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Leak Found In Fukushima Tank Holding Radioactive Water
The fallout from tsunami damage at Japan's Fukushima plant isn't over yet. New submitter OldJuke writes "Tokyo Electric power Co. said about 120 tons of the water are believed to have breached [a water storage tank's] inner linings, some of it possibly leaking into the soil. TEPCO is moving the water to a nearby tank at the Fukushima Dai-chi plant — a process that could take several days ...More than 270,000 tons of highly radioactive water is already stored in hundreds of gigantic tanks and another underground tank. They are visible even at the plant's entrance and built around the compound, taking up more than 80 percent of its storage capacity. TEPCO expects the amount to double over three years and plans to build hundreds of more tanks by mid-2015 to meet the demand."
It sounds nice but what tends to happen is it settle to floor, get picked up by pants and tiny creatures concentrating it again, the eaten by fewer bigger creatures concentrating it more, and finally poisioning us we we go to eat fish.
Yes if you had some way to spread it over a very very large area of sea it would be fine probably, but you'd likely need to move it out to deep water with container ships, and then you'd have to do something with the contaminated ships. I suppose you might just scuttle them. Anyway just dump it in the ocean sounds simple but doing right ( if there is a right way ) is risky and expensive.
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Obligatory XKCD
This did not happen. Nothing to see here.
There are no problems with nuclear power. It is good and glorious.
No one will ever be harmed by nuclear power. You can trust it. It is good.
Sincerely, the Slashdot nuclear re-education committee
Hanford Washington USA
April 02, 2013
"A nuclear safety board has warned a key U.S. senator that underground tanks holding radioactive
waste at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site pose a possible risk of explosion."
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/04/nuclear_safety_board_warns_of.html
I as everybody else in this area are "down winders". A tank blows we will certainly know about it.
These tanks have some of the most radioactive materials "contained"; the left overs of
30 some years of Plutonium production.
A lot of work has been done to the tanks to stop the leaks that have "flowed" for many years.
The leaks are now... well one can't say as everyday it's different; tomorrow they may well be gone.
I'm sure if they could, they would have by now so not sweating it myself.
Such is our bane for helping stop the japs.
The spent fuel pools at Fukushima are not in any sense "normal."
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The water itself is radioactive.
No it's not; this isn't tritium (T2O) being discussed, but normal water contaminated with Sr90. ALPS is supposed to separate the Sr. The remaining water has a modestly low level of tritium. Releasing tritium is no big deal; it may slightly harm seafood or maybe even kill it, but it will dilute quickly and is of no harm to humans who eat seafood. Sr90 on the other hand is a metal and while it's easily broken up into dust and carried around by currents it's heavier than water so collects in hot spots on the sea floor.
And so what? Before we can evaluate how bad this is, we need to know how bad the radioactivity is. Are we talking "enough to kill everybody" or "enough to detect"? Given that this is water that has already been cleaned, I suspect the latter. The only radionuclide they couldn't get out is tritium, and that at a relatively low concentration. Until there are actual numbers, I won't get excited.
And when you read "highly contaminated water", remember that bananas are too radioactive to meet Japanese food regulations. A little radioactivity goes a long way, as does a little hysteria.
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The tanks in Washington State (Hanford, to be precise) are cold-war era relics filled with corrosive slime. The Fukushima tanks are overflowing with treated water. And yes, the problem is that distillation won't work, since the main problem is tritium, actually in the water itself.
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Water can not be radioactive. It's actually an incredibly good radiation insulator and that's exactly why they use it. The problem is the radioactive particulates in it. Fish eat, absorb those and then still, the fish is not radioactive, the problem is that when you eat the fish these materials get into your body. Funny enough, the radiations usually not going to cause you any health problems, the material itself is almost always heavy metals however. And those are very bad for you indeed.
That only applies if you're talking about tritiated water (water containing tritium rather than hydrogen). If it's water contaminated with radioactive materials (like Strontium-90 in this case) distilling will remove the contaminant like it would anything else.
