Protesters gathered in the capital of South Korea on Saturday to demand that the government take steps to avoid what they fear is a looming disaster from Japan's release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Dumping is illegal where I live, you’ll get a fine ;)
Jokes aside, does anyone with a chemistry/physics background know of a technical solution/alternative to dumping? I suspect Japan would not dump nuclear waste in their domestic waters if they could avoid it.
Idk why the downvotes, I’m actually curious about this. Do you know how the waste is treated? I have a some education in radioactive materials and it doesn’t seem like an easy problem to solve.
If you have some “education about radioactive materials” you’d know that the half-life of tritium is 12.5years and that it is a beta emitter. This type of radiation isn’t harmful unless ingested. You would also know that the water has been diluted to safe levels before being released in the ocean, and even after that dilution, it will also not be released all at once, further reducing the chance of re-concentration and making radiation poisoning impossible. Finally since this is tritium we are talking about it, it isn’t a bio-accumlator and if you did drink too much tritated water, the treatment would be to drink an increased amount of tap water.
Since you are still just “asking questions,” about how Tritrated water is “treated” it kind of sounds like you don’t actually know about radioactive materials at all otherwise you would know about H3, i.e. tritium and wouldn’t be concerned about “treatment” only the concentration of the released water.
Cause you deserve it. You lie about your background and act as if you are “just asking questions” when in reality all you are doing to other people is saying “I’m an expert and treating this waste is impossible so how are they doing it”.
They settle out all of the heavier radioactive elements. They then dilute the remaining heavy water with additional water to drive the level of tritium to an acceptable level. It is then dumped into the ocean and rapidly mixes with the surrounding seawater. If you were to look at a map of ocean currents you’d see generally where it would go from there, but it doesn’t really matter because tritium isn’t really a significant concern. If they were dumping significant quantities of cobalt 60 you should care more, but they aren’t, so you shouldn’t.
The radioactive component is mostly tritium. As long as they get almost all of the heavy radioactive elements, the hydrogen isotopes are basically harmless in the quantities we’re talking about here. The ocean is a very, very big place.
Dumping is illegal where I live, you’ll get a fine ;)
Jokes aside, does anyone with a chemistry/physics background know of a technical solution/alternative to dumping? I suspect Japan would not dump nuclear waste in their domestic waters if they could avoid it.
They have treated the waste water, so it isn’t dumping. The water is well below the recommended parameters for releasing water.
There is nothing wrong with this. People are just freaking out because its “nuclear waste”, which causes people to be irrational.
Decades and decades of fossil fuel company propaganda against nuclear is a helluva drug
Nuclear bad! Solar just around the corner! Ignore current emissions!
Solar?! Too expensive!! And it’s dark for half the day everyday! We need windd!!! Let’s continue to fight about stupid shit and ignore our emissions.
Idk why the downvotes, I’m actually curious about this. Do you know how the waste is treated? I have a some education in radioactive materials and it doesn’t seem like an easy problem to solve.
If you have some “education about radioactive materials” you’d know that the half-life of tritium is 12.5years and that it is a beta emitter. This type of radiation isn’t harmful unless ingested. You would also know that the water has been diluted to safe levels before being released in the ocean, and even after that dilution, it will also not be released all at once, further reducing the chance of re-concentration and making radiation poisoning impossible. Finally since this is tritium we are talking about it, it isn’t a bio-accumlator and if you did drink too much tritated water, the treatment would be to drink an increased amount of tap water.
Since you are still just “asking questions,” about how Tritrated water is “treated” it kind of sounds like you don’t actually know about radioactive materials at all otherwise you would know about H3, i.e. tritium and wouldn’t be concerned about “treatment” only the concentration of the released water.
So nasty!
Cause you deserve it. You lie about your background and act as if you are “just asking questions” when in reality all you are doing to other people is saying “I’m an expert and treating this waste is impossible so how are they doing it”.
Still with the nasty…
No one deserves to be spoken to that way. Do better.
I’m educated enough to know it’s not necessarily a trivial process. The “treating waste is impossible” schtick are your words, not mine.
Let me get it straight. You’re telling us that:
Is that right? Dilution is the only “treatment” applied before discharge?
They settle out all of the heavier radioactive elements. They then dilute the remaining heavy water with additional water to drive the level of tritium to an acceptable level. It is then dumped into the ocean and rapidly mixes with the surrounding seawater. If you were to look at a map of ocean currents you’d see generally where it would go from there, but it doesn’t really matter because tritium isn’t really a significant concern. If they were dumping significant quantities of cobalt 60 you should care more, but they aren’t, so you shouldn’t.
Thanks! This is exactly what I was curious of.
I’m not the person that talked to you previously dumbo
The radioactive component is mostly tritium. As long as they get almost all of the heavy radioactive elements, the hydrogen isotopes are basically harmless in the quantities we’re talking about here. The ocean is a very, very big place.