Japan to release radioactive water into the pacific

[davvid_1]

Japan announces it will release radioactive water from nuclear plant in 2 years

Japan's government announced Tuesday it would start releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in two years. It's a move that's fiercely opposed by fishermen, residents and Japan's neighbours.

www.cp24.com

 

[LucyL]

Thing is I'm pretty sure its been leaking into the ocean for the last decade, because they can't stop it. It's been a while since anyone paid attention to the Fukushima disaster, but it hasn't gone away.

Found the link - Radioactive Water Leaks from Fukushima: What We Know

I guess one thing to consider is now they will deliberately pump "treated" water. Just how the heck do you treat radioactive water?

Fukushima to release wastewater into the ocean, says Japanese government - Bellona.org

Japan’s government says it will release more than 1 million tons of contaminated water from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea, describing it as the best option despite vociferous protest from China, South Korea and Taiwan as well as the island nation’s fishing industry.

bellona.org

Tepco says it can filter the contaminated water to remove isotopes, leaving only tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen hard to separate from water. Tepco then plans to dilute the water until tritium levels fall below regulatory limits before pumping it into the ocean.

Tritium is considered to be relatively harmless because it does not emit enough energy to penetrate human skin. Other nuclear power plants around the world routinely pump water with low levels of the isotope into the ocean.

Oh, you don't. You just make it look like all the other nuclear plants that already pump radioactive water into the ocean.

 

[Perry Staltic]

I guess one thing to consider is now they will deliberately pump "treated" water. Just how the heck do you treat radioactive water?

With filtration they can remove most of the radio-nucleotides except for tritium, which is radioactive hydrogen. Water is two atoms of hydrogen, one of oxygen, so to get rid of tritium they'd have to break apart water molecules into gaseous oxygen and hydrogen via distillation. But either way, radioactive hydrogen gets released, either into the atmosphere, or into the ocean as tritiated water.

Edit: I responded before realizing your question was rhetorical.

 

[Perry Staltic]

The radioactive water was going into the ocean anyways, either by purposely dumping it gradually over years, or on a larger, faster scale after an earthquake destroyed the hastily and flimsily built tank farm. There are over 1100 tanks that are all emitting radiation. The metal tanks stop alpha and beta radiation, but not braking x-ray radiation (bremsstrahlung). The place is a living nightmare.

 

[dfspcc20]

I think it's important to note that most nuclear power plants operating today can plausibly suffer the same fate as Fukushima; especially the ones in the US.
A disruption in the power grid (think Texas in Feb 2021) plus a natural disaster could easily lead to similar circumstances.

This was satire, but it was really on the mark at the time (which makes for the best satire).

Nuclear Energy Advocates Insist U.S. Reactors Completely Safe Unless Something Bad Happens

WASHINGTON—Responding to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sought Thursday to reassure nervous Americans that U.S. reactors were 100 percent safe and posed absolutely no threat to the public health as long as no unforeseeable system failure or...

www.theonion.com

It wouldn't take too many Fukushima-, Three-Mile Island-, or Chernobyl-type events to poison the ocean and/or atmosphere for the entire planet for centuries.

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

I think it's important to note that most nuclear power plants operating today can plausibly suffer the same fate as Fukushima; especially the ones in the US.
A disruption in the power grid (think Texas in Feb 2021) plus a natural disaster could easily lead to similar circumstances.

This was satire, but it was really on the mark at the time (which makes for the best satire).

Nuclear Energy Advocates Insist U.S. Reactors Completely Safe Unless Something Bad Happens

WASHINGTON—Responding to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sought Thursday to reassure nervous Americans that U.S. reactors were 100 percent safe and posed absolutely no threat to the public health as long as no unforeseeable system failure or...

www.theonion.com

It wouldn't take too many Fukushima-, Three-Mile Island-, or Chernobyl-type events to poison the ocean and/or atmosphere for the entire planet for centuries.

LOL funny article. As some would say, "It is safe 100% of the times when it safe"

I agree, nuclear energy is risky. Even the people who work with nuclear energy don't have a complete framework of how it really works. If you don't know how something works, and you keep doing it, eventually you'll learn what you can and can't do. Trying this on a large scale, though, would effectively use the entire Earth's ecosystem( along with humans) as a guinea pig, with very radioactive consequences. Of course, the climate hysterics will somehow ignore this and say " but it doesn't produce CO2!". Walking cognitive dissonances.

Ray thinks focusing on improving the technology of filters for machines that use carbon- based fuels would be a much better idea.

 

[dfspcc20]

LOL funny article. As some would say, "It is safe 100% of the times when it safe"

I agree, nuclear energy is risky. Even the people who work with nuclear energy don't have a complete framework of how it really works. If you don't know how something works, and you keep doing it, eventually you'll learn what you can and can't do. Trying this on a large scale, though, would effectively use the entire Earth's ecosystem( along with humans) as a guinea pig, with very radioactive consequences. Of course, the climate hysterics will somehow ignore this and say " but it doesn't produce CO2!". Walking cognitive dissonances.

Ray thinks focusing on improving the technology of filters for machines that use carbon- based fuels would be a much better idea.

This is usually what I think of whenever there is talk about societal crash, depopulation, etc, whether planned or unplanned. If the power grid ever goes down for an extended period of time and supply chains are disrupted where diesel can't be continuously delivered to the generators to keep the cooling systems running, meltdowns are inevitable. That's the Sword of Damocles we all have to live with, poor and elite alike.

 

[Nemo]

Don't worry, we'll all be dead of Mad Cow first.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

 

[Michael Mohn]

I think it's important to note that most nuclear power plants operating today can plausibly suffer the same fate as Fukushima; especially the ones in the US.
A disruption in the power grid (think Texas in Feb 2021) plus a natural disaster could easily lead to similar circumstances.

