Fukushima nuclear reactor radiation at highest level since 2011 meltdown

AUDub

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Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
300 tons of waste water are still dumping into the Pacific as well. What is that doing to the Ocean and marine life?

Revelations 8: 8-10

…8Then the second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned to blood, 9a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. 10Then the third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star burning like a torch fell from heaven and landed on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.…
Very little. The ocean is pretty good at diluting this stuff. In fact, one solution that would actually work very well would be to dump the whole thing into the center of the pacific. Trouble is, reactors are enormous.

Compared to our own nuclear testing, the amount of radiation added to the environment would be paltry.
 

Displaced Bama Fan

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Very little. The ocean is pretty good at diluting this stuff. In fact, one solution that would actually work very well would be to dump the whole thing into the center of the pacific. Trouble is, reactors are enormous.

Compared to our own nuclear testing, the amount of radiation added to the environment would be paltry.
I'm glad you are so optimistic.
 

crimsonaudio

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Compared to our own nuclear testing, the amount of radiation added to the environment would be paltry.
People are living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (where radiation levels are the same is just about anywhere on earth) yet Chernobyl won't be safe for humans for an estimated 20,000 years...
 

AUDub

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People are living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (where radiation levels are the same is just about anywhere on earth) yet Chernobyl won't be safe for humans for an estimated 20,000 years...
That's because it's concentrated in an area where it can not disperse readily. For a comparison, all of the radiation released from nuclear weapons amounts to around 2,566 PBq. From Fukushima 15-30 PBq. From Chernobyl 12 PBq. Also, for comparison, the seas already contain 14,000 PBq of naturally occurring radioactive potassium 40.
 
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crimsonaudio

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That's because it's concentrated in an area where it can not disperse readily. For a comparison, all of the radiation released from nuclear weapons amounts to around 2,566 PBq. From Fukushima 15-30 PBq. From Chernobyl 12 PBq. Also, for comparison, the seas already contain 14,000 PBq of naturally occurring radioactive potassium 40.
I'd guess the threat is due to the sheer amount of fuel we're talking about (reactor vs bomb).
 

AUDub

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I'd guess the threat is due to the sheer amount of fuel we're talking about (reactor vs bomb).
It's because of the way it's contained.

In a meltdown, the reactor containment vessel is designed to keep all of the radioactive material within its structure. Fukushima did a pretty good job of this. Chernobyl didn't have a proper containment vessel and launched a lot of fallout into the air via a steam explosion and the fire, but most of the radioactive material is still in the plant.

A nuclear weapon doesn't localize its fallout at all, and it's free to disperse pretty much everywhere. We have set a ton of the things off. If all of the fallout from the bomb was still in the Nagasaki or Hiroshima locales, there are areas that would be uninhabitable.

Trust me when I say that if loading the entire reactor vessel onto a barge, hauling it out to the Mariana Trench and sinking the whole thing were an option, it would be our best possible course of action.
 
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TideEngineer08

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Just to give y'all and idea of how dangerous it is in there, twenty-three seconds is enough to hit the LD50/60. That's half of those exposed dead within sixty days. You'll feel queasy pretty quickly and will vomit and have uncontrollable diarrhea assuming you get out at that time. Even if you make it to those 60 days, you're still very likely to die within half a year.

You'll vomit uncontrollably within about thirty seconds. You may survive a week or two after that, assuming you get out immediately, and may even feel OK for a few days, but you will die a very painful death somewhere in that span.

One minute of exposure amounts to about nine-hundred Rems. That would kill you within the hour. You'll be unconscious in about that span. Left there a few minutes, you will die (mercifully) quickly.
So what you're saying is if you happen to be exposed like this, it's best to just hang out for a while and die quickly.
 

AUDub

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BTW, thanks for sharing your knowledge here. I only know a little bit about nuclear reactors / weapons.
Thank you. In my field, we do often work with with radiation and radioactive material. Teaches you to have a healthy respect for the hazard it presents.

The knowledge is also very helpful for avoiding irrational fear, and there's a lot of that surrounding Fukushima. The psychological effect is much more harmful than any radiation from the plant.
 

AUDub

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As they say, the solution to pollution is dilution.

 

mdb-tpet

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As they say, the solution to pollution is dilution.

I see a smart negotiating tactic here if Japan were to aim this water in a particular direction.
 

NationalTitles18

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The government has been working on a complex filtration system that removes most of the radioactive isotopes from the water. Known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System (or ALPS, for short), it can remove several different radioactive contaminants from the water.

The authorities have used ALPS and other systems to remove some of the most hazardous isotopes, like cesium-137 and strontium-90.


But there's a radioactive isotope that they cannot filter out: tritium. Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen, and hydrogen is part of the water itself (H20). So it is impossible to create a filter that could remove the tritium.

There are a couple of parts to the plan. First, they are going to dilute the water with seawater, so that there's a lot less tritium in every drop. The government says they will bring tritium levels well below all safety limits, and below the level released by some operating nuclear plants. Second, they're taking that diluted water and passing it through a tunnel under the seafloor to a point off the coast of Fukushima in the Pacific Ocean. That will dilute it further...


The Japanese government maintains that, especially when compared to some of the other radioactive material at the site, tritium isn't all that bad. Its radioactive decay is relatively weak, and because it's part of water, it actually moves through biological organisms rather quickly. And its half-life is 12 years, so unlike elements such as uranium-235, which has a half-life of 700 million years, it won't be in the environment all that long.

Given all that, the government believes that this is the safest option available.
 
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TIDE-HSV

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As they say, the solution to pollution is dilution.

There's a major problem to that, as a scientist on NPR pointed out this AM on NPR. They are measuring and "scrubbing" only tritium and they've only inspected 40% of the contents. His concern was that, unlike the tritium, as the release goes over 30 years, heavier isotopes like plutonium, cesium, cobalt and others will accumulate right at the outflow pipes on the seafloor and, from there, work their ways into the food chain. He'd much prefer to see it stored permanently over land or incorporated into concrete...
 

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