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You're talking about Hanford. Approximately one third of Hanford's waste storage tanks are known to have been or be leaking into the groundwater, having contaminated approximately 270 billion gallons or one billion cubic meters of aquifers. This contaminated groundwater is expected to reach the Columbia river in 7 to 45 years, and start contaminating everything along the river from Eastern Washington to Portland and the Pacific ocean shortly thereafter. The loss of real estate values along that river is a very real concern. Waterfront property is normally very valuable. Waterfront property on a radioactive river, less so.
Currently there is no practical plan to deal with this situation nor adequate budget to even stop it from getting worse. It is likely impossible to prevent this radioactive waste from reaching the Pacific. The Columbia river is quite a considerable river, 4th largest in the US by volume and the largest draining into the Pacific. Though Hanford is the most highly contaminated nuclear site in the US - containing approximately 2/3rds of all US high-level waste, it still retains an operating nuclear power generating station to this day. It uses a newer version of the type of reactor used at Fukushima, a General Electric Type 5 Boiling Water Reactor.
Over $30 billions (pdf) have been spent cleaning up Hanford already. 20 years into the initial 30 year plan only minor progress has been made. The vitrification plant, for example, is not expected to complete vitrification operations for another 34 years from now - and that may be optimistic, meaning we are further from the end now than when the work was begun. The estimate for the cost of the remaining cleanup is $112 billion and is, given the nature of such things, likely to be at least three times even that.
Although the so-far estimated cost of $145 billion is very high it is important to remember than Hanford was a critical part of the Manhattan Project, essential for developing the technology and materials that made the US the first nuclear weapon capable global power at a critical cusp of international relations. The cost of not doing that might have been much higher than cleaning up or living with this mess will be.
Cleaning up Fukushima will cost far more than cleaning up Hanford. Cleaning up Chernobyl will also be more costly, to the extent cleanup is possible at all. If you add up the cleanup costs of all three and the off-book costs of getting rid of the current stock of spent nuclear fuels you could probably outfit the entire world with alternative electrical energy solutions like geothermal, wind and solar for less. On this scale a manned Mars colony would be a trivial side project. Of more concern might be that cleaning up these messes entirely is quite simply not possible, even given the full weight of the national economies involved. It cannot be done. We have developed the power to create problems we cannot cure no matter how hard we try.
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Water can not be radioactive. It's actually an incredibly good radiation insulator and that's exactly why they use it. The problem is the radioactive particulates in it.
Depending on particle size, Reverse Osmosis, Activated Charcoal, and Ion exchange are all somewhat successful, and using all three together does a very good job of removing even very small particles. Distillation also works well.
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The water itself is not radioactive. Particles in the water are. Therefore, distillation is one of the methods that will work.
Other methods include RO, Ion Exchange, Activated Carbon filtration. But Water itself is not radio active.
Further, there are already methods of removal, (this is done every day all around the world), and its not particularly a difficult problem, other than the fact that the Fukushima site has an awful lot of water to deal with.
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This is completely off-topic and I expect it to be moderated that way and that's OK.
The costs of combating the ideas of Fascism, Global communism (or what was presented as such), Japanese imperialism, militarized Islam and other such notions offensive to personal liberty so *far* outweigh the costs in lives and treasure of these accidental excursions into nuclear physics as to be on an entirely different scale. It seems the pen is still mightier than the sword even when the sword is a MIRV.
What strange fools these mortals be.
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Why, whenever anyone says anything the slightest bit negative about nuclear power here on Slashdot, does someone come and start whining about coal?
Coal is traditional and cheap. Coal-fired plants have the least startup cost and the quickest time to operation. Nuclear proponents need to sell their advantages over coal. They have a point - to a point - but like all admen they are blinded by the money.
