3 ms·

Is there a reason it can't just stay in the tanks indefinitely?

luckman212 11y ago
My interpretation is that the water continues to accumulate, so the problem isn't only what to do with the existing contaminated water, but how to avoid having to build an endless amount of storage tanks.
joshuapants 11y ago
I think the biggest problem is that it isn't just a few tanks of water, it's a constantly growing amount. It's expensive and impractical to keep building tanks, it's expensive and impractical to filter out the tritium, and it's questionable whether just pumping it out to sea is acceptable (I imagine that if they were able to dump it far into the ocean away from any land it would be more palatable, but that would also be, you guessed it, impractical and expensive).
- eck 11y ago
  > it's a constantly growing amount. If they're still pumping coolant into the reactors, why aren't they reusing the water that's already radioactive for that purpose?
  - hydrogen18 11y ago
    They pump in freshwater to the cooling circuit of the reactor, like from the tap. The water that comes back out of the discharge has gained temperature but has no tritium. They probably just return this water to the sewer system for now. Just the water from the leaks has be retained at present. If they mixed the water from the tanks, they'd have to retain 100% of the flow of the water. Now if they built a big cooling pond and stuff they could reuse the water 'forever'. But the last thing you want is a big pond of slightly radioactive water than all kinds of wildlife can come live in.
mattzito 11y ago
Well, IANAPP but a quick google skim shows that the half-life of tritium is 12 years, roughly. That's a long time to store something to get down to levels where you could feel confident dumping the water out, or accepting the risk that it would end up in the groundwater.
kansface 11y ago
There will be another earthquake/tsunami before it decays.
velodrome 11y ago
A few of the tanks are leaking...

My interpretation is that the water continues to accumulate, so the problem isn't only what to do with the existing contaminated water, but how to avoid having to build an endless amount of storage tanks.

joshuapants 11y ago

I think the biggest problem is that it isn't just a few tanks of water, it's a constantly growing amount. It's expensive and impractical to keep building tanks, it's expensive and impractical to filter out the tritium, and it's questionable whether just pumping it out to sea is acceptable (I imagine that if they were able to dump it far into the ocean away from any land it would be more palatable, but that would also be, you guessed it, impractical and expensive).

eck 11y ago
> it's a constantly growing amount. If they're still pumping coolant into the reactors, why aren't they reusing the water that's already radioactive for that purpose?
- hydrogen18 11y ago
  They pump in freshwater to the cooling circuit of the reactor, like from the tap. The water that comes back out of the discharge has gained temperature but has no tritium. They probably just return this water to the sewer system for now. Just the water from the leaks has be retained at present. If they mixed the water from the tanks, they'd have to retain 100% of the flow of the water. Now if they built a big cooling pond and stuff they could reuse the water 'forever'. But the last thing you want is a big pond of slightly radioactive water than all kinds of wildlife can come live in.

mattzito 11y ago

Well, IANAPP but a quick google skim shows that the half-life of tritium is 12 years, roughly. That's a long time to store something to get down to levels where you could feel confident dumping the water out, or accepting the risk that it would end up in the groundwater.

kansface 11y ago

There will be another earthquake/tsunami before it decays.

velodrome 11y ago

A few of the tanks are leaking...