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Another Crumbling Reactor Springs a Tritium Leak
mdsolar writes "The decrepit nuclear reactor Vermont Yankee has sprung a radioactive leak similar to those at other poorly run reactors in Illinois (Braidwood, Byron and Dresden), Arizona (Palo Verde), and New York (Indian Point). Greenpeace noted 3 years ago that radioactive tritium leaks even threaten Champagne from France. Tritium and its decay product helium 3 are incredibly valuable and there is currently a shortage of helium 3. What, besides shutting down leaky old nuclear plants, could be done to better control release of tritium into the environment?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape
is my beer in danger? That's what I would like to know!
We're talking about *tritium* here, not plutonium. It's just not all that dangerous as far as radioactive materials go. You might well be *WEARING* some right now if you have a watch that glows in the dark. Unless they're releasing hundreds of pounds of it at a time here (they aren't, there's ~165lbs of the stuff in the US right now) , any farm even a kilometer away is not a real health hazard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Build new nuclear reactors, specifically of the design that, either, doesn't use tritium or is melt down proof. Why are the same people that bitch about the safety of nuclear reactors all at once the people whole also hold it back from being a, somewhat, excellent energy source? Uncool green peace, uncool.
Exactly. We should be embracing the technology and improving it with newer installations and better designs. But instead, I'm sure we'll hear from every anti-group in the world about how this leak is the sign of the apocalypse or some nonsense.
We seem to have done a pretty damn good job with the automobile over the last 50 years of improvements. Why we can't seem to do the same thing with this energy source is beyond me.
The linked article says that the tritium levels are only half what must be reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And let's think about what 17,000 parts per liter is. A liter of water contains 3.34192092 * 1025 molecules. So those 17,000 atoms mean that, assuming one tritum atom per molecule, 0.00000000000000000005% of the water is contaminated with tritium. At 3.3ppb the concentration of uranium in seawater is several orders of magnitude higher. This is not to say that the leak shouldn't be found and fixed, but the notion that this demonstrates that our nuclear power plants are unsafe is absurd.
...or you could bring the cost of nuclear down through cutting red tape for building new ones and funding research into more efficient ones and not punish the consumers who will be stuck with coal in the meantime.
I guess that doesn't fatten the right purses though, does it?
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What, besides shutting down leaky old nuclear plants, could be done to better control release of tritium into the environment?"
Well maybe if somebody, HINT HINT, would let us build new, safer, and more efficient ones, instead of having to rely on the older ones.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Aside from cost, public opinion is the real factor holding back exactly what you describe. It's a total case of NIMBY. Not in my back yard. "Nobody" wants a nuclear anything anywhere near them. Nuclear bad. Radiation bad. Eeeeevil.
So. All you need to do is convince everyone you meet to stop being afraid of nuclear energy. While you're at it, please do the same for fears of the boogeyman, terrorists, cloning, cancer, and people with different coloured skin.
"Oh no... he found the
The words "crumbling," "decrepit" and "poorly run" are pretty loaded, especially referring to levels of tritium around half the limit found on site, and no detectable levels off site.
I don't think Greenpeace supporters are luddites, their views are just lean a little too far over.
My problem with Greenpeace is in their ridiculous stunts that not only endanger themselves, but others around them. Oh, also that they blatantly misinform the public to push their agenda, but that's par for the course for many political groups.
Good grief, could this /. article possibly be more biased? Who the hell does Slashdot think it is, the MSM? I thought the Internet was supposed to be an improvement.
Lets just agree with the idiots at Greenpeace.... on one condition, that if we agree the current plants are operating far beyond their original design life they agree with us that the solution is to replace them with modern safer reactors.
Democrat delenda est
Careful! You need to use the correct product for this problem.