If the entire US converted to nuclear power electricity generation (beyond the huge share we get from hydroelectric) that would not slow down US coal mining, natural gas or oil production a whit. The coal would be shipped overland by trains, the gas and oil through pipelines to ports where they would be shipped overseas to be used to power developing economies and contribute even more to greenhouse gas production in places where emission standards are more lax. The net result would be even more growth of greenhouse gas emissions than present. The carcinogens would still come into the air - even more so than they are now. We would still breathe the air contaminated by these plants. Our coal miners would still die in scary numbers. But the source of these problems would be overseas, and beyond the reach of domestic policy. It's a NIMBY thing.
If US nuclear power advances to the point where it can drive more efficient extraction of fossil fuels it will be used to do so, stripping the land of them even more quickly than at present - because these resources have value and the companies that do this have obligations to their shareholders.
Think about bunker fuel. This is the sulfur-rich tar left over from converting oil to gasoline so viscous it must be heated before it is used. Instead of being used in US power plants it powers the ships that move stuff over the oceans just outside the reach of US regulation. Just because US regulations don't allow it to be burned here doesn't mean that it doesn't get burned, and the waste gasses waft over our shores. It has energy in it. Do you think anybody is just going to throw that away? By exporting the problem beyond our international boundaries we can absolve ourselves of guilt for it without actually contributing to a solution to the problem.
There is no fission solution to this problem. You're not going to get fission-powered superfreighters any time soon, and if you did they would be used to carry our local fossil fuels more efficiently to places they could be burned less and less optimally.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2265732/Mike-Murasoi-fish-contaminated-radiation-Fukushima-nuclear-disaster-2-500-times-legal-limit.html
It's painfully obvious that this is caused by ongoing leakage of radioactive water from the plant. In contrast, there has be a reduction in radiatons levels on land http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201303120107. It's unlikely that biological concentration in the food chain is the primary cause after two years of radiation decay and sea water dilution.
If you don't trust the Japanese government, this would explain why they are prohibiting non-government organizations from sampling the ocean near the plant location. They say it's still too dangerous.
The motivation for a coverup is that ongoing radioactive ocean contamination would be a huge international incident. China, Korea, Taiwan, Viet Nam, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines would all protest. There would be reputational repercussions, diplomatic turmoil and possibly economic sanctions. There is still a lot of hostility in the region from WW2, and this would be just the issue to reopen those wounds. Not to mention current rivalry over ocean areas that have China, Tiawan and Japan sending naval vessels to tiny islands with disputed ownership.
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The issue is that were treating stuff as ubber scary that's far less dangerous that what goes up coal plants smoke stacks. Things less radioactive than coal get treated as major problems that we have to contain forever we might as well just throw the stuff into the furnace.
Spent fuel rods are the major highly radioactive bit and those should be reprocessed to make more fuel rods. We don't because that reprocessing is also a good way to get weapon grade bits. Pretty much anything that's radioactive enough to need to be contained over huge periods is radioactive enough to run a reactor. Other bits are non issues.
No sir I dont like it.
It's happened before.
I share your enthusiasm for the topic and your point of view. The whole coining words like "Fuckupshima" thing is antihelpful. Could you not do that? Please?
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OK fine. I wasn't looking to censor you - only to encourage you to execute your advocacy in a more effective manner. If this is the way you enjoy doing your bit and effectiveness is irrelevant to your joy then knock yourself out.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Whenever I see a new article on the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster,
I am reminded of the ADVANTAGES (better cost, safety, waste, political
implications, etc.) of Liquid Fluoride THORIUM Reactors (a.k.a. LFTR's,
already being developed around the world (in various phases of R&D, eg,
in China, India, Taiwan, & [privately] USA).
More people need to know about the opportunities of this -safer- green-
energy source, so they can decide for themselves whether it's time to
-push- for regulatory changes, that will -ease- the transition to Thorium,
in our time.
