12 ms·

This is not the kind of problem it's being made out to be here. First of all, Tritium is an beta emitter, blocked by a piece of paper or the skin. It's not dan

by tdy721 11y ago

This is not the kind of problem it's being made out to be here. First of all, Tritium is an beta emitter, blocked by a piece of paper or the skin. It's not dangerous in the environment unless it's consumed. Even better, it does not bio-accumulate, because it's water. Second, the half life of Tritium is 12.4 years. Consider this excerpt: """ The World Health Organization’s standard for tritium in drinking water is 10,000 becquerels per liter (34 ounces). According to Mayumi Yoshida, a TEPCO communications officer, Fukushima’s stored water contains between 1 and 5 million becquerels per liter. """ So our radioactive waste is acceptable as Drinking Water at 10K. Lets do the math 5000000/(2^9) = 9765.625 9*12.4 = 111.6 years No one knows what do about the Radioactive Water? How's about we wait few generations, and drink it! This is child's play next to the real problems posed by long lived (400K+ year long half life) bio-accumulating isotope disposal. I wouldn't mind if they dumped it in the ocean TBH.

mirimir 11y ago
They're going to run out of room for tanks. And there must be access, because the tanks are going to rust out, and will need replaced. So storing the Tritium-contaminated water for a century or so is nontrivial.
- Lazare 11y ago
  Again, we're talking about something which is maybe 5 million becquerels per litre, but if it was only 10,000 becquerels per litre, we could just drink the damn stuff. So if you diluted it all 500 times, the problem goes away. 620,000 tons of water is about...2 supertankers. So if you mixed it with 1000 supertankers worth of water, you could safely drink it (at least as far as the tritium is concerned). Now, where near Fukishima could we find 1000 supertankers worth of water? Right, the ocean. tdy721 wasn't joking; dumping it all into the ocean is a perfectly sensible (and safe) solution. (Although as the article notes, it's politically a non-starter.)
  - mirimir 11y ago
    From an ISU site, I get that natural tritium production is ~4E6 Ci (~1.5E17 Bq) per year (from cosmic rays) and that the global steady-state inventory is ~7E7 Ci (~2.7E18 Bq).[0] From the Nautilus article, I get that there is now ~6E5 Mg contaminated water, containing 1E6-5E6 Bq tritium per liter. The overall range is ~6E14 Bq to 3E15 Bq, or between ~0.4% and ~2% of annual natural production. So yes, it's not such a big deal. But now I'm curious about the magnitude of other anthropogenic sources. [0] http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm
  - VLM 11y ago
    "is about...2 supertankers" Something to think about is my Canadian friends used to spend enormous amounts of energy to purify heavy water for their CANDU reactors. Sending them two tankers full of the best "raw refinable ore" on the planet is likely to put smiles on their faces. Yes I'm well aware that heavy water is deuterium and 1 in 700 atoms of H2 is deuterium and 1 in 700 atoms of naturally sourced non-H1 aka mostly-deuterium is the tritium we're talking about... the point is they know how to isolate it, handle it, and have a use for it, or in relative terms they are likely the best people on the planet to do the job (not to disparage any other countries with heavy water programs, intentionally anyway). Or send over some container ships full of canadian machinery and jets full of canadians and refine the "ore" into salable product on Japanese soil, maybe right next door, whatever. The assumption being made is this "waste" is useless, like coal fly ash or something, rather than being the valuable ore that it is. Politically it could be a disaster, whats going to happen to the revenue from D2 and T2 sales other than infinite screaming about infinite possibilities? Everyones going to want a cut of it and the management and accounting costs might exceed the actual revenue...
    - KMag 11y ago
      > The assumption being made is this "waste" is useless, like coal fly ash or something, rather than being the valuable ore that it is. On a side note, the LFTR people say they fly ash is one practical source of Thorium for their fuel cycle.
- irishcoffee 11y ago
  So lets make a kickstarter to build tanks. This doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Why is it a good idea to store it concentrated in tanks, rather than just diluting it out in the ocean? It seems like we're spending a lot of energy just to hold on to this stuff in the riskiest possible way.
    - pvaldes 11y ago