Tritium is the common name for hydrogen-3 (3H), which is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. Like ordinary hydrogen (1H or hydrogen-1, called protium) and deuterium (2H or hydrogen-2), tritium has a single proton in its nucleus. Unlike ordinary hydrogen, deuterium and tritium have neutrons in their nucleus. Deuterium has one neutron in its nucleus and is stable, while tritium's nucleus contains two neutrons and is unstable. Tritium decays spontaneously to helium-3 (3He) through ejection of a beta particle (essentially a high-energy electron). The half-life of tritium is about 12.32 years. Since the number of protons determines chemical bonding, tritium behaves like ordinary hydrogen and can replace ordinary hydrogen in water molecules. Thus, tritium readily cycles through the hydrologic and biologic components of the environment. Tritium has three times the mass of ordinary hydrogen due to the two extra neutrons. Because of this extra mass, water containing tritium evaporates at a slightly slower rate than water containing only hydrogen-1.
The unit of measure of tritium in water is the tritium unit (TU). One tritium unit equals 1 tritium atom in 1018 hydrogen atoms. In SI units, one tritium unit is about 0.118 bequerels per liter (Bq/L), where the bequerel is one decay per second. In picocuries per liter, 1 TU is approximately 3.19 pCi/L. Tritium occurs in very small quantities naturally, being produced in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays. Natural (pre-nuclear age) levels of tritium in precipitation are on the order of 1 to 5 TU. Nuclear-weapons testing during the 1950s and 1960s created relatively large amounts of tritium in the atmosphere that can be detected in ground water that was recharged during this period. Greatly elevated levels of tritium can be present in ground water contaminated with radioactive wastes.
It hasn't been until recently that the detection of the very miniscule ammounts of Tritium leakage through several feet of rebar, concrete, steel, and lead have been detectible as the units of measure are so minute to be nearly indetectable. As such, they don't pose much of a threat to humans, or other creatures in general. The half-life of Tritium in the typicaly human is roughly ten days, and is of such a low yield of energy to be about as harmful as living in Colorado being bombarded with a multiple increase of Cosmic rays versus people who live closer to sea level. In fact, when measuring the radioactive levels of Tritium you will notice that the K+ ions in bananas are radioactive as well.
Basically, all of this overreacting to 'radioactive' stuff should result in EVERYTHING being banned that's radioactive. If they were so concerned with such low level contamination, they should do away with Limestone rock on the walls of schools (radioactive), granite countertops (radioactive), bananas (radioactive), and all manner of other things that emit EM and positron/neutron radiation on such low levels.
The irony of all the craziness over 'radioactivity' is that on average, people who work near nuclear reactors, or have 'any' exposure on an ongoing basis at a very low level are typically healthier than the crazy people scared of all this radiation floating around.
If you take all the TLD (thermo-luminescent devices) worn by all Department of Energy employees and Nuclear Sub/Carrier personnel to measure very accurately the radiation exposure over a year, and add up every TLD in the DOE and Navy, it is still less radiation than 1 person receives by living in Denver Colorado for a year.
Thus, by this non-sensical IT'S RADIOACTIVE IT MUST BE BAD FOR US logic, we should quarantine Colorado, because obviously it's going to end up becoming a mutated Zombieland where only those highly paranoid, and well adept at using all manner of sharp, blunt, and dangerous instruments for maiming Zombies will survive.
You've got to love the innumeracy of the reporter on this article:
by Wednesday, the contamination had jumped to 17,000 parts per liter.
Ah yes, parts per liter. One of those quaint old-fashioned units of concentration, I guess, like horsepower per cubit. I wish someone could remind me how we convert to a more familiar unit like grams per liter, moles per liter, parts per million.
Any nuclear fission reactor generates neutrons. If water is used in the reactor (e.g. for cooling), some of the hydrogen in the water will absorb neutrons and become deuterium or tritium. If the reactor uses heavy water (e.g. CANDU reactor, which is not the case here) tritium production is maximized, since you need to absorb less neutrons to produce the same amount of tritium. Tritium is a weak beta emitter, so it is only dangerous if you ingest it in sufficient amounts. It decays into stable Helium-3. Even natural water has some trace amounts of tritium in it. FWIW the maximum permissible level of Tritium in Canada is way, way larger than in the USA. Guess where the 'C' in CANDU comes from...
