Dump It in the Ocean: TEPCO's Plan for Radioactive Fukushima Water

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/20-4



'There's no risk to public health and safety,' pronounces consultant working for the nuclear plant's owner

Dump It in the Ocean: TEPCO's Plan for Radioactive Fukushima Water
- Andrea Germanos, staff writer
Published on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 by Common Dreams

A nuclear expert helping with the clean-up at the crisis-stricken Fukushima plant has joined a chorus of voices saying that all the accumulating radioactive waste water must eventually be dumped into the ocean.

Speaking with Australia's ABC, Dale Klein, former head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and current head of the Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee hired by plant operator TEPCO, described the situation at the plant as "challenging."

Massive amounts of radioactive water used to cool the reactors continue to build up daily in hastily built storage tanks, some which have already leaked, creating an unsustainable scenario.

Eventually, Klein told ABC, that water must be treated to reduce its radioactivity and then dumped into he ocean.

[FBaggins]

1. Poor reporting.

The amount of water isn't relevant... it's the amount of contamination that counts - and he's definitely not saying "all the accumulating radioactive waste" must be dumped. The vast majority of it must instead be retained.

If they can get out essentially everything but the tritium... it makes sense to let it go at that point.

[PamW]

2. Poor Science Comprehension

FBaggins,

I believe you are correct.

One of the problems is Poor Science Understanding, mostly courtesy of the anti-nukes.

The ignorant anti-nukes have been telling people for years that radioactivity is "contagious". That is if you expose something that is non-radioactive to a radioactive material, that the non-radioactive material "catches" radioactivity the way a human can "catch" a cold from someone else.

Also, once a material has been made radioactive; then it is dangerous for all time in memoriam. There's no way to "clean" radioactivity.

The anti-nukes have also promulgated the fiction that water can be "radioactive".

Only if water consists of molecules in which the hydrogen is the isotope tritium is water radioactive.

However, the "radioactive water" that we have at Fukushima is water that has suspended radioactive contamination in it.

Once that contamination can be filtered out; then the only radioactivity is a small amount of Tritium.

Seawater already contains Tritium. Tritium is made naturally by the interaction of cosmic rays interacting with the atmosphere and producing high-energy neutrons. Those high energy neutrons interact with atmospheric nitrogen to give carbon-12 and Tritium:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium

The oceans already have orders of magnitude more Tritium in them than would be released by Fukushima if the filtered water is dumped.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW