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Tritium Leak At Vermont Nuclear Plant Grows
mdsolar writes "The tritium leak into ground water at Vermont Yankee has now tested at 775,000 picocuries per liter, 37 times higher than the federal drinking water standard. 'Despite the much higher reading, an NRC spokeswoman said Thursday there was nothing to fear. "There's not currently, nor is there likely to be, an impact on public health or safety or the environment," the NRC's Diane Screnci said in an interview. She had maintained previously that the Environmental Protection Agency drinking water safety limit of 20,000 picocuries per liter had an abundance of caution built into it. ... The National Academy of Sciences said in 2005 that any exposure to ionizing radiation from an isotope like tritium elevates the risk of cancer, though it also said with small exposures, the risk would be low. ' At what level should the NRC shut down the troubled plant?"
Way to shoot yourself in the foot. Why aren't those leaks taken care of fast, whether they are or aren't actually dangerous? We've had enough issues with fear of nuclear power, no need to let such stories grow out of proportions. Otherwise, we'll never see the US convert to nuclear power instead of gas and coal.
I am a native Vermonter.... At first the leak was super small, something like 1/7th the legal amount which was no big deal. Why freak out?
Well, now we're finding out the true amount that seems to be getting through. That's pretty sketch guys and It is a bit concerning.
Any nuclear people have input on this situation?
Oh, wait...
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Does that mean people in Vermont will glow in the dark too? Sounds like a win to me.
Surely there's plenty of potential for making heavy water (d2o), right?
Tritium and its decay product helium 3 are incredibly valuable and there is currently a shortage of helium 3.
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Actually, the latest reading was 2.7 million picocuries: http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/87126/
Bradley Holt
Where does the water flow? Does it flow south, toward Boston? Or, does it flow north toward Montreal and Quebec?
There are a lot of people that could be affected by this.
How many lives are put at risk when we take a large electrical generation plant off-line? Very tough to calculate, because the impact is so distributed, but there are concrete consequences, none the less.
The article says the levels in the well from before doubled and are still below the federal level. Levels at another existing well dropped. And a new well was drilled to try to find the leak and it has a much higher concentration of tritium.
Unless you're drinking from the new well (and no one is, it's a test well), this doesn't really affect you at all. It's not like you're getting 37x as much radiation now (at least as far as the data we have says). And it's part of the process of finding the leak and fixing it.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
We have a limit, apparently, but of course we do not act in case we go over it.
Is the limit still a limit in that case?
As true Americans who cherish tradition, we should always take our raioactive elements in the traditional way. First mine it with coal, then burn it in a furnace, disperse it through smoke and then ingest it via the lungs. That is the American way. One second before you mod me down as a Luddite, remember I do support modern innovations, like mountain top removal and long wall mining.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
So we've got these standards and limits on the amounts of toxic chemicals we allow into our drinking water (and thus bodies), and we build a little bit of extra "caution" in, to make EXTRA sure that we don't accidentally poison ourselves... and then our public officials ignore these limits and standards because they're "cautious"? Really now?
NRC spokeswoman should be given a hands-on lesson in why we include safety padding in these matters.
I was under the impression that the whole purpose of testing groundwater was to find and STOP contamination. If they've repeatedly failed this test, how are they allowed to continue operations?
I suppose when this sort of thing happens you'll be ok with taxpayers paying the clean-up costs ?
I think nuclear is something we're going to have to use, but I am _extremely_ worried it's going to be another privatize the gains and socialize the losses deal.
Absolute statements are never true
"At what level...?" is always an curious legalistic way to go about the question. I'd reply "as low as possible", that is, it becomes an engineering/economic question, not a biochemical one. How low a leakage of tritium (not good for human ingestion at any level) is feasible? and/or: i'll wager they can do much better than where it currently stands.
The water they're testing is, by federal limits, not drinkable. That said, the water they're testing is not drinking water. If this stuff was getting anywhere that humans were going to drink it, that would be a very serious problem...but they're saying that doesn't seem likely. So no, they're not ignoring the limits. They should act quickly, yes, but still.
