Dumping Fukushima tritium into ocean 'least costly, fastest' solution: gov't

[yuiyoshida]

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry estimates that discharging tritium in the contaminated water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant into the ocean is the fastest and least costly way of disposing of the radioactive material, it has been learned.

The ministry is set to present the estimate at an April 19 expert panel meeting. The ministry has been looking into ways to dispose of radioactive tritium, which cannot be removed by the plant's "ALPS" (Advanced Liquid Processing System) multi-nuclide removal equipment and has thus been accumulating in storage tanks on the plant premises.

While the expert panel will also present other methods, the ministry's estimate may affect the decisions of the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. over the tritium disposal method.

The ministry had examined five tritium disposal methods, including burying it underground, vaporizing it, and releasing it into the atmosphere after reducing the tritium to hydrogen gas -- on top of the ocean release plan. For each of the five methods, the ministry calculated the time and cost required for disposal, based on an estimate of 800,000 metric tons of tritium-tainted water to be processed at the rate of 400 tons a day.

As a result, the ministry found that discharging tritium into the ocean would take up to seven to eight years and cost up to some 3.5-4.5 billion yen -- the least among the five methods, though the figures may vary depending on the concentration of tritium. Burying tritium underground, meanwhile, would require a maximum 76 years of management and would also be costly.

http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160419/p2a/00m/0na/019000c

[Ghost Dog]

1. "Disposal"?

Last edited Wed Apr 20, 2016, 04:50 AM - Edit history (1)

Dispersion.

[2naSalit]

9. !!!

[BillZBubb]

2. What a mess. I wonder how the Japanese populace will react to this?

[jwirr]

38. Not just those who live in Japan. The whole world should be

reacting to this. This just sounds like a way to make a bigger problem in the long run. The entire world should be looking for a way to store this waste for the duration of it's lifetime in as safe a place as possible.

I do not think this is a solution at all.

[SmittynMo]

3. As each day passes

we continue to destroy the very planet we live on. When will it be uninhabitable? It is simply a matter of time now.

[2naSalit]

11. William S. Burroughs once said...

Humans are the only species that will knowingly poison its own body and foul its own bed.

That's what I call exceptionalism.

[peace13]

4. Aaaaa....I think they have been doing that from day one!

To add more to it is insane!

[2naSalit]

12. I think you're right about that........nt

[thereismore]

5. Cost. It's the only thing corporations care about. nt

[2naSalit]

13. +1

[Bucky]

6. Isn't this how they created Dr Octopus in Spiderman 2?

[2naSalit]

14. Isn't it also how

Godzilla was created?

[yuiyoshida]

17. And, he's back!

Guess WHO IS BACK?? Modottekita dareda ka wakarimasu ka?

[2naSalit]

18. Wow! Cool!

I like the glowing red interior effect, makes it truly other-worldly!!

Thanks, I wouldn't have known!

[yuiyoshida]

19. You mean you missed this???

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1018&pid=857820

[2naSalit]

21. Not sure how but I did!

Thanks for directing me there! I love the diagram of the internals! Who knew?

[yuiyoshida]

25. Who knew?

Why, leading Japanese scientists, apparently!

He Knew!!!

[2naSalit]

48. Well as long as someone knows!!!

Hey, he's handsome! Smart and handsome = good combo!

[yuiyoshida]

50. Yes! Kinda like Michio Kaku

[yourpaljoey]

27. And this time, no more Mr. nice guy! Very cool.

[yuiyoshida]

28. for sure!

[yourpaljoey]

30. Cool manga music! Who does not love Godzilla and Mothra?

After all, they saved us from the evil Gojira!!!

[yuiyoshida]

31. you do know

that Godzilla is english for Gojiria? That's the Kaiju's name. Americans came too call him Godzilla but he really is Gojira..

