Spreading contamination of tritium

Fukushima nuclear disaster headquarter checked tritium at 51 locations (35 rivers, 13 lakes/dams, 3 cleanwater).

The samples were taken from 11/15/2011 ~ 12/15/2011.

As a result, tritium was measured at 44 places where they measured it at 29 locations in 2002.

spreading tritium contamination

 

Also, highest readings were much higher than 2002 like the graph below.

 

Spreading contamination of tritium5

 

Spreading contamination of tritium6

 

However, Fukushima nuclear disaster headquarter states still these 3 highest readins are lower than the maximum of 2000 ~ 2011  in all over Japan, so it is not a problem  (River : ~1.7 Bq/L, Lake/Dam : ~3 Bq/L, Clean water : 2.1 Bq/L) though no detailed data is given.

Especially they measured tritium from the rivers in Iwaki city, where they didn’t measure it in 2002.

The detectable amount was 0.35 Bq/L. Cesium 134/137 were not measured supposedly.

No explanation is given why they took 6 months to publish this data.

 

Spreading contamination of tritium4

 

Spreading contamination of tritium5

 

Source

 

 

  1. I wish we had a chart where we could determine rough estimates of things like Cs137, Barium, Xenos-133, etc., based on these tritiium figures. And if we could figure out Xenon-133 and about 1000 other elements based on reported CS137/134 figures. In other words, if we knew what ratios to expect, then when they report an amount found/L or /M2 etc., we could calcuate the total amount of all elements. Because every government report in all countries of findings of contaimination always just includes one or two tested elements, or maybe 3 or 4, but is incomplete. So for food, for example, if 100 bec/kilo is allowed, and they only test cs137 and it’s 50, we can assume that it is much higher when counting ALL the elements … maybe even 200? Or 500 bq./kilo? Who knows? If anyone has a chart that can calculate the ratio of elements emitted, so we can calculate this … it needs to get circulated!

  2. The level of Tritium are very high…….seriously high….compared to 2002. Information below regarding Tritium.

    If a worker ingested 4 mCi of tritium, the worker would receive a dose of 256 mrem.
    The established way of calculating the amount of activity deposited is by bioassay samples. During a typical tritium bioassay, 1-5 milliliters of urine are mixed with a liquid scintillation medium and counted in a liquid scintillation counter. From these counts, the actual concentration of tritium can be determined in the urine. Then working back to the time of exposure, the initial activity can be calculated. Due to the solubility of the tritium, the concentration of the tritium in the urine equals the concentration in the soft tissues of the body.

    The risks from tritium are small, in small doses, due mostly to:
    it is a low energy beta emitter;
    chemically behaves like water in the body (forms HTO or T2O – water);
    has a 12.3 year half-life.

    Tritium in water also known as HTO is in the form of water, so one to two hours after an uptake, it will be evenly distributed through out the body’s fluids. The amount of time it takes for half of the activity to be physically removed form the body is the biological half life. The biological half life of tritium varies significantly because of variations in bodily excretion rates, temperature dependence and fluid intake. Biological half-life of tritium is about 9.4 days, often rounded to 10 days. This can be shortened to 2-3 days (Fig 1) with ten fold increase of liquid intake (2 liters to 20 liters), or in serve cases to 4-8 hours by using dialysis machines.

  3. FUKUSHIMA DIAIRY – Dispersion de la contamination du tritium
    Par Mochizuki le 24 mai 2012 · 2 Commentaires

    Le centre de commande sur la catastrophe nucléaire de Fukushima a contrôlé le tritium à 51 endroits (35 rivières & fleuves, 13 lacs/barrages, 3 eaux potables).

    Les échantillons ont été pris entre le 15 novembre et le 15 décembre 2011.

    En conséquence, le tritium a été mesuré à 44 endroits alors qu’ils l’avaient mesuré en 29 lieux en 2002.

    De plus, les plus hautes mesures ont été bien au-dessus de celles de 2002 comme le montre le graphique ci-dessous.

    Toutefois, le centre de commande sur la catastrophe nucléaire de Fukushima affirme que ces trois plus hautes mesures sont inférieures aux maximums de 2000-2011 pour tout le Japon, donc il n’y a pas de problème (Rivière : ~1,7 Bq/L, Lac/barrage : ~3 Bq/L, Eau propre : 2,1 Bq/L) bien qu’aucune donnée précise ne soit donnée.

    En particulier, ils ont mesuré le tritium des rivières de la ville d’Iwaki qu’ils n’avaient pas mesurée en 2002.

    Le niveau détectable était de 0,35 Bq/L. Le césium 134/137 n’a soi-disant pas été mesuré.

    Aucune explication n’est donnée sur les 6 mois qu’il leur a fallu pour publier ces données.

  4. Isn’t tritium created in a breeder to fuel thermonuclear devices? And in those designs are the ratios of tritium much higher? So if there was, say, a secret door to load in feed stock to create tritium for…. Whoever, wouldn’t we then not be able to use it as the key but rather the variable to determine if this was a weapons facility?

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About this site

This website updates the latest news about the Fukushima nuclear plant and also archives the past news from 2011. Because it's always updated and added live, articles, categories and the tags are not necessarily fitted in the latest format.
I am the writer of this website. About page remains in 2014. This is because my memory about 311 was clearer than now, 2023, and I think it can have a historical value. Now I'm living in Romania with 3 cats as an independent data scientist.
Actually, nothing has progressed in the plant since 2011. We still don't even know what is going on inside. They must keep cooling the crippled reactors by water, but additionally groundwater keeps flowing into the reactor buildings from the broken parts. This is why highly contaminated water is always produced more than it can circulate. Tepco is planning to officially discharge this water to the Pacific but Tritium is still remaining in it. They dilute this with seawater so that it is legally safe, but scientifically the same amount of radioactive tritium is contained. They say it is safe to discharge, but none of them have drunk it.

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