Fukushima residents are cautious after the wrecked nuclear plant began releasing treated wastewater

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Updated 5:25 AM CDT, August 26, 2023

IWAKI, Japan (AP) — Fish auction prices at a port south of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were mixed amid uncertainty over how seafood consumers will respond to the release of treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the ocean.

The plant, which was damaged in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, began sending the treated water into the Pacific on Thursday despite protests at home and in nearby countries that are adding political and diplomatic pressures to the economic worries.

Hideaki Igari, a middleman at the Numanouchi fishing port, said the price of larger flounder, Fukushima’s signature fish known as Joban-mono, was more than 10% lower at the Friday morning auction, the first since the water release began. Prices of some average-size flounder rose, but presumably due to a limited catch, says Igari. Others fell.

It was a relatively calm market reaction to the water release. But, Igari said, “we still have to see how it goes next week.”



Read more: https://apnews.com/article/japan-fukushima-nuclear-wastewater-radiation-bd0f5c5ce4bfc35205be8ef4986cafe2

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

1. Really, unless you're getting more radiation from your phone

You're placing a radio transmitter 4 inches from your brain when you use it - and making it transmit

[hunter]

3. You drive around in a car fueled by carcinogenic toxins...

... that spews even more carcinogenic toxins out the tailpipe and as dust from the tires and bakes.

Not to mention your car could crash and kill you or other people.

The environmental impacts of this water release will be negligible. They might even be positive if it discourages fishing.

[Think. Again.]

4. so...

..if I cut my finger chopping veggies it would be okay to let people throw knives at me?

[MrWowWow]

8. TEPCO Released Tritium-Laden Water

Last edited Sat Aug 26, 2023, 11:06 PM - Edit history (1)

It is low level (beta partucles) ionizing radioactive water. Not the same as the electromagnetic radiation one gets from a cellphone.

https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/decommission/progress/watertreatment/tritium/index-e.html

[NNadir]

11. It is low energy beta emissions, not alpha particles. Alpha particles from tritium would violate...

...the laws of physics, since an alpha particle with an atomic number of 4 is heavier than tritium with an atomic number of 3.

The law that would be violated is the conservation of mass and energy.

Of course, radiation paranoids don't really care about the laws of science, do they?

A human being contains about 4300 Beq of radioactive potassium 40 without which they would die.

Seven million people will die from air pollution this year because we don't embrace nuclear energy. How many people have been killed by radiation from the big boogeyman at Fukushima again? Please provide a reference from a serious peer reviewed scientific publication to support your answer.

[Stargazer99]

2. Just research Hanford Washington-no wonder they are scared-they should be

[Think. Again.]

5. I've mentioned before...

...that my fear is this will set a low-bar precedent for the management of radioactive materials just as we are about to increase nuclear energy generation to reduce CO2 emissions.

[LiberaBlueDem]

6. They should bottle that water

And sell it to all the nuclear supporters.

They all say it's safe, let them drink it.

[NNadir]

9. We all drink water containing tritium.

It occurs naturally, although the highest levels observed were in 1963, during the era of nuclear testing.

I invite all of the radiation paranoids who carry on about this insipidly to breathe the coal dust that antinuclear paranoia has allowed to be dumped into the planetary atmosphere. I also invite them to fight all the fires burning all over the planet because of the efforts of antinukes to drive climate change, an outcome at which they succeeded.

The planet's in flames.

Seven million people will die this year from air pollution. No one will die from Fukushima tritium.

[WhatTheFlux]

17. I'd be happy to

One liter of tank water has the same radiation as 13 bananas.

[LiberaBlueDem]

18. Look we have a buyer!!!

He's an expert on the water and he'll show you how safe it is by drinking it!

[WhatTheFlux]

23. Do you eat bananas?

[LiberaBlueDem]

27. Plutonium bananas? NO

Look, please do not drink the Fuku water!

It could have plutonium in it along with many other radioactive metals.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

10. What could possibly go wrong?

[NNadir]

12. Did anything "go wrong" with perpetuating the use of dangerous fossil fuels driven by cartoon...

...versions of reality being treated as serious commentary?

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

15. Good Lord

Radiation exposure has obviously stripped you of any sense of humor.

[NNadir]

29. There are appropriate senses of humor and there are obscene senses of humor.

Today, as every day before during this year, and every day in the previous ten years, and every day of the previous ten years before that, 19,000 people will die from air pollution.

