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Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe

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21–30 of 184 posts

Re: Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am a researcher and a Ph.D. student in the field of nuclear reactor physics. I regularly operate and do experiments on a research nuclear reactor. My name is in my hn username and I have no problem defending my claims. I also own a popular TikTok account where I do science communication about nuclear reactors. My information about the water discharge comes from reports by IAEA, who is the authority on the matt…

Out of curiosity, why do you write 'Thritium' for 'Tritium'?

I suck at spelling.

Re: Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe

#22
post #15

The Japanese have lots of credits on environmental issues: it's one of the cleanest country I've ever seen, so I'm willing to trust them if they say the waste water dumping plan is safe.

Yes. It's a matter of national interest. Because Japan is a relatively small, cut off archipelago nation with very few natural resources. It needs to be able to generate its own energy with less raw material imports or it won't have as much power as it needs. It doesn't have tons of space it can afford to pollute. Japan wants to be able to use large amounts of renewable electricity to generate tons of value that it can trade for materials it needs to build and maintain renewable energy facilities, and for food and goods. The stuff about the environment makes for really good, convenient PR and possibly revenue stream of external funding for initiatives. If Japan can game the international green system and pull out of this population nose dive without importing an unmanageable demographic collapse into itself, it will become a superpower again and have another shot at world domination, this time through imposing world peace. If it comes to our world, Pax Japonica will be a sterile, depressing, conformist utopia where we pretend to work all day, then surround ourselves with bright colourful toys to feel awake, while drinking ourselves to sleep. It will be too much civilization; business as usual.

Edit: Hey, look, somebody wrote a book with the latin thing I said as its title, whose contents I probably summarized the thesis of without even reading.

https://www.amazon.com/PAX-JAPONICA-Resurrection-Takeo-Harad...

Re: Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe

#24
post #18
post #11

Why not dropping that to the Sahara or to any remote desert that nobody lives?

They are dumping 1 Million metric tons of water over a period of 30 years. Even if China allow them to dump the water into the Gobi desert, it'd still cost billions of dollar to build and operate the pipeline. It'd never happen.

True but at this point it's not just a Japanese problem but a world wide one, if they dump it in the ocean, it could affect all the life that live there and consequently human life that feeds of it. It reminds me of the WW2 boats that are still in the Oceans leaking toxic products and nobody wants to pay to take them out.

Re: Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe

#25
post #15

The Japanese have lots of credits on environmental issues: it's one of the cleanest country I've ever seen, so I'm willing to trust them if they say the waste water dumping plan is safe.

It's a tough issue, because it's also the Japanese gov and TEPCO who brought this all mess, their trade-offs on how much to secure that plant didn't pay off, to say the least.

We're relying on mostly the same people, minus the pragmatic ones who went to bluer skies, to now make trade-offs related to how much Japan's willing to pollute the surrounding seas relative to the economic and politic situation.

Re: Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe

#26
post #11

Why not dropping that to the Sahara or to any remote desert that nobody lives?

Well because some people actually do live in Sahara

We could dig dip and move people, it's not like they are millions. Better moving them than ruining Ocean life that feeds us.

Re: Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe

#27
post #4

Tritium is already present in the ocean naturally and we are not talking about Nuclear Waste, as the title suggests, but clean water. We also cannot compare the tritium with mercury, because tritium, even if released in the ocean, decays away. Mecury, on the other hand, stays forever. The concerns that the water will affect marine life might be well intended but will cause more harm than good. In the worst possible c…

> "Tritium is already present in the ocean naturally"

Exactly. And if the quantities Japan are talking about are correct (860 TBq / trillion becquerels), this is a huge fuss about nothing. France's La Hague nuclear reprocessing facility discharges many times more tritium than that into the English Channel every single year as part of it's normal operations!

Re: Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe

#28
post #4

Tritium is already present in the ocean naturally and we are not talking about Nuclear Waste, as the title suggests, but clean water. We also cannot compare the tritium with mercury, because tritium, even if released in the ocean, decays away. Mecury, on the other hand, stays forever. The concerns that the water will affect marine life might be well intended but will cause more harm than good. In the worst possible c…

Right, it’s all safe and fine as long as we don’t release the water into your own backyard and swimming pool.

What a pointless and unnecessarily personal attack. A rotting tuna is safe and fine in an ocean and I wouldn't want it in my own swimming pool.

Re: Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe

#29
post #24
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are dumping 1 Million metric tons of water over a period of 30 years. Even if China allow them to dump the water into the Gobi desert, it'd still cost billions of dollar to build and operate the pipeline. It'd never happen.

True but at this point it's not just a Japanese problem but a world wide one, if they dump it in the ocean, it could affect all the life that live there and consequently human life that feeds of it. It reminds me of the WW2 boats that are still in the Oceans leaking toxic products and nobody wants to pay to take them out.

[deleted]

Re: Japan’s plan to dump nuclear waste into the pacific ocean may not be safe

#30
post #3

WasteWATER*. I hate when titles leave important things out to make them sound worse than they are. This is about WATER waste.

Water which ... is nuclear waste as it is from a nuclear power plant that had a core meltdown? Of course wastewater would have been more specific, but in the end they ARE dumping nuclear waste into the ocean.
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