Fukushima Leak Traced To Overflow Tank Built On a Slope

AmiMoJo writes "The ongoing leak of radioactive wastewater at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been traced to an overflow tank that was built on a slope. Because one side of the tank is lower than the other, water slops over the side when it is nearly full. TEPCO estimates that 430 litres of wastewater seeped outside the barrier around the tank and say some of this water may have flowed into the sea, about 200 meters away. They detected 200,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances in water pooled inside the barrier around the tank. The safety limit is 30 becquerels per liter. Officials say that a miscommunication with contractors led to the blunder."

Comments

Re:You can't manage to build a level tank?

[AmiMoJo]

They knew the tank was not level, and were careful not to overfill it. The problem is that this was not communicated to the contractors who then did overfill it.

Re:Good work, PR Dept.

[khallow]

I question if gazillions of gallons of oil gushing into the ocean all at once is more or less bad than a little plutonium.

I go with more bad.

Plutonium is pretty fucking toxic.

If you breathe it in under ideal conditions. Most sea life doesn't have lungs, the plutonium would all be chemically bounded up as salts or other compounds, the whole mess would be greatly diluted, and there wasn't much in the way of plutonium anyway - they're far more worried about radioactive isotopes of cesium or strontium.

Re:Ah

[AmiMoJo]

The limit is 30 becquerels per litre for beta radiation emissions. The potassium level in your body also remains fairly constant, so you will only have an elevated level for a few hours until it passes out. The stuff in this water can sit inside you indefinitely. Becquerels are an absolute measure of radiation, where as "banana equivalent dose" is supposed to be an "equivalent dose" based on how much harm it does the body and is not in any way directly comparable.

Obviously the people who set these limits are not morons, they understand that it is perfectly safe to eat a banana or two. In any case, the level in this water is 200,000 becquerels per litre.

I only wish I had the skill to draw an ASCII facepalm.