Every time I'm told how safe nuclear power is something like this happens. The problem they have is the materials are very corrosive and they tend eat through metal and concrete over time. The pipes are buried and the leaks aren't easy to find or fix. Not all the plants use this system but this was one of the plant designs that was considered "safe". Also Hanford has been back in the news because they are dealing with millions of gallons of contaminated water that is slowly leaking. Any time now the ground water is expected to reach a major river. A lot of the contamination comes from processing plants not even reactors. When I was in LA there was contaminated ground water in Canoga Park at several different sites. For something that is so "safe" there sure is a lot of contamination already. People say we can replace all other sources with nuclear power. That would mean 5X as many plants. Worse yet all the existing plants have reached or are nearing their design life. I believe most of the leaking plants are at or nearing their design life. They are trying to extend the licensing on most of the existing plants but is that really a smart idea since many are leaking even without adding 20+ years to them? I know Slashdot is pro nuke and wary of other sources but I've yet to hear of a solar plant or a wind farm contaminating ground water. There's a lot of open desert that is perfect for solar and we have a massive untapped resource in roof tops. There was an intriguing idea of converting roads to solar collectors. For wind most of the power is used along the coast. Offshore wind farms could provide a lot of our power all on their own. It gets rid of most of the bird kill and eyesore issues and the wind is more constant. There are solutions out there that don't involve poisoning groundwater which may one day be a being a bigger need than power.
When something like this happens the plant monitors the flow of the tritium into the aquifer, river, etc. VERY carefully. If those levels rise above set limits then they have to shut down. However, right now they most likely just have to pay a daily fine to operate and that fine is less than the cost of shutdown prior to the fuel reaching the desired burnup. They will most likely continue to operate unless they see a rise above safe levels in the groundwater or the river that is used for cooling.
A light water reactor isn't capable of producing much tritium since hydrogen has to absorb two neutrons to become it. Since it doesn't exist in nature any amount, no matter how small, is detectable. Not really a concern. You would most likely get more radiation exposure from coal.
Wait for the 3 eyed fish to show up before going in and go to sector 7g at the start.
---MR X
YEARGHHH!!!
I live in southern NH, and to be honest, I'm barely aware of VY's existence (after all, they don't supply my electricity).
But I've noticed in recent months that these marketing ads for VY have been showing on the local cable TV touting
their http://iamvy.com/ website. I had wondered for what reasons they needed to self-promote, but this latest chain of events
certainly can't be helping.
Far-Right:
There's nothing to see here, it's just those damn liberals and their whining about nuclear power. It's all perfectly safe, there's absolutely no problems whats-so-ever with this plant or any other plant. A possible indicator of other problems around the country? Pshaw.. more liberal clap-trap. We can fix all our power problems with just building a lot of nuclear plants. Waste schmaste.
Far-Left:
This is just PROOF that the nuclear power industry are all a bunch of bastard weasels. We ought to shut the whole shootin-match down for good. We can get all of our power from wind and solar anyway. 37 times the standard! I bet the standard is set too high anyway! These plants are all rotting from neglect, and there's probably a ton they're not telling us! I recently saw The China Syndrome and Silkwood, and let me tell you that's all just the tip of the iceberg! Chernobyl!
I'm just really sick of the nonsense on both sides. They both insulate themselves from the other and don't want to hear any real truths from "the other side". The whole nuclear power issue is 90% a "side of the room argument" where nobody wants to be associated with an idea from "the other side". This is what needs to stop to make any progress on the whole issue.
AccountKiller
If the reactor doesn't produce much tritium, then wouldn't that imply that tritium would be a small proportion of the radioactive material released when a leak occurs... but it is detected early because it IS so mobile and easy to detect.
That is, the tritium itself is not the direct cause for concern, but rather an indicator that will lead to locating the real problem.
"Yeah, the water is 37% more deadly.... you should be fine"
Uh thanks.
Where's that leak again?
If one person in one hundred thousand starts to glow in the dark and dies, it is considered an acceptable risk for everyone except that person. No one can prove that that cancer that killed that person was caused by the leak so they can get away with it. It is statistically insignificant. I do not like to think that manslaughter is insignificant but these people think that way.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
...because tritium's really expensive to make and they're wasting it.
A few years back I bought a bunch of glow-in-the-dark keyrings as stocking fillers for my family. These are little tubes containing tritium. The tritium produces very low energy beta particles, which excite phosphor on the inside of the tube, which cause them to glow. They have a half-life of 12 years, which in effect means that they glow usefully for about five or six years before they need replacing. (I should probably get them new ones.)
