Contaminated water crisisSea contamination

Highest level of Tritium measured from a bypass well

Following up this article..

 

Following up this article.. Tritium density exceeded the safety limit at one of the bypass wells one day after they discharged 1,600 t to the sea [URL]

 

On 6/12/2014, Tepco announced that they are going to keep using the bypass well that they detected the exceeding density Tritium.

In that well, Tritium density increased from 1,100,000 Bq/m3 to 1,700,000 Bq/m3 since the end of May. From Tepco’s own simulation, it is assumed to jump up to 2,300,000 Bq/m3 where the desired safety limit is 1,500,000 Bq/m3.

 

Tepco states the volume of water from this well is only 7% of total. Even if they continue pumping up water from this well, the average Tritium density would be 231,800 Bq/m3 because they mix it up with less contaminated water.

 

At 19:20 of 6/12/2014, Tepco restarted pumping up contaminated water from this well to discharge to the sea.

(Tepco decided to continue using the bypass well that exceeding level of Tritium was measured from [URL 2])

 

From Tepco’s report, tritium density from the bypass well mentioned above became the highest since they started measuring.

It was 2,000,000 Bq/m3 from the sample taken on 6/16/2014. It’s exceeding the desired safety limit by 500,000 Bq/m3.

However Tepco states the total Tritium density to discharge to the Pacific would be only 300,000 ~ 400,000 Bq/m3, which is under the desired safety limit because they mix it with lower level of contaminated water.

 

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2014/images/pump_well_14061802-j.pdf

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2014/images/handouts_140618_02-j.pdf

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2014/images/handouts_140618_07-j.pdf

 

 

See also

You read this now because we’ve been surviving until today.

_____

Français :

Record de radioactivité en tritium dans un puits de la dérivation

 

Article lié : La radioactivité explose la limite de sécurité dans un des puits de la dérivation le jour suivant de leur déversement de 1 600 T en mer

Le 12 juin 2014, Tepco annonce qu’ils vont continuer d’utiliser le puits de dérivation dans lequel ils avaient relevé une radioactivité en tritium supérieure à leur limite de sécurité.
Dans ce forage, la radioactivité en tritium est passée de 1,1 à 1,7 millions de Bq/m³ depuis la fin du mois de mai. Selon les propres simulations de Tepco, on suppose que ça va monter à 2,3 millions de Bq/m³ alors que la limite de sécurité désirée est de 1,5 millions de Bq/m³.
Tepco affirme que le volume d’eau de ce puits ne représente que 7 % du total. Même en continuant de pomper l’eau de ce puits et parce qu’ils la mélangent avec des eaux moins radioactives, la moyenne de la radioactivité en tritium sera de 231 800 Bq/m³.
Le 12 juin 2014 à 19:20, Tepco a relancé le pompage de l’eau radioactive de ce puits pour la balancer en mer.
(in: Tepco décide de continuer d’utiliser le puits de dérivation qui dépasse la limite en tritium)

Selon un rapport de Tepco, la radioactivité en tritium du puits de dérivation mentionné ci-dessus a atteint un record depuis qu’ils ont commencé à mesurer.
Dans l’échantillon du 16 juin 2014, ça titrait à 2 000 000 (2 millions de) Bq/m³. C’est au-delà de la limite de sécurité désirée de 500 000 Bq/m³.
Néanmoins Tepco affirme que la radioactivité totale en tritium déversée dans le Pacifique ne devrait être que de 300 à 400 000 Bq/m³, ce qui est en dessous de leur limite, parce qu’ils vont la délayer dans les eaux des forages voisins moins contaminés.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2014/images/pump_well_14061802-j.pdf
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2014/images/handouts_140618_02-j.pdf
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2014/images/handouts_140618_07-j.pdf

Vous pouvez lire ceci parce que nous avons survécu jusqu’à aujourd’hui.

Mochizuki
Mochizuki
The writer of Fukushima Diary.
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34 Comments

  1. By TEPCO’s logic, all the radioactive contaminated water can be released if they just dilute it with freshwater.

    Since some radioisotopes don’t occur in nature, I wonder what their limit is set at for release levels.

    1. Bottom Line,

      Japan has no effective standard for radioactive contamination.

      Japan has no effective standard for medical ethics.

      Japan has no effective standard for manufacturer product liability.

      Japan has no effective standard for mass murder.

      Japan appears to have few effective legal standards.

  2. Bq/m3 standards for environmental releases (whether into the ocean or into the atmosphere) are clearly meaningless. There need to be limits on the total Bq count that can be released per day, per month, per year and per decade. And these limits need to be low.

    1. At least from one-onethousanth of that value, you derrive Bq/litre.
      A recent review in Canada recommended lowering our limit for Tritiatated water from 7000Bq/l to 20Bq/l, which would make the limit approximately one-fifth that of the European standard.

      http ://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/health/tritium/tritium-in-drinking-water.cfm
      http ://www.cela.ca/publications/comments-nuclear-awareness-project-proposed-guideline-tritium-drinking-water

  3. I think you’ve missed my point. My point was it’s useless to specify discharge limits in terms of contamination density because this gives polluters an arbitrarily large loophole: they can bypass any limit by diluting what they release. Limits should be placed on the total amount (and type) of radionuclides released.

      1. Ah, it references it’s density, not the total mass of radionuclides. That is a rather large loophole. Muey bastardos!

    2. ” this gives polluters an arbitrarily large loophole:
      they can bypass any limit by diluting ”

      Very true,
      they really don’t think your smart enough to see that.