      Is a good idea because in the ocean will harm the main source of food of Japanese people, spreading food panic. And because in the ocean will harm fishes, shellfishes, corals, other valuable forms of life; and there is no more than 50 living japanese right whales in all the planet. And because the main species targeted by fisheries in all the planet earth is the peruvian anchovy. Since Fukushima we are seeing some strange death mass events of non human anchovy eaters like sea birds, seals and whales from Alaska to Peru. The cat's food tin that we open in our kitchens is made of peruvian anchovies flour. Your beloved pets will have more probabilities to die from cancer. And because there are maybe thousands of cases of TEPCO shamelesly saying: 'oops, hundreds of liters of our radioactive waste are dumped to the sea again, how bad luck' since 2011. We simply can not expect them to act responsibly after repeatedly lied everybody in the past. They will use this easy way out to quickly dump anything they want to the water ("oops we forget again to classify and separate radioactive atoms from the water dumped. Is such an expensive process... how bad luck") And because all oceans are connected by sea currents and radioactivity travelling with currents and migratory fishes will reach American coasts in a few weeks. And because animals are made of water in a 60-95%. There is much more water than fat in a human. And rain is made of water also. And because this is not a game of probabilities. To have only a chance of 1% of finding a tiger is not the same idea as "this tiger is 99% harmless".
      - s_kilk 11y ago
        Will it actually harm anything in the ocean though? From the analysis above it looks like this stuff is harmless once sufficiently diluted.
- pvaldes 11y ago
  Send it to California then? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/North_Pacific_Subtropical_Convergence_Zone.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/North_Pac...
nosuchthing 11y ago
Assuming it's only Tritium? At no point since the meltdown began, through when radiation began leaking into the atmosphere - of which was dispersed and detected around the globe, has any entity associated with the Fukushima plant or Japan shown any signs of willingness to be upfront and transparent about the situation. The US Navy seemed to be one of the only real orginizations who offered an upfront warning of radiation exposure to citizens. [1] [2] [1] http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.us.navy.radiation/index.html?_s=PM:WORLD http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.us.navy.ra... [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-nuclear-plant-2011-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-nuclear-plant-2011-... [3] http://www.radiationnetwork.com/Message.htm http://www.radiationnetwork.com/Message.htm [4] http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy-sailors-left-sickened-by-radiation-after-japan-rescue/ http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy-sailors-left-sickened-b...
manigandham 11y ago
Considering we have lots of nuclear reactors floating around (ships and submarines), some of which have been destroyed and ended up in the ocean - it's probably the best place to put this stuff. The world's oceans are absolutely massive and already have millions of tons of radioactive material dissolved along with plenty of cooling power. Maybe the specific dumping zone would be a little radiated for a bit but that can be solved by spreading it out in the deep sea and through natural ocean currents.
- coldtea 11y ago
  That's the spirit. The earth is our dumbster, and let future technology short it out...
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Your second sentence doesn't capture what is being said, not at all. It wouldn't contribute significantly to the amount of tritium that is naturally in the oceans (here's a dismissive comparison: it isn't even the sort of waste you would bother with a dumpster for), and it would dissipate in ~100 years.
- jessriedel 11y ago
  FYI, There are only a handful of nuclear submarines that have sunk, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submari... and I don't believe any aircraft carriers have. (Russia didn't have any, and the US hasn't lost an aircraft carrier since WW2.)
- facepalm 11y ago
  I think Fukushima is bigger than the average reactor in a submarine.
TorKlingberg 11y ago
Alpha radiation is blocked by a piece of paper. Beta is harder to block, but not as bad as gamma. Beta radiation can definitely penetrate the skin.
serf 11y ago
>According to Mayumi Yoshida, a TEPCO communications officer that's where I have issues. TEPCO doesn't have the best record regarding honesty.[0][1] I fully expect that group to cook the books in any possible way that will make this look like less severe an issue. [0]: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-10/it-s-time-for-japan-to-punish-tepco http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-10/it-s-time-f... [1]: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506040105 http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506...
raverbashing 11y ago
This will be the time to get someone to extract energy (or just the tritium, it has a lot of uses) from that.
- astrodust 11y ago
  There's already a lot of tritium kicking around, it's used for industrial purposes like illumination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium_illumination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium_illumination
Myrth 11y ago
Previously-Secret 1955 Government Report Concluded that Ocean May Not Adequately Dilute Radiation from Nuclear Accidents http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/06/why-the-ocean-may-not-adequately-dilute-the-radiation-from-fukushima.html http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/06/why-the-ocean-may-not...

