For the record, I don’t think this is a terribly dangerous release.
That said, it’s just one more self inflicted black eye for an industry that does not need more bad PR.
The message from experts is, overwhelmingly, that the release is safe – but not all scientists agree on the impact it will have.
Tritium can be found in water all over the world. Many scientists argue if levels of tritium are low, the impact is minimal.
But critics say more studies on how it could affect the ocean bed, marine life and humans are required.
The IAEA, which has a permanent office at Fukushima, said an “independent, on-site analysis” had shown that the tritium concentration in the water discharged was “far below the operational limit of 1,500 becquerels per litre (Bq/L)”.
That limit is six times less than the World Health Organization’s limit for drinking water, which is at 10,000 Bq/L, a measure of radioactivity.
On Friday, Tepco said seawater samples taken on Thursday afternoon showed radioactivity levels were well within safe limits, with a tritium concentration below 1,500 Bq/L.
Japan’s environment ministry said it had also collected seawater samples from 11 different locations on Friday and would release the results on Sunday.
James Smith, professor of environment and geological sciences with Portsmouth University, said that “in theory, you could drink this water”, because the waste water is already treated when it is stored and then diluted.
And physicist David Bailey, who runs a French laboratory measuring radioactivity, agreed, adding: “The key thing is how much tritium is there.
“At such levels, there is no issue with marine species, unless we see a severe decline in fish population, for instance,” he said.
But some scientists say we cannot predict the impact of releasing the water.
American professor Emily Hammond, an expert in energy and environmental law with George Washington University, said: “The challenge with radionuclides (such as tritium) is that they present a question that science cannot fully answer; that is, at very low levels of exposure, what can be counted as ‘safe’?
“One can have a lot of faith in the IAEA’s work while still recognising that compliance with standards does not mean that there are ‘zero’ environmental or human consequences attributed to the decision.”
For those who would like to think that tritium is harmless, I would encourage you to take a look at what some actual experts have to say in the latest episode of the Nuclear Hotseat podcast:
NH #636: Japan Puts World in Radioactive Hot Water: Boycotts, Protests, Fukushima’s Tritium Dangers – Fairlie, Deer-Jones, Busby
The nuclear industry is fond of treating radioactive tritium as some kind of benign radionuclide – not dangerous, nothing to get your knickers in a twist about, there there Missy… – in order to dump massive quantities of tritium-contaminated water into our oceans. This narrative could not be more wrong. To build understanding, I’ve revisited two important interviews dealing with tritium and edited together the important bits to give you some concentrated clarity.
https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/radioactive-tritium-fukushima-dangers-boycotts-protests/
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I find it difficult to imagine how tritium, diluted in a trillion trillion trillion dilutions of seawater is supposed to do harm to, or collect in any single organism when its radiation is so incredibly weak that it can not penetrate a centimeter of air or any biological membrane.
Dosage matters with poisons, and the dose here is so low as to make your claims of imminent danger to not be credible.
I don’t have an hour to spend listening to a hyperbolic discussion about tritium and that is my two minute assessment just from the opening dialogue of that session. We have standards for radiation, and the Fukushima release is easily within those standards.
For Christ’s sake there is enough truly bad shit in this world to worry about. But this ain’t one of them.
“Tritium can be found in water all over the world. Many scientists argue if levels of tritium are low, the impact is minimal.
But critics say more studies on how it could affect the ocean bed, marine life and humans are required.”
It helps to have a reference problem for comparison. What’s the scale of damage tritium might do compared to, say, 14 million tons plastic of plastic annually, or increasing acidification from atmospheric CO2 or the marine heat waves from global warming?
Is tritium more dangerous for sea life than the death of coral reefs from ocean heating? How does it compare to cumulative methylmercury in fish?
Enquiring minds want to know!
They said open-air testing was ok … then I was born with six fingers