Fukushima plant set to release radioactive material into ocean

originally posted by: Blue Shift
The ocean's probably a good place to dump it. Because it's heavy and sinks to the bottom and it's covered up fairly quickly.

Ever heard of the food chain? That starts from the ocean floor and works it's way up. Any contaminant on the sea floor eventually gets ingested by microorganisms, which are then food for zooplankton and shellfish, which feed herring, smelts, and even some of the larger fish like sockeye salmon, the herring and smelts, anchovies, etc are food for basically every ocean predator from a 5 lb coho salmon or rockfish all the way up to a barn door 500lb halibut. Particularly of worry, the larger the fish, the more of this radioactive contamination they will consume. Let's say each herring eats 10 copepods each with 1 particle of radioactive isotope in it, the herring has a concentration of 10 radioactive particles. Now let's say a silver salmon encounters a bait ball of herring. It's going to gorge itself, eating 10-20 (or more) of those herring. That salmon now has 100-200 particles of radioactive isotope within it's body. Salmon sharks prey on salmon, and they will eat a good number of silvers given the chance... so now we've got sharks with even higher concentrations of radiation and humans eat those sharks...

Nothing goes into the ocean without creating an impact that is felt far, far from the point of direct insertion.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
Ever heard of the food chain?

Ever heard of how big the ocean actually is, and how we already live in an environment that has a constant background radiation anyway? Also, we don't even interact with most of the links on that food chain. Even if it contaminates some creatures, we don't eat them all, and for the most part after that in-ocean cycle continues for a while, the radioactive particles will eventually both spread out and settle where it will do us the least harm. Other than space, of course, but that has its own brand of danger associated with it.

Nature can handle it. We can handle it.

a reply to: Blue Shift

You're being astonishingly naive. The densest concentrations of sea life reside in the intertidal zones, which is right where TEPCO is continuing to dump this poison. We interact with the portion of the food chain most impacted, the zooplankton and phytoplankton, because our food eats those creatures.

I live off of this. My family consumes hundreds of lbs of salmon, halibut, and smelt per year. We plan our entire summers around subsistance dip netting seasons and salmon runs. We smoke it, can it, freeze it, dry it, and even pickle it... YES, I will almost certainly interact with this crap. All it takes is one radioactive particle to lodge in tissue and it's a pretty much certain fight with cancer.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Point is there is nothing natural about the product being dumped into the ocean and hence introduced into our food chain at the most basic level.

Man created said radiated mess by accident, not nature, and while we are a product of such our creations cannot be considered to be so.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Just clicked on link and it said "Page not found"

Looks like big brother is trying to sweep the truth under the carpet...AGAIN

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

Ack. That was on me. Looks like the link truncates on ATS, which I didn't check. Try it now, please.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I fish off the Oregon coast.

I used to fish off the Oregon coast.

en.wikipedia.org...

"While tritium has several different experimentally determined values of its half-life, the National Institute of Standards and Technology lists 4,500 ± 8 days (12.32 ± 0.02 years).[1] It decays into helium-3 by beta decay..."

"The low energy of tritium radiation makes it difficult to detect tritium-labeled compounds except by using liquid scintillation counting."

Sounds like Tritium is fairly benign compared to some other radioactive materials they could have dumped.

Also it's 770,000 tons of water contaminated, which means it's very possible that it's not all tritium. Assuming that all of it is, the Pacific Ocean itself has thousands of times more tons of water in it. Since it's beta, you could stand next to the dumping site and get no ill effects.

Japs are idiots, send it to fking Space already.

Nuclear reactors are like climate change.
Why worry about what mankind cannot influence, or do anything about?
David Ickes eschews such fear spurring emotions. Reptiles thrive on this effect

I was contributing to a thread on thori-umm powered energy, March 10th, essentially kissing the
thread goodbye because nobody cares, recognizes the need for this and the MIC won't be able to use them for nukes. Thorium threads always go away, and a few hours later boom.

I remember seeing, and tasting, a thick fog that rolled in on a cloudless spring day
late in March, that year, over Chicago.
The radar showed no cloud cover, but you could hardly see the sun for two days.
There were threads I found from as far as NYC saying the same thing.
They reported the haze that blanketed them also rolled far out into the Atlantic.

One day in a nuclear age, they will understand our rage
We build machines that we can't control
Bury the waste in a great big hole

Pacific waste reservoir, ain't it great.


"The radiation will harmlessly dissipate, like mixing a big drink"

-author unknown+

my advice is to enjoy your drink with some
"Everybody Loves Raymond"
or maybe "Frasier", and make sure you note Kelsey's feet. David's too.

it'll all make more sense.