Let me repeat that: it's a little glowing thing that will glow for six years, continuously. They don't need recharging, they don't need their batteries changed, they don't need exposure to sunlight. They're fantastic for safety-critical things like exit signs. My father sails, and he has his tied to the end of the emergency torch on his boat --- it means that if he needs it in a hurry in the dark, he can find it. I know a nurse who uses them to find things in bags of equipment. They're really handy.
Naturally, they're banned in the US, because they're atomic.
(Tritium, being hydrogen and really hard to contain, will slowly diffuse out through the walls of the glass tube and into the environment. However there's a tiny, tiny amount of the stuff, and the radioactivity they emit is so weak it won't penetrate six millimetres of air, let alone anything solid. I suppose it is possible to absorb the stuff into the body --- we are largely made of hydrogen, after all --- but the low energies, short half-life and tiny quantities means that you're probably more likely to get radiation damage from Bikini Atoll than your tritium keyring.)
Incidentally, did you know that after the Chalk River reactor in Canada was shut down in 2009 due to overreaction, there is now a worldwide shortage of medical isotopes? There are only five reactors worldwide, sorry, four now, that produce the stuff. I wonder how many people that shutdown has killed?
We get far more exposure from radon outgassing from the granite countertops in our kitchens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/garden/24granite.html
Let's pay attention to something we can actually get exposed to.
personally I'm sick of his anti-fun agenda. White Powder!
-K. Richards
Its a hard job to set safety standards for radiation as there really is not any 100% safe level other than absolute 0.
The standards are probably irrationally low for all practical purposes, but regardless of that, there is no dispute that the standards have already been significantly exceeded.
If they were doing their job properly, they simply need to decide to either immediately fix the leak or shut the site down. They can review the safety standards later if they want. To do that properly would require a detailed study, in other words, more time than they have now. I don't even think the NRC has the legal authority to arbitrarily decide to ignore the current safety standards.
The thing that is most scary is the NRC at the highest level apparently believes that weasel words presumably to cover political expediency and cost saving are more appropriate than peoples safety, and a commitment to quickly and properly fix the actual leak.
For the love of god, tritium decays by beta particle emission. Why the boy-who-cried-wolf nuclear panic over a beta emitter?
every _exit() is the same, but every clone() is different.
One of the 10000 or so jobs I have over the years was working in a refinery for a few months. During that time some of the workers tried to find some pipes for maintenance. No one knew where they were. There were the design diagrams, the "as-builts" and numerous additions and removals by contractors upgrading and doing maintenance. Some new ones were out in, some ripped out, and others abandoned in place.
Metal detectors did not help, there was too much metal buried and scattered around.
The situation was so bad they resorted to dowsing. I'm serious!
Lately I've heard of small robots using GPS to travel a pipe and map it out. But with so many old plants and old pipes, it will be a long time before the situation is unsnarled.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Maybe they're just waiting for the radioactivity to reach a high enough level that it will give them super-powers. Then they can deal with this and many other injustices in the world...
Grandparent though a Giga-Byte wa 1,024 Mega-Bytes. You said, that's a "gibibyte". Actually a "gibibyte" is 1,024 "mebibytes" which is 1,024 "kibibytes" which is 1,024 bytes. Mega-byte is 1,000 Giga-bytes which is 1,000 kilo-bytes, which is 1,000 bytes.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Yeah Babe, my, errrm, "equipment" is 5/100,000ths of a Kilometer! America, Fuck Yeah!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
What kind of super powers do I get if I drink that water?
Sensational numbers! My heads almost didn't stay unexploded when I read 775,000 picocuries per liter. Somehow .775 microcuries per liter doesn't grab the nuke-fearing soul quite the same way.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
Stop bringing facts into this!
The cited article said that the sample was taken "just to the east of the plant's condensate water storage tank" That's inside the plant. Then it cited the EPA standard for drinking water.
Those two facts in close conjunction invite everyone to jump to the conclusion that the public gets its drinking water from next to the storage tank inside the plants grounds. In reality the nearest public or privately owned well is probably 5 to 10 miles away.
I remember when I wanted to drill a new well in my yard. The local building code said that it had to be 100 feet from the septic tank drainage field. Wow, only 100 feet!!! Now consider how much five miles of intervening ground will filter.
