Fukushima
 

Maybe this story is coming too soon after I have just watched Chernobyl (Netflix, very good!) but WTF Japan ??!! They are planning to release radioactive water into the Pacific? This can't be right. Where's Greta ?! Storing it on land is obviously expensive, but surely there is a moral case against releasing this water into the world's ocean?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...r-into-the-sea

Re: Fukushima
 

Probably not the best decision dumping in the ocean.

Re: Fukushima
 

I am not sure if you didn't read the article, or didn't understand it, or maybe you just see "radioactive" and think "oooh, that must be bad". :unsure:

The "radioactive water" is tritiated water - water with tritium atoms - an isotope of hydrogen instead of hydrogen. Tritium is already naturally occuring in water, and tritiated water is used as a tracer for water transport studies in life-science research and is relatively harmless (otherwise it would kill what you're studying). The half-life of tritium is only 12.3 years, so it will decay over a relatively short time anyway; and what it decays into is pure water - unlike water contaminated with say uranium, which has a very long half life and decays into lead.

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I did read the article, and admittedly am no expert on radio isotopes. The fact that the fishing industry is dead against it, and that the supposedly harmless water requires disposal over 40 years leads me to believe the whole project is not as benign as suggested. Why not evaporate it?

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Maybe the gas given off destroys Covid-19.
Unlikely saviours have worked in War of the Worlds, Day of the Triffids and a few Star Trek episodes I think. :lol:

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Lol :D

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Suppose evaporation might take longer, but seems like it would be the best choice.

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I have no idea. There is more atmosphere than ocean though, and if it's supposedly "safe to humans" why not?

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As I think I have seen you post before, "beliefs" are not a good basis for rational decision making. AFAICT, the fishing industry is against it because of the publicity angle. I sincely doubt that any of the actual fishermen have any suitable education to object on any grounds other than "beliefs" and "negative publicity".

All that said, if they're dumping it into the harbour then I would agree that is a bad idea, but if they're dispating it 100 miles off shore then it really isn't going to be an issue as the volume of the Pacific ocean is vastly greater than the already diluted tritiated water.

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The "vastly" argument is only valid if the water is as benign as they say. It's that base assumption of which I'm sceptical. If the half life is 12.5 years, why not store it for 25 years and then use it in the domestic water supply? As for the fishermen, it's more likely the industry rather than Yoshi Fisherman that is calling the plan into question.

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[1] It won't evapourate as fast as regular water because it is heavier
[2] while the volume of the atmosphere is greater than the volume of the ocean, the ocean is almost entirely water, whereas the atmosphere is very considerably less dense, and only contains a tiny amount of water vapour - even saturated air at 30ºC only holds about 28g /m^3 of water and at 10ºC it's only about 8g/m^3. Sea water is about 1,027 Kg/m^3, whereas air is only about 1.2kg/m^3

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Arrghhh! You really do know nothing about radioactivity. :lol:

"Half life" means that half of whatever you have today will decay during the half life period. The same is true at the end of the (first) half life period - half what you have at that time will decay during the following half life. Therefore if the half life is 12½ years then after 25 years a quarter of the tritium will remain; after 37½ years an eighth will remain; after 50 years a sixteenth will remain, etc.

And the article says they are running out of space to store it, that's why some will be dumped. But to your point, the water has already been stored for as much as 9 years, and will the planned dumping schedule, a lot of the tritium has already decayed anyway.

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesco...n/#29295ccdb29

give this a read then you'll be reassured

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What a great article, there's some really fascinating information in there, and not just about tritium. ..... And I see it confirms my post above that the fishermen are worried about the publicity, not the actual consequences of the release of the water.

One of the interesting things mentioned, that is only incidental to the Fukushima story, is that the public at large is generally oblivious to the amount of natural "background" radiation around us. While radioactive leaks can be catastrophic, we are already living in world that is naturally radiactive, and that some sources of man made radiation are negligible compared to the back ground radiation.

Many years ago a colleague of mine recounted a study that a friend of his had to done at university to measure radiation from nuclear reactors in the UK - literally walking up to the fence and pointing a geiger counter at the powerstation to see what he could detect. The answer was "nothing above the natural background radiation levels". As a control for the experiment he visited coal fired powerstations, of which there were plenty in the UK at the time, and found a significant increase in measured radiation levels over the background level - because of the amount of uranium that occurs naturally in coal! :lol:

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What would you like done about this?