Gojira (ゴジラ?) is a portmanteau of the Japanese words: gorira (ゴリラ?, "gorilla&quot , and kujira (鯨（クジラ）?, "whale&quot , which is fitting because in one planning stage, Godzilla was described as "a cross between a gorilla and a whale",[19] alluding to his size, power and aquatic origin.

http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/Godzilla

[yourpaljoey]

32. I was thinking of Kingu Gidora... of course :)

[yuiyoshida]

35. ah sou King Ghidorah!

[JayhawkSD]

7. Before we all panic over this, do you know what tritium is?

Tritium is also known as hydrogen-3, being hydrogen with an extra neutron in its nucleus.

While it is nominally radioactive, it emits beta radiation, a particle emission which can travel less than one-quarter of an inch through the air and is too weak to penetrate human skin. The radition is so low level that it does not register on a Gieger counter and is actually quite difficult to detect at all other than by using special methods.

[hobbit709]

8. I'd much rather have them dump the tritium than a lot of the other byproducts of fission.

Especially since tritium occurs naturally in the water.

[Lancero]

22. It doesn't. The only place it naturally forms is in the atmosphere.

While some may go from atmosphere to water, the bulk of tritium detected in water is a result of nuclear testing and from reactors.

[hobbit709]

24. They were able to extract tritium out of seawater long before testing.

[Lancero]

29. You missed the part where I said it will go from the atmosphere to the oceans.

It doesn't naturally form in oceans. It naturally forms in the atmosphere, and makes it way to oceans via rainwater.

It's still a natural process, but it's a bit different then what your posts implicated (That it could naturally form in water)

In recent times though, most detected tritium is a result of reactors and some remnants from nuclear testing.

[Lancero]

23. Conveniently, you left out the fact that it can be consumed and that...

It is a health risk when it is.

[MosheFeingold]

10. Dilution is the solution to pollution

I'm not a scientist, but I bet this is the correct idea. The ocean is unimaginably big and has plenty of tritium in it. The deep sea floor is probably safer than some landfill in an earthquake zone.

Is it a mess? Yep. Is this ideal? Nope.

But it's probably all they can do.

The Japanese are not stupid people and very well aware of the problems of nuclear disasters.

[JEB]

15. At least they aren't going to sell it....

cures toenail fungus, makes your armpits smell sweet. Be the first of your friends with blue dandruff. It would be an ideal enema for corrupt politicians and corporate executives.

[peace13]

20. No, they are shipping it free of charge to the west coast.....

....and pretty much everywhere else. This is totally irresponsible. The planet will absorb our destructive measures....with no gaurentee that we can still exist here.

[Chan790]

41. Much like every other West Coast Fukushima conspiracy...

there is no validity to any line of thinking of there being any impact whatsoever of the Fukushima disaster on the US West Coast. The net total radioactive exposure 20 miles from Fukushima of Fukushima is so small as to be indistinguishable from the natural radioactivity of seawater. The net change is less than 0.000000001% of the natural radiation. A resident of Los Angeles will have more radioactive exposure from walking to their car from their front door in 4 seconds of direct sunlight than they will have in their entire lifetime from Fukushima.

I can demonstrate the scale at-hand for you. Take a clear glass drinking-glass. Add one drop of blue food coloring. That glass of water and dump it into a gallon jug and fill it with water. Now take that gallon of water and dump it into a 15 gallon bucket. Can you still see any blue? (You shouldn't...we're down below 15 ppb but some people claim they can.) Now take that bucket and pour it into a 55 gallon drum of water and that 55 gallon drum into the Quabbin reservoir. You're now in the ballpark of 1 part blue food-coloring to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 parts water. You could not detect the blue food coloring with the most sensitive measuring equipment on Earth. The Pacific Ocean is 85,000,000,000 times the volume of the reservoir. More than that...radioisotopes are heavy. They sink. 99.999% of all the radioactive material from Fukushima is settled into the deepest reaches of the ocean where it will never interact with human civilization in any way ever again. Nothing you eat eats anything that eats anything that eats anything that will ever encounter those radioisotopes.

There is more silver in 1oz. of homeopathic silver preparation (100,000x dilution) than there is isotopes from Fukushima in all the tap-water you'd use if you ran your faucet for a year straight...or 10 years straight.

