago
    So, one of the main points about going nuclear is that the externalities are more limited and contained than existing solutions. We already release radioactive waste from coal based power plants (plus all the other bi-products from the ashes).

adhesive_wombat 4y ago

This article doesn't even try to quantify the radioactivity of the water, it's completely, utterly, meaningless outrage bait, sprinkled with technically-true cancer risks for high concentrations and the storage high level dry cask waste in the site as enhancements of the scandalisation rather than as comparatives. If the water was just tap water, technically it's still slightly tritiated (tritiated water is made naturally and rains out of that atmosphere in minute amounts). And technically it could also be so radioactive that the Hudson ecosystem ends instantly. I'll bet that it's many, many of orders of magnitude closer to the former then the latter. Possibly Holtec is proposing a technically-legal ecological and health war crime. But you can't tell from this article.

maxerickson 4y ago
It sort of does, it says that the water has to be within the limits that were used during operation, so you can go look up the management plan: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2116/ML21168A062.html https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2116/ML21168A062.html The limit given for tritium in liquid effluent is 0.00001 microcuries per milliliter. That doesn't mean anything more to me than just stating that it has to be inline with the limits they used during operation. They also dilute the effluent as they release it, so the water anything would be exposed to would be well below that.
- shash 4y ago
  The conversion is hard, but here's some information from https://www.nirs.org/radiation/tritium/ https://www.nirs.org/radiation/tritium/ "The NRC allows a licensee to release an amount of tritium that could result in a radiation dose to a member of the public of up to 100 millirem (one millisievert) per year — in planned air and water effluents (Title 10, Code of Fedl. Regs., Part20.1301). The NRC translates one million picocuries of tritium per liter as the equivalent of 50 millirem/year (10 CFR Part 20, Introductory Notes to Appendix B, Table 2, Column 2). Please note: Table 2 lists concentrations in “microcuries per millileter.” For example, 1E-3 µCi/ml equals one million picocuries per liter." That's roughly two mammograms per year. Not inconsequential, but not earthshattering either. You're probably absorbing more than that from the Potassium in your body (according to https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/).

chiefalchemist 4y ago

Best? For whom? Or is best (for the company) a not so veiled euphemism for least expensive? When did we become so desensitized to such newspeak?

tetrep 4y ago

As others have pointed out, the article contains almost no details about the waste. Here are the details directly from the government meeting: https://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Common/ViewDoc.aspx?DocRefId={9432B456-505D-4E0A-A66B-2B50C5485B40} https://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Common/ViewDoc.aspx?DocR... Full details of the meeting (including video and transcript): https://dps.ny.gov/event/indian-point-decommissioning-oversight-board-meeting-february-2023 https://dps.ny.gov/event/indian-point-decommissioning-oversi... Edit: I have no context as to know if the proposal is good or bad, environmentally or morally, but the slideshow is for public consumption so it's pretty readable (not that it'll give you that context).

nonplus 4y ago
I also don't know. I asked some people in field (awaiting responses). I see this quote on page 17 of the meeting notes: "The dose estimate assumes a uniform radioactive contamination concentration in these waters equal to 4.44E-2 uCi/ml" I'm curious what "assumes" means, has someone measured the tritium levels, or is it actually a blind assumption. Edit: Thanks for posting some content with details, the original article seems biased, but I am curious about the topic from better sources. Also I'm on a phone and having a difficult time typing properly today.

mint2 4y ago

Jokes on them, all surface water is radioactive! So are bananas. So are you!

morpheos137 4y ago

A fundamental principle of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison. If the radioactivity is low enough and the emission is diluted enough I don't see it as an issue. We are all subject to a certain level of radioactivity every day. It is natural.

Maursault 4y ago

> ‘best option,’ per Indian Point nuclear plant owner Lies. Cheapest option. This is precisely why nuclear power is dead: operators don't want to foot the cost. They just want the profits of operating without any of the responsibilities of building plants nor dealing with waste. And for good reason: these two major costs make nuclear energy somewhere between unprofitable and economically unviable. Fix this, pro nukes, you can have all the nuclear energy you want. Make it profitable or please stop.

mindslight 4y ago
Please read the engineering report linked elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35208699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35208699 There are no zero impact options here. The report is a bit hyperbolic on the other options (storing it for 787 years would be a 1/2^64 reduction which seems unnecessarily long), but overall eminently reasonable. I agree with where you're coming from - companies creating environmental disasters/harm, walking away with profits, while leaving everyone else to suffer their externalities. But this does not appear to be that.