by tdy721 11y ago

mirimir 11y ago

They're going to run out of room for tanks. And there must be access, because the tanks are going to rust out, and will need replaced. So storing the Tritium-contaminated water for a century or so is nontrivial.

Lazare 11y ago
Again, we're talking about something which is maybe 5 million becquerels per litre, but if it was only 10,000 becquerels per litre, we could just drink the damn stuff. So if you diluted it all 500 times, the problem goes away. 620,000 tons of water is about...2 supertankers. So if you mixed it with 1000 supertankers worth of water, you could safely drink it (at least as far as the tritium is concerned). Now, where near Fukishima could we find 1000 supertankers worth of water? Right, the ocean. tdy721 wasn't joking; dumping it all into the ocean is a perfectly sensible (and safe) solution. (Although as the article notes, it's politically a non-starter.)
- mirimir 11y ago
  From an ISU site, I get that natural tritium production is ~4E6 Ci (~1.5E17 Bq) per year (from cosmic rays) and that the global steady-state inventory is ~7E7 Ci (~2.7E18 Bq).[0] From the Nautilus article, I get that there is now ~6E5 Mg contaminated water, containing 1E6-5E6 Bq tritium per liter. The overall range is ~6E14 Bq to 3E15 Bq, or between ~0.4% and ~2% of annual natural production. So yes, it's not such a big deal. But now I'm curious about the magnitude of other anthropogenic sources. [0] http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm
- VLM 11y ago
  "is about...2 supertankers" Something to think about is my Canadian friends used to spend enormous amounts of energy to purify heavy water for their CANDU reactors. Sending them two tankers full of the best "raw refinable ore" on the planet is likely to put smiles on their faces. Yes I'm well aware that heavy water is deuterium and 1 in 700 atoms of H2 is deuterium and 1 in 700 atoms of naturally sourced non-H1 aka mostly-deuterium is the tritium we're talking about... the point is they know how to isolate it, handle it, and have a use for it, or in relative terms they are likely the best people on the planet to do the job (not to disparage any other countries with heavy water programs, intentionally anyway). Or send over some container ships full of canadian machinery and jets full of canadians and refine the "ore" into salable product on Japanese soil, maybe right next door, whatever. The assumption being made is this "waste" is useless, like coal fly ash or something, rather than being the valuable ore that it is. Politically it could be a disaster, whats going to happen to the revenue from D2 and T2 sales other than infinite screaming about infinite possibilities? Everyones going to want a cut of it and the management and accounting costs might exceed the actual revenue...
  - KMag 11y ago
    > The assumption being made is this "waste" is useless, like coal fly ash or something, rather than being the valuable ore that it is. On a side note, the LFTR people say they fly ash is one practical source of Thorium for their fuel cycle.
irishcoffee 11y ago
So lets make a kickstarter to build tanks. This doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Why is it a good idea to store it concentrated in tanks, rather than just diluting it out in the ocean? It seems like we're spending a lot of energy just to hold on to this stuff in the riskiest possible way.
  - pvaldes 11y ago
    Is a good idea because in the ocean will harm the main source of food of Japanese people, spreading food panic. And because in the ocean will harm fishes, shellfishes, corals, other valuable forms of life; and there is no more than 50 living japanese right whales in all the planet. And because the main species targeted by fisheries in all the planet earth is the peruvian anchovy. Since Fukushima we are seeing some strange death mass events of non human anchovy eaters like sea birds, seals and whales from Alaska to Peru. The cat's food tin that we open in our kitchens is made of peruvian anchovies flour. Your beloved pets will have more probabilities to die from cancer. And because there are maybe thousands of cases of TEPCO shamelesly saying: 'oops, hundreds of liters of our radioactive waste are dumped to the sea again, how bad luck' since 2011. We simply can not expect them to act responsibly after repeatedly lied everybody in the past. They will use this easy way out to quickly dump anything they want to the water ("oops we forget again to classify and separate radioactive atoms from the water dumped. Is such an expensive process... how bad luck") And because all oceans are connected by sea currents and radioactivity travelling with currents and migratory fishes will reach American coasts in a few weeks. And because animals are made of water in a 60-95%. There is much more water than fat in a human. And rain is made of water also. And because this is not a game of probabilities. To have only a chance of 1% of finding a tiger is not the same idea as "this tiger is 99% harmless".
    - s_kilk 11y ago
      Will it actually harm anything in the ocean though? From the analysis above it looks like this stuff is harmless once sufficiently diluted.
pvaldes 11y ago
Send it to California then? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/North_Pacific_Subtropical_Convergence_Zone.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/North_Pac...