All the US West Coast enviro-paranoia over Fukushima is bullshit. 100% prime Grade-A bull turds.

[peace13]

44. I'm pretty sure the Canadian experts would disagree with you.

I guess the Four armed, four legged babies and women forced to have abortions is a conspiracy as well. Believe what you want. A+ I suppose the caves in NM haven't had trouble either! Oh but excuse me, radiation isn't trouble, I forgot. The folks at Chernobyl would love your explanations. This event in Japan makes that look like a microwave oven gone wrong.

[Chan790]

45. I know the cause of this.

It's scientific illiteracy. Anecdotes do not trump science. The science here is clear...there can be no possible causation between a radiological event that far away of that kind and North America. The quantities are too small and too dilute. Your exposures from Fukushima are smaller than those you get from going outside on a sunny day or getting a dental x-ray or flying on an airplane or drinking fluoridated water or eating a banana. All the paranoia and fearmongering you're capable of does not change that.

In the words of the great physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson: "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."

Do I know the causes of those events? No, I do not. But I know what isn't the cause of those events. It's as likely to be Fukushima as Aliens or Jesus or Yeti or Chemtrails or Chupacabra or the X-Files. There's simply no evidence for any of those causes and a lot of science to against attributing these events to any of them.

That is, unless you think rudimentary science knowledge of things like physics, chemistry, geology and ecology are lies.

[yuiyoshida]

49. omg! I can't believe

you said "Trump" and "Science" in the same sentence!!

[FBaggins]

47. Tritium is sold all the time

Have you seen the watches and exit signs that glow in the dark without using any electricity?

That's tritium.

[SmittynMo]

16. The sad part

is, we as humans, have not learned anything from any of our mistakes. I mean, what have we learned since the invention of nuclear power? Apparently nothing. And where is all the continued waste going from other active plants?

I won't be here, but I really fear what this planet will look like in 50- 100 years, as we sit here and do NOTHING!!!

[SmittynMo]

36. Hmmmmm. And now this!!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027767320

We are so fucking stupid!!!

[bbgrunt]

26. K and R for visibility

[yellowcanine]

33. "Least costly" For whom?

[Igel]

34. Meh. We're not talking about a huge amount of tritium, all things considered.

Yeah, 800 000 metric tons of tritium-tainted water. But that tritium, out of 800 000 000 kg of water, is something like 70 kg. So "tainted" means 0.000 009%. 9 ppm. When pitched into the Pacific, it'll join the pittance that exists in the oceans and be in measurable in ppm but parts per trillion and less.

If they leave it in place, there's more produced. Disperse the water, and in 12 1/2 years there's 35 kg or so of the stuff. So we have a way to make the problem go away, or we can continue to produce more tritium.

Note that in 1970 the estimate was about 300 kg of tritium in the world's oceans, mostly from nuclear testing. It's much reduced now, and most of the tritium is from natural sources.

Release it, but intelligently: divide the 800 000 tonnes up and put some in each of the oceans to reduce the maximum dose, and try to do something to keep it from being isolated in surface waters by the ocean's pycnoclines. It may emit beta radiation, but it is water and therefore tends to have the same concentration inside sea life as outside the sea life.

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. They won't be dividing it up, however; at 400 tons a day, they'll pump the water into the Pacific

right next to the plant. I hope they've calculated the extra dose of radiation that wildlife will get at the dispersal point will not be significant, but I'd like to see the figures.

[Orrex]

37. Maybe Rick Snyder will drink some as a show of solidarity.

[hunter]

40. Meanwhile, paying no attention at all to the much more dangerous crap our motor vehicles spew...

... in normal operation, life goes on.

[Chan790]

42. This.

We're exposed to much higher doses of carcinogens daily in automotive exhaust than we will be in our entire lifetimes as a result of this nuclear disaster.

[TimeToEvolve]

43. tritium is what is in those GITD capsule keychains.

http://www.periodictable.com/Items/001.3/index.html

[Dont call me Shirley]

46. What a bunch of fucking idiots!