It is true that 775,000 picocuries per liter is 37 times higher than the limit. It is also true that there is no public health hazard. The devil is in the details, and the critical detail not emphasized in the Washpost article is the separation between the tank and the public.
Isn't tritium ridiculously valuable?
As in worth more per measure than gold or platinum?
Spend your time wading in 775,000 picocuries of tritium, or spend your time downwind of a coal-fired power plant.
Betcha I know which one will kill you first....
];)
Regards;
Nuclear power is an idea that looks good on paper, but the nuke industry is controlled by big oil, subsidized by tax money, and overseen by bureaucrats. Don't expect much in the way of responsibility. Unless the problems are too big to conceal, they are ignored or covered up. BTW, "acceptable levels" of radiation really means that nobody important lives nearby.
--------------------
Las Vegas SUN: Water study warns of Utah uranium leak
Today: March 23, 1999 at 11:06:00 PST
By Mary Manning, LAS VEGAS SUN
Uranium is leaking from a Utah site into the Colorado River at 530 times the federal radiation limit, threatening the drinking water of more than 25 million people, according to an independent study released today.
The findings by the nonprofit watchdog group Project On Government Oversight have prompted Nevada and California representatives to call for the 10.5 million tons of radioactive material to be removed rather than covering it with a cap to protect it from rain and leaving it next to the Colorado River near Moab, Utah.
The radiation and toxins are entering the river at 6.7 gallons per minute from an old mining site operated for the federal government. The radiation already exceeds Utah standards and the state has called for an extensive study of ground water.
Based on research done by the Department of Energy's national laboratories, scientists estimate that the uranium perched on the edge of the Colorado River will continue leaking radiation into the river, serving people in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Tucson for the next 270 years.
Contamination from the Moab uranium would continue to increase in the river for the next nine years, DOE scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee said. And if there is a flood, the radioactive pile could be washed into the water, significantly raising the level of contamination.
"Polluter greed is prevailing over the health of millions of Americans exposed to radiation leeching from a toxic waste site into the Colorado River," the Project on Government Oversight, an independent government watchdog group, said in a news release.
Researchers for the group discovered that the DOE has moved uranium and other toxic materials away from rivers and sources of ground water a dozen times in the West over the past 10 years in cases where the radioactive levels were 10 times smaller than that from the Moab pile.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering a plan to allow Atlas Corp., a defunct milling operator, to cap the pile of uranium on site at a cost of $14 million. The DOE estimates it could cost $101 million to move the toxic pile.
In addition, the Project on Government Oversight report said the uranium and toxic metals pose a threat to endangered fish including the razorback sucker, humpback chub, bonytail chub and Colorado squawfish.
Besides the radioactivity, the mound contains ammonia, arsenic, lead, mercury and nickel. The toxic pile is stored less than 750 feet from the river and the ground is not lined to prevent leaks.
The proposed legislation would shift the emphasis from keeping the uranium where it is to cleaning up the pile.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is cosponsoring HR 393, with Reps. George Miller and Bob Filner, both D-Calif., to shift agency responsibilities for removing the uranium to the DOE.
"An ounce of contamination prevention is worth a pound of toxic waste in our water supply," Berkley said Monday. "Nevadans are tired of paying the price for America's nuclear legacy, and we're tired of waiting for a crisis before somebody does something."
In addition to cleanup, the bill would require the U.S. attorney general to assess Atlas' liability and hold it financially responsible for the move. The company is threatening to declare bankruptcy.
Although the polluted plume has been tracked less than 2 miles into the Colorado River, it could affect water quality downstream. Nevada and California water officials have detected a slight
Hey; I have an idea: Let's apply the nuke plant standard for isotope release to COAL plants!
];)
Regards;
Can someone find an Ebay link to an auction for an advanced combat optical gunsight with an inscripted reference to a Bible verse that appears lit for several decades when viewed through the scope?
[JN 8:12] Then spake Jesus again unto them saying, "I am the light of the world: he who followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of five keV beta emission incident unto copper-activated zinc and burning sulfur emitting greenish secondary radiation having peak wavelength of one millionth of a cubit."
Advance to 3:40 in this gunsight review to get the idea. For those of you who aren't Christians, well whatever, get over it.
Yes, beta particles are stopped by aluminum foil, skin, etc.
