Tritium is already present in the ocean naturally and we are not talking about Nuclear Waste, as the title suggests, but clean water. We also cannot compare the tritium with mercury, because tritium, even if released in the ocean, decays away. Mecury, on the other hand, stays forever. The concerns that the water will affect marine life might be well intended but will cause more harm than good. In the worst possible case, this water will do less harm than what the other industries are releasing routinely, including water treatment plants. If you want to put your energy into preventing dirt from getting into the ocean, look literally anywhere else.
People are dying every day due to fossil fuel caused pollution, because we are irrationaly overestimating the dangers of nuclear power which are and have always been the safest and cleanest way to produce electricity. These deaths are SOLELY a consequence of fear-based decision making. I cannot envision a bright future if we don’t start evaluating the consequences of different scenarios with a scientific approach and stop taking decisions based on feelings.<p>Edit: spelling of tritium
Tritium is regularly discharged from multiple countries.
<a href="https://www.meti.go.jp/english/earthquake/nuclear/decommissioning/pdf/202104_bp_breifing.pdf#page=29" rel="nofollow">https://www.meti.go.jp/english/earthquake/nuclear/decommissi...</a><p>The entire pdf is a worthy read.
Better article here from the experts at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists<p><a href="https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/whats-wrong-with-japans-anticipated-release-of-fukushimas-wastewater/" rel="nofollow">https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/whats-wrong-with-japans-anti...</a><p>The issue is not so much tritium, but rather that claims of removal of some 60+ other radionuclides (products of fission of uranium) to below regulatory standards remain questionable.<p>> "TEPCO and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry have acknowledged that more than 70 percent of the treated water at Fukushima contains 62 other nuclides that are higher than regulatory standards. Therefore, treated water may pose significant risks to the environment and public health and could damage Fukushima’s fishing and agricultural industry. The environmental, social, and economic impacts of releasing the treated water to the sea must be more carefully assessed."
The quantity of Tritium in the water of concern is 760 TBq. This is not a huge amount; if the accident had not occurred the plant would have discharged more than that amount into the ocean over the years since during its normal operation.
The Japanese have lots of credits on environmental issues: it's one of the cleanest country I've ever seen, so I'm willing to trust them if they say the waste water dumping plan is safe.
Before anyone responds or makes a judgement, they should give a single minute of their lives to reading about tritium, the isotope ONE of the scientist is concerned about. Wikipedia[0] will do the trick if you have no other options.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Health_risks" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Health_risks</a>
My key takeaways:<p>1. Scientists: Japan’s Plan To Dump Nuclear Waste Into The Pacific Ocean May Not Be Safe<p>2. A panel of scientists has identified critical gaps in the data supporting the safe discharge of wastewater into the Pacific<p>3. Independent scientists are questioning Japan’s plans to dump just over 1 million tons of nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, following a review of the available evidence<p>4. Last year Japan announced that wastewater from the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, destroyed in March 2011 following the Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami, would be dropped into the Pacific in 2023<p>5. “So these are all the things we need to consider.” Confusing The Masses The Pacific Islands Forum convened its panel of experts – specializing in policy and different scientific disciplines – because of the highly technical nature of Japan’s plan<p>6. But panel scientist Robert Richmond, director of the University of Hawaii Kewalo Marine Laboratory, says the panel unanimously believes that critical gaps in information remain<p>7. Through phytoplankton, Richmond says, the radioactive element could then find its way into the greater food system as the microscopic plants are consumed by mollusks and small fish, which are later consumed by other fish and eventually humans<p>8. The IAEA is expected to deliver reports from its site visits in the next two months, according to its website, and would release a fully comprehensive report before any water is released
What a disingenuous argument. Of course nobody can prove that this wouldn’t make the endangered Samoan saltwater frogs gay or something. But is this really a possibility that we need to be taking seriously?
From the article<p>> Japan’s plans to dump just over 1 million tons of nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean<p>But it omits to say that this is actually extraordinarily diluted: we're talking about around <i>20 grams</i> of pure tritiated water.
Two things I am concerned about:<p>The radioactive core is moving and will eventually be in contact with the water. It may already be. Does anyone know?[1]<p>If a dump of water used for cooling is a concern (and it is for me personally and I am open to learning it is not), is our situation not far more grave given eventual contact with the water and this source multiplied by however many world water cycles of contact will occur over the crazy long half life that hot core has?<p>[1] I saw some discussion on this early on and struggle to find it and or current info I trust today. Hoping others here know more.
Pretty much everything in the media I've seen about radioactive waste does not square when carefully analyzed. It receives an outsize proportion of criticism and FUD. My guess is that years of atomic bomb images and a few plant failures convinced people that nuclear is unsafe, when many of the perceived risks are minimal. I'm still concerned about long-term storage of waste, but not concerned people who can't judge risk accurately.
I am absolutely pro nuclear.
But I think that for every single invested or earned dollar from a nuclear facility a fraction must be reserved for storage, break down, clean ing etc. There should be an world wide independent institute setting these rules up. And all countries should follow them otherwise harse sanctions will follow.
Making mistakes with nuclear is unforgivable.
It's far safer than keeping it on dry land or burying it.<p>Just look up the amount of water in the Pacific and then divide into the amount of waste water being discussed - the ratio is insanely tiny and nearly unmeasurable. The biological effects are far smaller because of this ratio than if you kept it concentrated on land.
There’s a NHK documentary on the same topic<p>NHK WORLD PRIME
Fukushima: The Curse of Groundwater
<a href="https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/3016120/" rel="nofollow">https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/3016120/</a>
Oh ffs... The water has been filtered and metals removed if I'm reading correctly. It contains a higher amount of tritium.<p>Side note, seems like this could be sold to some research labs, no? Seems like if you need tritium using this rather than ocean water would be a good thing.
Haha, after the disaster my tongue-in-cheek solution to the mess was just use a small tactical nuke to blow the whole mess into the ocean. Someone said that would put waste into the atmosphere :-(<p>But hey, they can just drain the water into the ocean right?!?!
Tritium has a half life of about 12 years. Even if it bioconcentrated in some way, it is going to have a short time to have its effect then it will be gone.
The anti-nuclear movement should be regarded as we regard the anti-vax movement.<p>They both seem to have a standard of zero risk without comparison to the alternatives. (Yes, there are adverse events with vaccines, and even with the risk of those adverse events, they do far more good than harm).<p>There is overwhelming evidence for safety, but they keep bringing up theoretical risks and point to events in the past (see issues with rotavirus vaccine) to spread FUD. Thins ends up hurting everyone.