FWIW Tritium is not the thing I am most concerned about in terms of nuclear waste. Iodine-131 or Strontium-90, now those are nasty.
I tried to find any anti-nuclear spin (no pun intended) there, but couldn't find any.
The fact that your spin-detector can't sense anything from the summary is indicative of greater problems.
But I digress. Let's begin with the title.
Another Crumbling Reactor Springs a Tritium Leak
Of the seven words in that title, three are designed to create a perception of the situation that is far worse than reality.
"Another": indicating more than one, or the latest in a series, or a connection to a greater ongoing situation. This is a spin word because it gives the impression that tritium leaks are special events that deserve special attention. This is not true. Reactors have been known for a very long time to create tritium and leak it, sometimes deliberately. CANDU reactors release tritium into the surrounding environment as a consequence of their design. They are allowed to do this because such leaks are not dangerous.
"Crumbling": indicating an advanced state of disrepair and decrepitude, a state of 'going to pieces', extreme unsoundness in structure or the inability to support it's own weight. This is a spin word because only a technical, literal definition of "crumbling" can apply to the reactor in question, the same definition that can be applied to anything, because everything not being created is in a state of entropic decay.
"Springs": indicating a sudden or forceful event. This is a spin word because it gives a false picture of what is plausibly taking place. Many reactors leak tritium as it diffuses through concrete and steel or in their cooling water. Any sudden or forceful leak of tritium would most likely be accompanied by a sudden and forceful leak of super-heated steam, which obviously hasn't happened.
Onto the summary.
"The decrepit nuclear reactor Vermont Yankee has sprung a radioactive leak similar to those at other poorly run reactors in Illinois (Braidwood, Byron and Dresden), Arizona (Palo Verde), and New York (Indian Point).
"Decrepit", "sprung" and "poorly run" are all loaded words. They make unsupported judgments about the reactor in question. The supposed problem is then also attributed to a number of other reactors the reader may or may not know about. This sentence assumes a problem and is constructed to make it appear to be widespread.
The use of the words "radioactive leak" is also spin, since anything radioactive escaping from anywhere can be counted. Dropping an ionizing smoke detector on the ground could be described as a "radioactive leak".
Greenpeace noted 3 years ago that radioactive tritium leaks even threaten Champagne from France.
This is spin, but it relies on the reader taking Greenpeace to be in a position of authority to make such judgments.
Tritium and its decay product helium 3 are incredibly valuable and there is currently a shortage of helium 3.
This is the only non-spin sentence in the summary. It may or may not be factually correct, I don't know, but it's stated as a fact and does not contain any loaded language I can see.
What, besides shutting down leaky old nuclear plants, could be done to better control release of tritium into the environment?"
The spin here is the loaded question which implies that the current release of tritium into the environment is a problem worthy of attention and further control.
So, yeah, there's the anti-nuclear spin. Lots of loaded words, ill-defined terms, misleading wording and an appeal to authority thrown in to boot.
radioactive materials are notoriously corrosive
No they aren't. The earth's atmosphere is notoriously corrosive. Most radioactive materials are just, well, radioactive.
Is it that little fact that radiation causes cancer? Because that is true you know.
Sure, but most radiation induced cancers probably come from sunlight and radon gas, not a tritium leak virtually nobody is exposed to in any meaningful dose.
Nothing. For the sake of the environment we should shut down these dirty, poluting nuclear power plants and replace them with clean eco-friendly coal burning plants at once.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
"Is this the fucking Greenpeace sight?"
No. As a "greenie" since the 70's I can assure you greenpeace were blinded by ideology a long time ago.
I think this became pretty obvious when they started campaigning against chlorinated water a couple of decades ago. Despite the fact it has been repeatedly pointed out to them, it seems to have escaped their attention that chlorination was probably the single largest improvement in public health in the 20th century.
It happens to all political movements, they start off with a real issue and end up handling associated facts with the same respect fox news does. Often the founders end up either quitting in disgust (as is the case with GP) or being pushed out by the spin doctors. Organisations such as GP are also susceptable to having people form "tea parties" and go off doing their own thing under the organisations banner.