Radiation exposure, on which life depends, since the essential element (to all life) is mildly radioactive, does not impact intellect except in its absence, since neurological tissue depends on potassium to function.

On the other hand, radiation paranoia kills people and has killed far more people than radiation ever did:

From one of the world's most respected medical journals, Lancet:

Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249). This study is a huge undertaking and the list of authors from around the world is rather long. These studies are always open sourced; and I invite people who want to carry on about Fukushima to open it and search the word "radiation." It appears once. Radon, a side product brought to the surface by fracking while we all wait for the grand so called "renewable energy" nirvana that did not come, is not here and won't come, appears however: Household radon, from the decay of natural uranium, which has been cycling through the environment ever since oxygen appeared in the Earth's atmosphere.

Here is what it says about air pollution deaths in the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Survey, if one is too busy to open it oneself because one is too busy carrying on about Fukushima:

The top five risks for attributable deaths for females were high SBP (5·25 million [95% UI 4·49–6·00] deaths, or 20·3% [17·5–22·9] of all female deaths in 2019), dietary risks (3·48 million [2·78–4·37] deaths, or 13·5% [10·8–16·7] of all female deaths in 2019), high FPG (3·09 million [2·40–3·98] deaths, or 11·9% [9·4–15·3] of all female deaths in 2019), air pollution (2·92 million [2·53–3·33] deaths or 11·3% [10·0–12·6] of all female deaths in 2019), and high BMI (2·54 million [1·68–3·56] deaths or 9·8% [6·5–13·7] of all female deaths in 2019). For males, the top five risks differed slightly. In 2019, the leading Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths globally in males was tobacco (smoked, second-hand, and chewing), which accounted for 6·56 million (95% UI 6·02–7·10) deaths (21·4% [20·5–22·3] of all male deaths in 2019), followed by high SBP, which accounted for 5·60 million (4·90–6·29) deaths (18·2% [16·2–20·1] of all male deaths in 2019). The third largest Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths among males in 2019 was dietary risks (4·47 million [3·65–5·45] deaths, or 14·6% [12·0–17·6] of all male deaths in 2019) followed by air pollution (ambient particulate matter and ambient ozone pollution, accounting for 3·75 million [3·31–4·24] deaths (12·2% [11·0–13·4] of all male deaths in 2019), and then high FPG (3·14 million [2·70–4·34] deaths, or 11·1% [8·9–14·1] of all male deaths in 2019).

The climate scientist Jim Hansen and a colleague has explored these facts, and has concluded that nuclear power saves lives:

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

It follows that antinuke ignorance and stupidity kills people, in vast numbers.

I'm sorry if I can't be amused at more than 80 million deaths since Fukushima killed by antinuke ignorance and the barely literate jokers who spread them.

These kinds of "jokes" strike me as the equivalent of an antivaxxer making jokes about vaccines turning people into robots.

The main difference between antivax clowns and antinuke clowns is that antinuke clowns have killed vastly more people.

The planet is on fire. The fucking people who are carrying on about tritium from Fukushima are directly responsible for this result in my view. As is the case with the similarly badly educated antivaxxers, they have chosen to elevate their own ignorance to kill people.

I'm not going to apologize for my failure to be amused.

[LiberaBlueDem]

13. S. Korean Nuclear scientists

Are being ignored when they show concerns about the quality of the water. They know the water is dangerous and full of radioactivity. They know.

[NNadir]

14. Bullshit.

[WhatTheFlux]

16. Thirteen Bananas

One liter of Fukushima tank water -- prior to seawater dilution -- has the same radiation as 13 bananas. When the water is diluted and released into the sea, one liter of released water will have the same radiation as 0.002 bananas.

Drinking 0.38 liters (12.8 fl oz) of undiluted water, straight from the tank and without seawater dilution, would give you the same amount of radiation you already get each day from your internal store of dietary potassium.

[LiberaBlueDem]

19. So, you are an expert?

More expert than the residents and fishing people?

There is no telling what is in that water and TEPCO sure as hell ain't gonna tell you.

[Owl]

20. It's the other radionuclides we're not hearing about.

[WhatTheFlux]

22. Filtered out

To 100 times below drinking water standards. It's the tritium they can't filter out, since it's an integral part of the water molecule, not a separate particle.

[WhatTheFlux]

21. Would you like to see the math on this?

Or would you prefer to get your radiation science from a fisherman?