But, not if the tritium replaces a H in water, forming tritiated water, which then, gosh darn it, winds up inside your body, yea, verily right next to your chromosomes, since water is water is water and it diffuses quite nicely. No aluminum foil shields now..
Tritiated water is a big problem.
Sort of like breathing in an alpha emitter (like radon or various other radium,uranium, thorium daughters) which is stopped by paper stuck to fine particles in cigarette smoke. Puts those alpha emitters right on the surface of those lung cells.
Then he would not approve of what this chap says he did. Do it yourself Heavy Water Reactor
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
RIGHT NOW
Some safety may be built into the standard, but it's done that way for a reason. They need to take action to fix this, and not ignore it on bogus reasoning like safety is built-in to the number.
I would equate this to having a hard drive in your 30,000 transactions per second, multi-million dollar database system, and deciding not to do anything right now.
Because your RAID10 array has ample safety built into it, and you don't have a catstrophe yet. *Yawn* we can just ignore the problem.
The cool thing is that you can catch the glowing ones at night without having to spotlight.
As a resident of the state across the river (NH), I've been following this carefully. The context of this story is that Entergy (the company that's running Vermont Yankee) is asking a) to extend its current 30 year license (currently scheduled to expire in 2012) for another 20 years. In addition, they're asking to run the reactor at 120% of its rated power during that time This may be a great idea. Getting more years (and maybe even more power) from an existing fixed capital asset might continue to make (relatively inexpensive) power available at no carbon cost. As another poster said, a well-regulated, safe nuclear power plant should be just fine. But... 1) Entergy has been known to minimize the seriousness things in many of their statements. Most recently, they had told regulators several times that there were *no* underground pipes that could leak. Now... Oops. We didn't realize that those pipes existed... 2) They're trying to sell this plant to some other company. I don't understand the reason - it hasn't been stated clearly. 3) It's not at all clear where the money will come from to decommission the plant when it's closed. (Somewhere between $400-600Million...) Given that Entergy is trying to sell it, will they also pass off their decommissioning fund? (Or is there even one?) So I would be quite comfortable with extending the license for, say, 5 years at a time, with regular, rigorous inspections, as long as there is a bond or other reliable means of paying for the decommissioning. Otherwise, we have another example of privatizing the gain while socializing the expense... NH Resident
Are you joking, that much radiation isn't anything to worry about compared to the fact that heavy water such as tritium or deuterium cant be expelled from the body because of the difference in binding energy in the hydrogen bonds the kidneys cant flush it from your body, it's cumulative,so the more it's consumed, more issues other than water retention develop; such as tissue degradation, affects certain cellular processes, notably mitosis, or cell division. It's effects when consumed are far worse than the level of radiation exposure from it.
A list of some scientific studies on the effects of tritium with references in case there is any doubt regarding Triated water's effect on living beings.
Tritium is biologically mutagenic *because* it's a low energy emitter. This characteristic makes readily absorbed by surrounding cells. The available evidence from studies conducted journal a list of effects. From those works;
Tritium can be inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through skin. Eating food containing 3H can be even more damaging than drinking 3H bound in water. Consequently, an estimated radiation dose based only on ingestion of tritiated water may underestimate the health effects if the person has also consumed food contaminated with tritium. (Komatsu)
Studies indicate that lower doses of tritium can cause more cell death (Dobson, 1976), mutations (Ito) and chromosome damage (Hori) per dose than higher tritium doses. Tritium can impart damage which is two or more times greater per dose than either x-rays or gamma rays.
(Straume) (Dobson, 1976) There is no evidence of a threshold for damage from 3H exposure; even the smallest amount of tritium can have negative health impacts. (Dobson, 1974) Organically bound tritium (tritium bound in animal or plant tissue) can stay in the body for 10 years or more.
It's often said "of all the elements in nuclear waste tritium is one of the more harmless ones" and while it's more benign than most other radioactive effluents it's toxicity should not be under-estimated.