Introduction: Kirk Sorensen's recent TED-talk
More details: (search YouTube.com for
"Thorium remix"
and take your pick)
90Sr in Fallout
Strontium-90 is not quite as likely as caesium-137 to be released as a part of a nuclear reactor accident because it is much less volatile, but is probably the most dangerous component of the radioactive fallout from a nuclear weapon.[1]
Sounds pretty fucking dangerous to me, and if you're saying heavy metals are not poisonous then again you are full of it, Or are you you going to tell me that nothing lives on the sea floor and it won't get passed up the food chain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90#Dispersal_hazards
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You are wasting your time I'm afraid. There are just too many people out there who cant imagine how anyone could come to a different perspective on controversial issues and how abuse of rhetoric can be polarising. If you can please take comfort in the fact that while I disagree with your point of view I can understand how someone with different facts, experiences and values could come to a different conclusion about nuclear power to the one I have. I appreciate your efforts to keep the discourse civil.
Whenever I see a new article on the aftermath of a 40 year old plant disaster, I am reminded of the ADVANTAGES of pretty much every modern reactor design.
This is much the same as when I look at cars which didn't have seatbelts, crumple zones. Imagine if we outright banned them rather than investing serious research into making it safe. LFTR is one solution. I like the idea of the design and using thorium for fuel in general, but it is far from the only safe solution. There are several passively safe reactor designs out there from the Westinghouse AP1000 (which is basically old school with passive safety systems added) to molten sold reactors which basically are like your LFTR expect without the thorium.
Thorium is just a fuel. Sure it's a safer one, but the principles of passive and inherent safety can be designed onto many other systems too, and a modern reactor doesn't generate anywhere near the waste of their ancient brethren.
The problem is that all the research reactors have had major issues and are still tens of billions of dollars away from being commercially viable. Even then people will want to see one running for at least a decade before investing heavily in new thorium plants because they will worry about unforeseen costs. In the mean time everyone will just take the safe bet and build the same old stuff they have been building for decades.
Things do not move quickly in the nuclear industry, especially when huge amounts of risk are involved. Remember that they will have to convince the government to subsidize and insure the plant as well, adding years to the process.
In the mean time renewables will rocket ahead, and now we have the somewhat risky (from an investment point of view, not safety) but still orders of magnitude better than nuclear shale gas. Even coal is cleaning up, unfortunately. Honestly, I think we will see commercial fusion before we see widescale deployment of thorium reactors.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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The waste lasts for tens to HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of years.
A pretty standard "nuclear is scary" misleading and incorrect piece of truthiness. Most of the activity is gone after just a century. Its still not all that good for you in the same way lead is not good for you. But its not in the same league it was at the start.
Guess how long you have to wait for DDT or asbestos to become safe? Its over a few HUNDREDS of TRILLIONS of years. Along with many other very toxic and very poisons chemicals that we do in fact spill and contaminate local areas with all too frequently.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
I care about ocean ecology to the point that it continues to be feed me and billions of others. Use it but don't abuse it. Natural resources are there for us; our use is there purpose. That means we do have to be careful with them, we do have moderate our use of them, but saying we should not use them is wrong.
Conservation is important, I think of the planet as humanities bank account. We get regular deposits in the form of sun light. We also get interest from the operation of the ecosystem, we have to be vigilant though not to exceed the income and interest, because if we burn to much of the principle we won't have anymore interest in the future. We are failing at this today.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
And the headline is self-contradictory. If there's a leak, then the container obiously doesn't hold.
Er, any normal reader knew damn well what it meant- it wasn't intended to mislead, and it didn't. You do realise that blatant pedantry is generally counter-productive towards one's case, since it looks like you have to resort to that rather than arguing the real issue.
:-P
That said, if we're playing that game, I'll point out that unless the tank emptied completely, then it's still holding *some* radioactive water... and it still has a leak. Ergo, it *is* a "tank holding radioactive water".
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When you talk about shutting down something, you have to replace it with something. So any discussion is always about the options. Just like pointing out Clinton was a good president, and hundreds come out to complain about Obama or how good Bush was or anything other than the original question.
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