None of this means leaky reactors are not "news for nerds", that's just you sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "la, la, la, la" because you saw the word greenpeace. If TFA that I haven't read is a bullshit press release from GP then by the time it reaches the bottom of the front page there will be a dozen or more highly rated post that debunk it with sound logic, reputable references and a bit of humour.
BTW: You almost got it right, "Luddite" accurately describes some parts of GP policy but it's doubtfull the editor who posted TFA subscribes to it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Of course the salient point about TMI is that even though it was a 98% meltdown (deformation of fuel rods due to excessive heat), the whole thing was 100% contained. The small amount of radiation leaked was because some genius after the fact thought it would be a good idea to vent the hydrogen bubble in the containment dome to the atmosphere, despite the fact that it contained Xenon-133 and Krypton-85.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
neutrons aren't corrosive; corrosion is a chemical process. Neutron radiation is a nuclear process. Sodium metal in liquid metasl cooled reactors is corrosive. Water at extremely high temperatures in the reactor is corrosive. Radioactive materials are not in of themselves corrosive unless their chemical properties dictate this to be such.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The words "crumbling," "decrepit" and "poorly run" are pretty loaded, especially referring to levels of tritium around half the limit found on site, and no detectable levels off site.
But in his defense, he did refer to Illinois, and those three words should be the state motto.
Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another
It sums up many industries in general and goes in cycles. When Three Mile Island was designed great care was taken and the containment building was designed to withstand the impact of a fully fueled large aircraft from the nearby airport. By the time of the accident complacency had set in and the control systems were inferior to just about every industrial plant in the USA - it took many days to get a clue as to what was going on. The care taken early on turned it into the best type of accident, nobody died and preventative work was done to avoid accidents in places without the benefit of such good containment. After that things improved dramaticly.
By the time things got slack again Chenobyl reminded everyone to stop taking stupid shortcuts. Now we've got to a point where it's just written off as dumb Russians and the superior people in the USA can never make mistakes even if they are taking stupid shortcuts - you'll see that attitude very strongly exhibited every time Chenobyl here. Patriotic fervour is not going to save anyone doing stupid stuff from the consequences of their actions - Russian stupidity, American stupidity - it's all stuipid. It's a matter of putting things under competant adult supervision instead of the usual horse judges or waiting for something that will scare the horse judges into action and hope it's a TMI and not a Chenobyl. That is what regulatory agencies are for but if someone is stupid enough to hide things from them for commericial advantage everyone loses.
New designs small enough that they can never fail as dramaticly as either accident are an option but the old US nuclear lobby is pushing 1970s crap with a coat of green paint. New stuff requires R&D which is something the nuclear lobby hasn't really done in thirty years. South Africa and Australia are way ahead in some areas on tiny as distinct from zero budgets. If the nuclear lobby had actually tried to do more than collect welfare then civilian nuclear power may have actually become a commercial proposition by now.
Is it well run if it is leaking radioactive waste into the ground water? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Station#Groundwater_contamination Maybe that is part of their mission statement?
Tritium decay : (3,1)H -> (3,2) He + e- + ve-
Tritium decays into a low-energy electron and an antineutrino.
Antineutrino's will start flying at near-light speeds and extremely likely not interact with anything until they hit a neutron star or a black hole. They are not dangerous for living beings, as they simply fly right through them. It carries off the majority of the energy (11-12 KeV)
The electron has an energy of close to 6 KeV (kilo electron volt). At these speeds electrons are not capable of penetrating human skin, or any layer of fluid. The only way to make tritium dangerous is to drink large amounts of it. The water in it gets built into your cells, and there it is close enough to do some (minor, compared to gamma decay) damage.
You can, however, shower perfectly safely in tritium. As rain can theoretically contain up to 0.5% tritium (though ten times less is much more likely), most of us will turn out to have actually done just that.
Conclusion : tritium is not corrosive. It is not dangerous (except as a useful component to make an atomic bomb)