Japan releases treated nuclear waste water into ocean..

[returntosender]

Japan releases treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, as activists make last-ditch call for UN intervention

Japan has begun to discharge treated nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima power plant more than a decade after the disaster. Experts say the process is safe, but Pacific activists want the UN to intervene.

www.abc.net.au

Scary, how can this be?

 

[FireDragon76]

What does "treated nuclear wastewater" even mean?

 

[Paulos23]

What does "treated nuclear wastewater" even mean?

It means most of the radioactive material has been removed. It is more pure than the local drinking water.

Then it will be put into the ocean which will dilute it further.

I think the risk is low for this.

ETA link for this: https://www.npr.org/2023/08/24/1195419846/fukushima-radioactive-water-japan

 

[essentialsaltes]

What does "treated nuclear wastewater" even mean?

It's really quite fascinating. The water has been treated to remove radioactive isotopes, but the one thing you can't remove is water itself. Hydrogen has a radioactive isotope tritium, so the treated nuclear wastewater contains some 'tritiated' water molecules. The plan includes diluting this radioactive water until it is meets common international standards for drinking water - IIRC they're diluting it to something like 15% of the maximum allowable amount of tritiated water content. So the water would be safe to drink as drinking water. It is a release of radiation into the ocean, but they have chosen an extremely safe level of dilution.

 

[FireDragon76]

It's really quite fascinating. The water has been treated to remove radioactive isotopes, but the one thing you can't remove is water itself. Hydrogen has a radioactive isotope tritium, so the treated nuclear wastewater contains some 'tritiated' water molecules. The plan includes diluting this radioactive water until it is meets common international standards for drinking water - IIRC they're diluting it to something like 15% of the maximum allowable amount of tritiated water content. So the water would be safe to drink as drinking water. It is a release of radiation into the ocean, but they have chosen an extremely safe level of dilution.

So it's basically heavy water?

I don't think it's a significant issue. After a few decades, tritium will decay to nothing.

 

[FireDragon76]

I have been following the cleanup efforts around Fukushima. The Japanese are doing amazing stuff there to try to reclaim the area and neutralize radioactivity, though it's not cheap to do so. But I wasn't familiar with the wastewater treatment.

 

[essentialsaltes]

So it's basically heavy water?

Very close. Heavy water is specifically deuterated water. Deuterium is a stable form of hydrogen, so heavy water is not radioactive. So tritiated water is 'superheavy' (and radioactive) water. Tritium has a half-life of about 12 years I think, so it will continue to dissipate in decades of time, much faster than many other nuclear wastes.

 

[durangodawood]

I have been following the cleanup efforts around Fukushima. The Japanese are doing amazing stuff there to try to reclaim the area and neutralize radioactivity, though it's not cheap to do so. But I wasn't familiar with the wastewater treatment.

One of my impressions of Japan is they go all out for infrastructure. You might be way out in the mountains somewhere, turn a corner and theres some colossal concrete retaining structure holding up your little road against the forces of water and gravity. And there's tunnels everywhere, even on tiny little roads - but that's understandable given how wrinkly the topography is.

Otoh, theres lots of little mountain roads theyve basically given up on.

 

[Pommer]

I’ve been following this story for years following the 3/11 aftermath, (date of the huge earthquake that set these events in motion).
They went from the disaster, to the exclusion-zone(s), to dealing with this wastewater at one point using refrigeration to create an area of “frozen walls” to contain the tritium-laden-water to thinking about (and now) releasing the water into the ocean.

I am too reminded that the eventually fusion reactors will be using tritium as a fuel, maybe they could be trying to find out how to extract this from the rest of the water so that there’ll be a ready supply when fusion comes “on line”?

 

[returntosender]

Then why not drain it on to the ground? Do we know how fish life will be affected?

 

[RileyG]

This is terrifying.