This was satire, but it was really on the mark at the time (which makes for the best satire).

Nuclear Energy Advocates Insist U.S. Reactors Completely Safe Unless Something Bad Happens

WASHINGTON—Responding to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sought Thursday to reassure nervous Americans that U.S. reactors were 100 percent safe and posed absolutely no threat to the public health as long as no unforeseeable system failure or...

www.theonion.com

It wouldn't take too many Fukushima-, Three-Mile Island-, or Chernobyl-type events to poison the ocean and/or atmosphere for the entire planet for centuries.

Most nuclear power plants are out of reach of a Tsunami therefore they can't have the same fate as Fukushima. Until Fukushima the existence of Tsunamis was more part of mythology they're that rare. Fukushima actually resisted the tsunami perfectly. The only problem was that the owner moved the emergency power generator from the roof to the cellar where it failed due to flooding. After 24hours they were not able to restart the power for the cooling system which lead to the melt down. The reality is that 440 reactors exist world wide and you heared about 2 freak accidents.
On top all reactors of today haven't been optimised for energy production but for the production of weapon grade uranium and plutonium or they were optimised for submarine use and later were upscaled for energy production which makes them only 99.99% safe instead of 100%. Thorium reactors optimised for energy production can be made 100% fail safe without the production of weapon grade material and small amounts of waste that don't need to be processed as the reactor is the final storage. Just bury it in the ground where you took it from.

Does burning coal release uranium?
Yes – and the waste contributes far more radiation to the environment than nuclear power stations. The radioactivity comes from the trace amounts of uranium and thorium contained in coal. ... But the burning of coal produces fly ash, a material in which the uranium and thorium are much more concentrated.

Do coal-fired power stations produce radioactive waste?

Them pesky greenhouse gases might not be the worst thing coming out of fossil fuels.

www.sciencefocus.com

 

[dfspcc20]

I agree nuclear power can be safe. But we have to live with what's currently in operation. Which I agree is 99.99% safe, if the power grid & society as we know it remains operational and able to keep the cooling systems going indefinitely. How big of an "if" that is I guess depends on ones' perspective.

If all the spent nuclear fuel was properly transported and securely stored in geologically-stable, properly demarcated location, we wouldn't really have this problem. I doubt that'll ever happen due to NIMBY politics.

Yes, as things are now, a tsunami might be a stretch for most places. But consider the TX power grid almost collapsed, and there is a reactor near Houston. If a strong hurricane hit around the same time...

Texas’ Power Grid Was 4 Minutes And 37 Seconds Away From Collapsing. Here’s How It Happened.

If there’s not enough power on the grid to meet demand, physical damage to equipment that moves power around the state can occur.

www.texasstandard.org

And the on-going civil war in Ukraine, which still has Chernobyl-era reactors in operation.

Plus the talk here of people intentionally targeting the electrical grid:

Pentagon creates MICROCHIP that will detect Covid-19 under skin

So much for the chipping, tagging and tracking us all the time being nothing but a bizarre ideation in the heads of paranoid people. Of course, the first version of the chip is simply for "saving" your life from the evil, scary COVID-19. However, just like the mRNA vaccines, the chip is not a...

raypeatforum.com

So doom-and-gloom, I know. I wish there was the political will and resources to upgrade everything to thorium reactors.

Most nuclear power plants are out of reach of a Tsunami therefore they can't have the same fate as Fukushima. Until Fukushima the existence of Tsunamis was more part of mythology they're that rare. Fukushima actually resisted the tsunami perfectly. The only problem was that the owner moved the emergency power generator from the roof to the cellar where it failed due to flooding. After 24hours they were not able to restart the power for the cooling system which lead to the melt down. The reality is that 440 reactors exist world wide and you heared about 2 freak accidents.
On top all reactors of today haven't been optimised for energy production but for the production of weapon grade uranium and plutonium or they were optimised for submarine use and later were upscaled for energy production which makes them only 99.99% safe instead of 100%. Thorium reactors optimised for energy production can be made 100% fail safe without the production of weapon grade material and small amounts of waste that don't need to be processed as the reactor is the final storage. Just bury it in the ground where you took it from.

Does burning coal release uranium?
Yes – and the waste contributes far more radiation to the environment than nuclear power stations. The radioactivity comes from the trace amounts of uranium and thorium contained in coal. ... But the burning of coal produces fly ash, a material in which the uranium and thorium are much more concentrated.

Do coal-fired power stations produce radioactive waste?

Them pesky greenhouse gases might not be the worst thing coming out of fossil fuels.

www.sciencefocus.com

 

[Donttreadonme]

Japan announces it will release radioactive water from nuclear plant in 2 years

Japan's government announced Tuesday it would start releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in two years. It's a move that's fiercely opposed by fishermen, residents and Japan's neighbours.

www.cp24.com

If I were Japan I would do the same thing. I see no problems with this. Keep in mind there is plenty of natural radioactivity in the world. This is miniscule what they are doing.

 

[RealNeat]

I'm guessing this isn't just a simple distiller for tritium water, something special must be used. If simple, basic distillation would deplete deuterium, which isn't the case in any meaningful quantity..? So I doubt it could take on tritium.

@Perry Staltic

 

[Perry Staltic]

I'm guessing this isn't just a simple distiller for tritium water, something special must be used. If simple, basic distillation would deplete deuterium, which isn't the case in any meaningful quantity..? So I doubt it could take on tritium.

@Perry Staltic

I haven't looked into what kinds of filtration they use