# 826

Right now as I type this, there are at least 3 balls of molten uranium react1ng inside a molten section of bedrock below the ocean level. All three of those have been spewing forth radiation and radioactive elements since the disaster. They will continue to do so, whether we want them to or not, until they finally burn out and become lead in a few thousand years. All of that radiation is already going into the Pacific Ocean. We can't stop it.

The water under discussion is water that was used to try and prevent the meltdown when it happened. It's far from all of the water used... I would estimate several times that much was just allowed to run off into the ocean. This is what was captured, and now what do we do with it?

We can't treat it... there is no treatment to stop radioactive fission.

We can't freeze it... it produces its own heat.

If we shoot it into space, we will have a cloud of radioactive water that gravity will slowly draw back in, but this time it will become rain across the globe. And you thought acid rain was bad!

If we leave it alone, it will eventually leak anyway (may already be leaking some, as direct radiation tends to corrode materials) back into the ocean.

So as much as I dislike the idea of adding more radiation to an already troubled area, it's just not significant compared to what is already being released continuously, and there's not much we can do about it other than slightly delay the inevitable. Fukushima is done. What is, is. TEPCO tested out the China Syndrome theory and discovered what really happens in an uncontrolled meltdown. Now we all get to live with the results of their experiment.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

I understand what you're saying and, as an engineer, I can't find logical fault in it. That said, if you cut your finger and get an infection, you care for it even more than you would if you'd never cut it and never gotten the infection. You certainly don't expose it to even minor, in comparison, bacteria because you're dealing with an already overloaded system. Fukushima is at that point. NOTHING radioactive should go in that water now.

But yeah, it's totally screwed. Those cores will be poisoning the Pacific well after our lifetimes are over.

I'm good on tuna fish and salmon and kobe beef for at least forever years

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Well, it might e more apt to say if you have an infection with dirt covering the wound, would you worry about a little dust?

The difference between a wound and the Pacific around Japan is that a wound can be cleaned and heal. We have no way to clean radiation, except via dilution. The Pacific cannot heal as long as as the radiation source exists. Only time, and a very very very lot of time, can clean this wound. You're absolutely right; none of us, none of our grandchildren, will see the day that that part of the ocean is not contaminated.

Tritium will decay much more rapidly than uranium and its byproducts. The tritium will noticeably reduce its radiation level in a generation... uranium will only produce a lot of radioactive byproducts in the same time. Again, a little dust on a wound coated in mud. Not recommended, but also far from a major issue at this point.

TheRedneck

Do you really trust the Japanese with what is being released ?

Hmm, Nagasaki and Hiroshima come into mind.

Karma ?

a reply to: TheRedneck

More apt analogy Somebody took dump in our punch bowl,and we are ignoring it while we cautiously continue to sip from it.Just when we get used to the taste now they are urinating in it.

Just like nobody had a clue how to stop this disaster once it started, except having the knowledge not build it right on the coast in an earthquake zone. Nobody knows the short term or long term effects of any aspect of this either. Its a living experiment...

originally posted by: Groot
Do you really trust the Japanese with what is being released ?

Hmm, Nagasaki and Hiroshima come into mind.

Karma ?

That isn't really Karma to be honest. The real Karma isn't in effect yet. The Jap Gov as usual are being kamikaze suicidal. They refuse to acknowledge they originated from China is one thing. Old WW2 Japanese cults in power ruining Japan itself. It is called the wrong leader in power. Same goes with US two party system. One does not play Karma. Fire for fire means hell. Water for water means flood.

a reply to: putnam6

I'm not going to argue with that analogy; it's about right.

But what are we going to do about it? Nothing, because there's nothing we can do about it. There is no known way to stop radioactive elements from giving off radiation. None.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: Groot
Do you really trust the Japanese with what is being released ?

Hmm, Nagasaki and Hiroshima come into mind.

Karma ?

So the world is being punished because the US in the middle of a war dropped a couple of atomic bombs?

Hell the blew up 10 times as much in our own desert and atmosphere, before somebody said maybe we ought to stop that and then we blew up a few in the water and on small islands in the pacific. Then decided thats probably not a good idea either, so lets blow em up under ground for awhile. Now we got a a nuclear spigot pouring into the ocean all the while cold war era USSR subs rot in the Arctic ocean.

Basically we are slowly killing ourselves..

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: putnam6

I'm not going to argue with that analogy; it's about right.

But what are we going to do about it? Nothing, because there's nothing we can do about it. There is no known way to stop radioactive elements from giving off radiation. None.

TheRedneck

Oh I know that too. damage has been done and it isn't undoable. I guess its just avoid seafood all together, and hope is gets diluted enough that my grand kids dont have 3 eyes. and man I like seafood. but between mercury levels in some species and this I dont know.