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

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

#91

Post by anamax »

Aeolun wrote: post #81
credit_guy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably thinking of getting a speck of a radioactive metal (like Uranium or Plutonium) in your lungs. That gets stuck there, the body has no mechanisms to eliminate it, and it will keep emitting gamma rays all your life. Tritium is very different. It is an isotope of Hydrogen, and a water molecule containing one atom of Tritium is fairly indistinguishable from any other water molecule. The most important thin…

Hmm, if people were worried about ingestion I was certain it had to be alpha particles. I stand corrected. I’m not sure how much the half life matters a lot if you ingest a lot. To be fair, kinda unlikely from drinking water, but might be if a fish has been gathering Tritium it’s whole life (but then, it’s probably already doing that now for much larger quantities). Either way, I suppose the 3 X-rays I had today comp…

> might be if a fish has been gathering Tritium it’s whole life

Unless fish have some mechanism for selectively keeping tritium (which might be very useful) or don't replace their water, there's no way for a fish to "[gather] Tritium its whole life".

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

#92

Post by engineer_22 »

janmalec wrote: 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…

>I cannot envision a bright future if we don’t start...

The future is bright whether you see it or not. Take a vacation, find a less stressful job, start enjoying life.

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

#93

Post by janmalec »

Archelaos wrote: post #88
janmalec wrote: 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…

> If you want to put your energy into preventing dirt from getting into the ocean, look literally anywhere else. This line of thinking is what brought about our current environmental clamities. Everybody says: Look, what I am doing to the environemnt is just a tiny, tiny bit of what others are doing. The end result is a massive destruction of the ecosphere. Every dumping of waste into the ocean is a liablity. > the s…

You have completely missed my point. Every time you drive to work or flush your toilet you make an impact to the environment. How do you justify this action? Is it ok because you think that the impact to the environment is small? Will the end result of your action be a "massive destruction of the ecosphere"? Maybe it will be, but you have no other choice in life than evaluate all impacts and improve where you can and where it matters most.

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

#94

Post by pera »

Reason077 wrote: post #27
janmalec wrote: 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!

Tritium is not the only radioactive isotope present though:

https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-japan-stateless/20...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/23/fukushima-reac...

> In addition to high levels of hazardous radionuclides such as strontium-90, TEPCO on 27 August 2020 acknowledged for the first time the presence of high levels of carbon-14 in the contaminated tank water

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

#95

Post by belorn »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #6
janmalec wrote: 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…

Quoted post unavailable.

It is without doubt a critical gaps in information. We need to know first how much radionuclides already exist in the ocean (per volume), and where those comes from. All combustion and mining release to some degree radioactive isotopes into the environment, and much of it ends up sooner or later into the ocean.

A common popular science experiment for kids is to show water samples from different sources and store them for a few days. Most assume that rain is pretty clean, but in reality it tend to be almost comparable to untreated sewage water and one of the more nasty samples after a few days.

More studies are needed is something everyone should agree on regardless on which outcome people are voting for.

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

#96

Post by DennisP »

holoduke wrote: post #50

I am absolutely pro nuclear. But I think that for every single invested or earned dollar from a nuclear facility a fraction must be reserved for storage, break down, clean ing etc. There should be an world wide independent institute setting these rules up. And all countries should follow them otherwise harse sanctions will follow. Making mistakes with nuclear is unforgivable.

I don't know how other countries work but that actually is a legal requirement in the US. The NRC requires reactor operators to set aside funds for decommissioning[1], and the government charges a fee to nuclear plants to cover long-term waste storage[2]. Or at least, they did, until 2014. The waste fund has accumulated to $43 billion (as of 2018), but the government hasn't managed to actually store any waste; since the utilities were also incurring the cost to store the waste themselves, they successfully sued and got the fee lifted, until such time as the government starts taking the waste off their hands.

If only fossil plants were required to pay for burying their waste deep underground. Then we wouldn't be in the mess we're in.

[1] https://www.nrc.gov/waste/decommissioning/finan-assur.html

[2] https://www.ocregister.com/2019/02/01/billions-pile-up-in-nu...

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

#97

Post by madsbuch »

belter wrote: post #51
janmalec wrote: post #10

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…

Quoted post unavailable.

I'd probably rather drink this than most brackish water out there.

I am quite sure there are more naturally occurring reservoirs of water that is strictly more lethal; also non-diluted.

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

#98

Post by Pyramus »

SECProto wrote: post #87
Pyramus wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear power which are and have always been the safest and cleanest way to produce electricity Definitely not. There's a good argument to be made nuclear power in the 'global North' is relatively safe today. At the same time you will be hard pressed to find evidence that nuclear power was safe in the past or is safe today in politically unstable environments.

> At the same time you will be hard pressed to find evidence that nuclear power was safe in the past or is safe today in politically unstable environments. First of all, that isn't the same claim the post above to you was making. Second, [1]here's a chart showing the cleanest and safest power sources, backing up the claim made in the comment above yours. Nuclear is cleanest, and on safety it's close but falls behind…

That's the issue with "safe" - it's difficult to capture in a single factor like number of accidents and for this factor, the distribution of the metric is very different.

Here's a different metric that entails both: Market price to ensure a nuclear power plant against damages. Why are they so high as to make nuclear power creation uneconomical? A market inefficiency?

It's very hard to explain away. So my point is: It's not black and white unfortunately, and it's both a technological and societal effort to make nuclear power safe.

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

#99

Post by serenitylater »

janmalec wrote: 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…

No post body was provided.

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

#100

Post by kyrra »

janmalec wrote: 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…

> People are dying every day due to fossil fuel caused pollution.

You don't dive into this in a single sentence, but I do want to raise the point that fossil fuels, while they are bad are better than the alternatives for many countries, especially developing ones. Let's consider some alternatives.

Wood and animal waste: for developing nations that need any energy they can get, they will burn these 2, which are massively worse than fossil fuels, and no where near as energy dense.

Coal: massive step up from the above. Yes it burns dirty, but there are capture methods to make coal cleaner.

Natural gas: one of the best out there. Low emissions and again, energy dense. Turned into LNG, it's easy to transport and use elsewhere.

Nothing... This is the point that I think lots of people miss. Having access to energy dense materials like coal or LNG are a major factor in bring developing nation people out of poverty. Not having these "dirty" energy sources that kill some is way worse than not having it at all (more people will die without the energy).

People need to be reasonable and realize that rich nations can go nuclear and renewable, but we still need to allow developing nations to have access to the others, even encourage it. That means first world nations need to produce more LNG and supply it wherever possible. Sadly many want to stop all fossil fuel production.

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