[WhatTheFlux]

24. Here's the Math

DIETARY POTASSIUM

1) A 70-kg person with proper diet has about 140 grams of bodily potassium.

NIH.gov ¬– Potassium Fact Sheet for Health Professionals
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Potassium-HealthProfessional/
Para. 2

2) The K-40 content of Earth's potassium is about 120 ppm.

Wiki – Potassium-40
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium-40

Therefore a person has: 140 g x 120 ppm = 16.8E-3 grams of K-40.

3) K-40 has a specific radioactivity of 263,000 Becquerels per gram - Bq /g.

HPSchapters.org – Human Health Fact Sheet
http://hpschapters.org/northcarolina/NSDS/potassium.pdf
See Table: Radioactive Properties of Potassium-40

Specific radioactivity is 0.000 007 1 Curie /gram (Ci /g). The Becquerel Conversion Factor from Curies to Becquerels is 37E9 Bq /Ci.

So, K-40 has 0.000 007 1 Ci /g x 37E9 Bq /Ci = 263,000 Bq /g

4) Therefore, a person has 16.8E-3 g of K-40 x 263,000 Bq /g = 4,418 emission events per second, internally (i.e., within their body).

5) K-40 emission produces a beta-particle with energy of 0.52 MeV.
Ibid. Third link above (the potassium pdf).

6) So, 4,400 events /sec x 0.52MeV /event = 2,290 MeV /s.

7) The conversion from MeV to joules is 6.24E12 MeV /J. So, 2,290 MeV /s ÷ 6.24E12 MeV /J = 367E-12 J /s.

8) Dividing by 70 kg body mass gives 367E-12 J /s ÷ 70 kg = 5.24E-12 Gray /second, which is equivalent to 5.24E-12 Sievert /sec with the radiation being beta type.

9) There are 86,400 seconds in one day, so the daily radiation dose from our internal K-40 is 5.24E-12 Sievert /sec x 86,400 s /day = 453E-9 Sv /day. Or 0.453 μSv /day.




FUKUSHIMA WATER

In 2014, the segregated (old) water in the early-use storage tanks at Fukushima had a volume of 460,000 cubic meters, or 460 million liters. The water’s total radio-intensity was 830 trillion Becquerels, or 830 TBq. (Radio-intensity refers to radioactivity per unit mass.) Therefore, the radio-intensity of Fukushima’s tritiated water at that time was 1.8 MBq per liter (830 Tbq ÷ 460M liters liters = 1.80 MBq per liter.

Fukushima.JAEA.go.jp – Status of Contaminated water (Ishikawa 2014)
https://fukushima.jaea.go.jp/fukushima/result/pdf/pdf1410/4a-1_Ishizawa.pdf
(Pgs. 13 and 19)

In July of 2023, after 9.3 years of radio-decay, radioactivity has decreased by 41% to 490 TBq (59% remaining) down from 830 TBq. This total is derived by running the numbers through a scientific calculator.


Current radio-intensity = 490 TBq ÷ 460,000 m3 = 1.06 MBq /L


1.06 MBq /L x 0.0057 MeV x 1 L swallowed = 6.04E3 MeV /sec internal


6.04E3 MeV /sec x 1 J /6.24E12 MeV (conversion factor) = 968E-12 J /s, immediately upon swallowing.

Divided by 70 kg person = 13.8E-6 μSv /second, immediately from 1 liter swallowed.


Multiply by 86,400 seconds /day = 1.192 μSv.


CONCLUSION

With potassium's 0.453 μSv /day, and with 1.192 uSv /day from Fuku water, one liter of Fuku water gives more radiation than K-40 by a factor of 2.6. (1.192 ÷ 0.453 = 2.63)


So to equal their K-40, a person would have to drink in one sitting (1 ÷ 2.6) = 0.38 liter

[LiberaBlueDem]

25. What you say: Filtered out is not true

TEPCO has not been telling the truth for 12 years and they willl not ever tell you what exactly is in the water.

I kid when I say drink it because it would kill you in short order. If it was safe they'd be sending it to farmers. You do know that the water they are dying to get rid of is groundwater that flushed out the melted cores?

It will be deadly waters for decades, maybe centuries.

[Owl]

28. Exactly.

[Wonder Why]

26. I don't blame them for being concerned. The last time, Tokyo was destroyed by godzilla.