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This is what the Canadian Gov't has to say about this tritium stuff in drinking water.

The maximum average annual tritium levels, as measured in the municipal drinking water of Canadian communities neighbouring nuclear facilities, are about 18 Bq/l.If an adult drank two litres of water a day with 18 Bq/L of tritium
for an entire year, that person would receive a dose of 0.00027 mSv per year
[18 x 0.000015 mSv = 0.00027 mSv].

If an infant drank one litre of water a day with 18 Bq/L of tritium
for an entire year, that infant would receive a dose of 0.00038 mSv per year
[18 x 0.000021 mSv = 0.00038 mSv].

The amounts calculated in the example above (0.00027 mSv and 0.00038 mSv) represent only small fractions of the regulatory limit of 1 mSv.

Studies have shown that the minimum chronic dose causing negative health effects is 100 mSv. The regulatory limit of 1 mSv is, therefore, equivalent to 1 percent of this amount.

the annual background radiation dose for someone living in Toronto has been estimated at 1.6 mSv per year, but a similar estimate for Winnipeg was 4.0 mSv per year, due to the higher radon concentrations in homes.

Tritium limit for drinking water limits (Bq/L) by select countries or organization (seems to be all over the place)

Australia 76,103

Finland 30,000

WHO 10,000

Switzerland 10,000

Canada (Ontario) 7,000

United States 740 (no a 0 is not missing)

California Public Health Goal (not enforceable) 14.8

The EU tritium indicator value of 100 Bq/L is used as a screening value, automatically triggering an investigation if reached.

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

Re: Fukushima
 

Hmm...somewhat reassured. In any case, don't eat sushi so I should be ok.

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But whose fault is that? The view from my Japanese friends is that the decision to dump hasn't been delivered with any substantive, let alone convincing, government information campaign about the relative safety of the radioactive discharge. There is already a considerable social stigma in Japan, "scientifically" deserved or not, concerning anything or anybody from the affected region; this news does nothing to dispel that.[/QUOTE]

And why should they need that? They are well placed to comment on reputational impacts to their product, and therefore to their livelihood.

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"Small"! :hysterical:

In easier to grasp terms, those number are 1/2,600th to 1/3,700th of the regulatory limit.

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And those numbers, however small, have no relevance to the further reputational damage to the prefecture and its associated industries, sparked by the news of the impending radioactive discharge.

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Sadly a lot of stupid people who don't understand basic science.

Fortunately their attention span tends to have a very short half life

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The Canadian Gov't choice of wording.....;)

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I think we knew that anyway, but 2020 has certainly driven the point home! :nod:
:rofl:

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You've rather missed the mark on both points, champ.

The Japanese are, for obvious historical reasons, and rather more subtle cultural ones, disposed to be unusually sensitive to radiation-related risks. And, they are similarly disposed to attach stigma to people and products that are associated with those risks, and (in the Fukushima case) with the failures of engineering and governance that led to the TEPCO reactor disaster generally.

For the inhabitants of Fukushima prefecture, that stigma will last a loooong time, however undeserved it may be in any objective sense, for the individual inhabitants involved. And every fresh news event--such as this latest one involving the radioactive waste-water discharge (however minor that is in the grand scheme of things)--will prolong and reinforce the stigma.

Given that the overall TEPCO cleanup will span decades--and create an inevitable multi-year drip-feed of news articles calling the original event to mind at each stage--the remaining citizens of the prefecture will likely have to endure that for the rest of their lives.

In terms of real impact on people's lives, the magnitudes of becquerels and sieverts are irrelevant in this case.

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It will definitely hurt their bottom line. According to the Guardian article 20% of their former buyers now avoid Fukushima fish, and the survey says 30% will think twice about buying it when the treated water is released.
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ioactive-water
"Nozaki said he and other fishermen throughout Fukushima would continue the fight to keep the water out of the ocean. “Releasing the water would send us back to square one,” he said. “It would mean the past eight years have amounted to nothing.”

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What is Fukushima fish?

When I used to buy cod I guess the location had not occurred to me, shown as Alaska but processed in China, could I guess have come from anywhere.

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They can usually be identified by the pulsing green eyes and tail fins.

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Beats Guppies, they are in the wrong market.