Reply #26: If so - then they should be reported to the NRC...

[PamW]

Many nuclear plants - today - are releasing tritium and other radionuclides in quantities far greater than their designed allowable emissions.
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If so then they should be reported to the NRC. If they are emitting in excess of the
allowable emissions, then that is a violation of law.

Each nuclear power plant has a resident NRC inspector.

The problem here is that anti-nukes don't know what is allowable and what isn't.

The anti-nukes think that ANY release of tritium in the water is a violation.
What the anti-nukes don't know is that there is tritium in our water, naturally.
The anti-nukes think that all radioactivity has to be man-made. What they are ignorant
of is that Mother Nature makes tritium.

High up in the atmosphere, the "solar wind" from our own star, the Sun impinges on our
atmosphere. One of the components of the solar wind is high energy neutrons. When these
neutrons interact with the nitrogen in our atmosphere, then trigger an "(n,T)" reaction:

7N14 + 0n1 --> 6C12 + 1T3

The newly created tritium combines with atmospheric oxygen to form tritiated-water which
falls to the Earth as rain. Rain and all the water on the planet is naturally tritiated.

The anti-nukes don't know this, so when they measure some tritium in the water downstream
of a nuclear power plant, they run around like "Chicken Littles" claiming the reactor is
"leaking".

They never think of measuring the water upstream of the nuclear power plant. If they
did, they would find just as much tritium in the water.

PamW