Tritium can cause mutations, tumors and cell death. (Rytomaa) Tritiated water is associated with significantly decreased weight of brain and genital tract organs in mice (Torok) and can cause irreversible loss of female germ cells in both mice and monkeys even at low concentrations. (Dobson, 1979) (Laskey) Tritium from tritiated water can become incorporated into DNA, the molecular basis of heredity for living organisms. DNA is especially sensitive to radiation. (Hori) A cell's exposure to tritium bound in DNA can be even more toxic than its exposure to tritium in water. (Straume)(Carr)
First, as an isotope of hydrogen (the cell's most ubiquitous element), tritium can be incorporated into essentially all portions of the living machinery; and it is not innocuous -- deaths have occurred in industry from occupational overexposure. R. Lowry Dobson, MD, PhD. (1979)
References;
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I care that a nuclear reactor just a few miles from my home can't go two weeks without ending up in the news over some screwup. They don't know where the pipes are, or what they do; they don't keep up on maintenence, they choose not to fund their decomissioning fund; they can't cool the water they dump in the Connecticut River; they can't always remember where they put spent fuel rods ...
And they want to up the rates.
Like to brew? Want to talk about it? Brattlebrew: groups.yahoo.com/group/brattlebrew
From my understanding the criteria for shutting down a Nuclear Power plant is assessed on mainly two parameters.
A "Licencee Event Report" (LER) is submitted for issues above a safety significance threshold. For example at Davis-Besse, the frequency of the replacement water filters was out of spec. It should have signaled that something is going wrong in the reactor. This is the type of event that should be signaled as a LER even if it seems insignificant.
The second stage is an "Accident Sequence Precursor" (ASP) which defines events that characterise the lead up to an accident at a Nuclear Plant. Sticking with the Davis Besse example which (from memory) was caused by a fine jet of borated water spraying onto the the *inside* of the reactor head. Water rusts steel, reactor head is steel, rust goes in water, water goes through filter, filter catches rust, management says it's ok, reactor head gets hole [if allowed to continue - reactor core breach and potential for explosion] - 'Accident Sequence Precursor'.
By examining the trends for LER's and ASP statistically for all nuclear plants the NRC can get an overview of the operational state of all the plants *if* the operators of the plant co-operate and share their operational data (which I also believe to be a legal obligation of the Licensee) with the NRC. At issue is the characterisation of what sort of events should lead to a LER.
At the Davis Besse plant I believe that it led to criminal charges as management allowed the plant to operate outside of it's "Basis Design" which is a known operational characteristic of the plant. Filter replacement intervals had been defined and were known about and thus should have characterised the plant as "not operating safely". I'm not sure if the criminal charges were placed because management should have reported several LERs instead of inspectors finding a hole in the reactor head when it was shutdown.
"Basis Design Issues" (BDI) are also revealed whilst the reactors are operating - they are not all known when the reactor becomes operational due to the complexity of the machine. Industry wide knowledge of LERs contribute to knowing what BDIs lead to ASPs (and a sentence full of acronyms). Further information can be found in the NRC document NUREG 1275 - Volume 14 "Causes and Significance of Design Basis Issues at U.S Nuclear Power Plants"
As often observed in plane crashes it's a combination of insignificant issues that lead to a problem. The question at hand is whether the leak is indicative of a larger problem for example; lets say our leak has led to filling a concrete void under the reactor core with water. Together the two events are insignificant, however when combined with a third event like a SCRAM of the reactor that suddenly heats that water in the concrete void you have the potential for a serious explosion.
I'm not saying thats whats happening, just that the water leak my be an indicator (a LER) of a larger issue which is used as part of the determination if the plant should be shut down. A leak of triated water into the environment is a serious concern. What is yet to be revealed is if the leak reveals a Basis Design Issue that is serious enough to be a part of an Accident Sequence Precursor.
No matter what the outcome the continued operation of the reactor will probably be determined on *if* they can find the leak. Anything that affects the cooling capacity of a Nuclear Reactor is not a situation that can be allowed to persist.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
A December 31st 2009 Time Magazine article, chronicled the movement in Vermont to seceed from the United States because of the endless wars, invasions of liberty, war crimes around the world, and fiscal irresponsiblity.
A couple of months later: Vermont has deadly levels of radioactive waste in it's water.
Hmmmmm.
We know this because the EPA has told us that, while there is no safe level of environmental tobacco smoke, safe levels have been established for radiation exposure. Since I'm not dead, I'd say there's nothing to worry about.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
... I do not have a car!
Most people do not think they are going to kill anyone when they do drive a car but these people accept that they will kill people and work out what is acceptable risk.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
is not the tritium leak you are looking for. Move along... [jedi wave]