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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.
Oh, wait...
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Actually, the latest reading was 2.7 million picocuries: http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/87126/
Bradley Holt
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
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
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
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.
You said yourself that most of the currently operating plants in the US are ancient (by nuclear power standards). Newer tech and newer plants would be many times safer and less likely to leak. Replacing the old plants with new ones, or simply building new ones nearby and shutting the old ones down as soon as possible would be a good choice, but many people point to the old plants as examples (as you're doing) without regard for the fact that a new, re-engineered plant wouldn't have any of the problems the 30-year-old ones are having. And in 30 years, I'm sure we'll have the capacity to build even more and better plants, or improve the ones we have so that they will last. The problem is getting past the folks who think that an old standard is the only standard.
...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.
They are finding water near the condensate storage tanks. This is water that is supposed to be used for emergency cooling, replenishing reactor feedwater, and overflow for a couple systems. It is potentially contaminated. It draws its water from the potable water system (typically in most plants), which means that the water going in is supposed to be clean. They need to check if they have a leak in there causing potentially contaminated water to go into the site's potable water system. I'm sure that was already done, at my plant it would have been done already at least. Anyways, condensate storage tanks arent always located inside the plant. It is very likely thats where the leak is. I'm not completely sure why they are getting tritium of all things as in a BWR plant tritium usually isnt your biggest worry. Nuclear plants have a corrective action process that a plant uses to fix problems. Anyone at the plant can put something in the process, it is federally mandated, and its one of those things that an employee cannot lose his job over. The system is very effective and allows the plants to 'self-police'. Finding and fixing a problem like this when the tritium leak was low would have been a low priority fix because the tritium levels were under limits previously. One of the actions they took was likely to install the new wells to find if the leaks were worse near potentially contaminated systems, which they did and found out it was worse. Now they are likely elevating the issue internally, which is why it was reported again to the NRC. So far, the plant sounds like they legally/procedureally done everything right. They made a huge boo-boo by having a PR guy tell people they have no underground piping that could carry contaminated water, it makes me think that guy never took or paid attention during the BWR systems class. The plant cannot be expected to prevent all accidents, but they are expected to mitigate accidents and issues to a minimal risk of safety to the public and to monitor and fix equipment which has repeat failures (things they know are breaking). Long story short, They are going to get investigated, and if this problem has been here longer than they say it has, they are in a bit of trouble. I Tritium isnt terrible in the water, as long as it doesnt get into drinking water. It's in low amounts that it will be diluted easily if it reaches a main water supply. It's still not good, but there are MANY worse things that could have leaked.
Actually they did act. They noticed the rates increasing. They added more wells and kept testing to locate the problem. They are self-policing and reporting using their corrective action process. Going over a limit will get them a hefty fine, but all things considered when a problem just pops up like this you dont know where its at and you have little control over it. They are doing the right things.
We hear your concerns and we are instituting a remediation program immediately! You should shortly be receiving a package via USPS bulk rate. In it you will find a shovel, a radiation detection badge, and a large zippered radiation proof bag.
Directions
Take the shovel and dig a "Safety" hole three feet wide, 4 to 6 feet deep, and about as long as you are tall.
Put on the detection badge. Please wear the detection badge at all times.
You will note the badge has the words "Hell No, We Don't Glow" printed on it.
If those words fad out OR if the badge does in fact begin to glow you should take the bag and climb into the Safety Hole.
Get in the bag and zipper it up from the inside to keep the radiation out. Now lay quietly in the bottom of the Safety Hole until help arrives.
Thanks for your cooperation.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Don't worry, nature has a way of balancing itself out and adapting to changes. You'll probably grow an extra cock, but you'll have extra fingers to hold it with.
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
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...
Exactly- It wasn't a PR guy, it was Jay Thayer, VP of operations, among others. Backtracking and in trouble: A detailed timeline on who said what on Vt. Yankees Also, instead of 0 underground pipes, there are 40. And they've found Cobalt-60 and Zinc-65 in a "trench". Nice