nosuchthing 11y ago

Assuming it's only Tritium? At no point since the meltdown began, through when radiation began leaking into the atmosphere - of which was dispersed and detected around the globe, has any entity associated with the Fukushima plant or Japan shown any signs of willingness to be upfront and transparent about the situation. The US Navy seemed to be one of the only real orginizations who offered an upfront warning of radiation exposure to citizens. [1] [2] [1] http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.us.navy.radiation/index.html?_s=PM:WORLD http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.us.navy.ra... [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-nuclear-plant-2011-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-nuclear-plant-2011-... [3] http://www.radiationnetwork.com/Message.htm http://www.radiationnetwork.com/Message.htm [4] http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy-sailors-left-sickened-by-radiation-after-japan-rescue/ http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy-sailors-left-sickened-b...

manigandham 11y ago

Considering we have lots of nuclear reactors floating around (ships and submarines), some of which have been destroyed and ended up in the ocean - it's probably the best place to put this stuff. The world's oceans are absolutely massive and already have millions of tons of radioactive material dissolved along with plenty of cooling power. Maybe the specific dumping zone would be a little radiated for a bit but that can be solved by spreading it out in the deep sea and through natural ocean currents.

coldtea 11y ago
That's the spirit. The earth is our dumbster, and let future technology short it out...
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Your second sentence doesn't capture what is being said, not at all. It wouldn't contribute significantly to the amount of tritium that is naturally in the oceans (here's a dismissive comparison: it isn't even the sort of waste you would bother with a dumpster for), and it would dissipate in ~100 years.
jessriedel 11y ago
FYI, There are only a handful of nuclear submarines that have sunk, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submari... and I don't believe any aircraft carriers have. (Russia didn't have any, and the US hasn't lost an aircraft carrier since WW2.)
facepalm 11y ago
I think Fukushima is bigger than the average reactor in a submarine.

TorKlingberg 11y ago

Alpha radiation is blocked by a piece of paper. Beta is harder to block, but not as bad as gamma. Beta radiation can definitely penetrate the skin.

serf 11y ago

>According to Mayumi Yoshida, a TEPCO communications officer that's where I have issues. TEPCO doesn't have the best record regarding honesty.[0][1] I fully expect that group to cook the books in any possible way that will make this look like less severe an issue. [0]: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-10/it-s-time-for-japan-to-punish-tepco http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-10/it-s-time-f... [1]: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506040105 http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506...

raverbashing 11y ago

This will be the time to get someone to extract energy (or just the tritium, it has a lot of uses) from that.

astrodust 11y ago
There's already a lot of tritium kicking around, it's used for industrial purposes like illumination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium_illumination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium_illumination

Myrth 11y ago

Previously-Secret 1955 Government Report Concluded that Ocean May Not Adequately Dilute Radiation from Nuclear Accidents http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/06/why-the-ocean-may-not-adequately-dilute-the-radiation-from-fukushima.html http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/06/why-the-ocean-may-not...