      But then take it to the next level
      they really don’t care if you do

      Dilution has always been the plan.

    3. Ok, the ultimate reservoir for tritium is the ocean.

      Let’s specify that we never want the ocean to get above 1 Bq/L.

      There’s 1.2e21 liters in the ocean so it can absorb up to 1e21 Bq.

      At that inventory 1.2e21 * (1-2^(-1/12.3)) Bq = 6.6e19 Bq are disappearing every year through radioactive decay.

      So you can add 6.6e19 Bq every year and the ocean concentration will not get above 1 Bq/L.

      CANDU reactors in normal operation discharge about 1e15 Bq of tritium per year. So the world should have no more than 66,000 CANDUs in operation.

      There are currently 29 world-wide.

      1. Your argument proves that the total level of tritium discharge into the ocean is of no concern assuming uniform mixing. However the latter is highly unlikely to occur within ten half-lives, so it’s a false approach.
        It is far more likely that discharged tritium will remain fairly concentrated in currents and/or in coastal waters, where it may have an adverse effect on marine life and on humans via seafood harvesting. The need to set standards in absolute (rather than density terms) is even more pressing for other radionuclides such as strontium and cesium, particularly those that bioaccumulate.

        1. Excellent point!

          Let’s release it a km down where it will decay away before it has time to mix to the surface.

          1. That might be an option providing (a) there is minimal risk to deep-ocean life forms, as-yet discovered or otherwise;(b) we can guarantee that currents do not bring significant amounts of contaminant to the surface before its expiry date, (c) it is technically and financially feasible and (d) there are no accidents. A big ask.

            1. Tritium could fit that bill. Isolate for 120 years to reduce each Sievert to milliSievert levels.
              Sadly, it appears inEPTCO is fixated on (retroactive?) pay-raises than biology.

            2. I can just imagine Tepco going through the motions of pumping tritiated water into a deep ocean trench, only to ‘discover’ that the pipe had broken and that half a million tonnes of water had leaked into the coastal zone…or that a hitherto unknown deep-ocean current was going to wash it all up on the Alaskan coast within three years. Given the risks and technical imponderables it would almost certainly be safer and more practical to store the water 10k offshore in a fleet of tankers. The whole ‘how to store the tritium’ discussion will be academic unless they can effectively filter out the other nuclides, and the track record so far is far from encouraging.

              1. Freeze the contaminated water into giant icebergs and set them adrift. Might help combat global warming at the same time.

                1. As tritium is more dense, that ice would be more likely to sink.

                  also see: HMS Habakkuk – http ://www.goodeveca.net/CFGoodeve/habakkuk.html

                  1. Quote: “Pykrete could be machined like wood and cast into shapes like metal, and when immersed in water formed an insulating shell of wet wood pulp on its surface which protected its interior from further melting. However, Perutz found a problem: ice slowly flows, in what is known as plastic flow, and his tests showed that a pykrete ship would slowly sag unless it was cooled to −16 °C (3 °F). To accomplish this, the ship’s surface would have to be protected by insulation and it would need a refrigeration plant and a complicated system of ducts.[2]

                    Experiments on the viability of pykrete and the optimum composition of it were conducted by Perutz in a secret location underneath Smithfield Meat Market in the City of London.[6][7] The research took place in a refrigerated meat locker behind a protective screen of frozen animal carcasses.[8]”

                    . https ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

      2. Let me add the following. If a kilogram of radionuclude has the potential to cause X amount of biological damage (eg health damage to crustaceans, DNA damage to fish etc) when dumped in the ocean, then it is likely to cause that much damage whether it disperses over a million square kilometres or swills around in a coastal lagoon. The nett damage to the planet’s biosphere will be the same. Hence if we are concerned about the biosphere there is an argument for placing an absolute (mass or Bq) limit on discharges. If the concern is to minimise damage to specific areas (such as coastal fishing zones), the best approach is to dilute the discharge as much as possible. But in terms of the global ecology that is just sweeping dirt under the carpet.

        1. Also, radionuclides can have a toxic-multiplying effect in the presence of non-radioactive toxins (add sonar to that mix?). A reduction of p[H+] for the intermediate contaminated volume is also noteworthy.
          Even tritium’s decay product 3He starts out ionized, and ionizing.
          Tritiated water doesn’t have the same chemical properties as regular water that can cause serious issues for biology.

          Yes, Mr. Hawes, all nuclides should be much more tightly regulated by mass (except perhaps 40K – don’t need no steenkin’ Banana Regulatory Commission :lol).

          That way, at least, they would know another “Fukuppy” could be more financially disasterous than BP. I like Germany’s approach of forcing energy companies to actually pay for their decomissioning though! What a concept. What will they think of next?

          1. Quote of rogerthat (less javaScript in links): “http ://motherboard.vice.com/read/life-before-fukushima-in-an-irradiated-japanese-ghost-town

            http ://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/06/19/national/fukushima-evacuees-seek-end-limbo/

            http ://www.iol.co.za/business/news/num-pushes-for-nuclear-review-1.1705599

            http ://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2014/06/19/olympics/summer-olympics/holding-2020-games-august-dangerous/

            ”What I would like to see is Tokyo relocate the marathon out of the city — move it up to the Sendai-Fukushima area, where the temperature is a bit cooler and the threat of heat exhaustion will be reduced.”

            – this belongs in ripley’s believe it or not…”

            . http ://enenews.com/hemisphere-is-facing-generations-of-radiologic-contamination-due-to-fukushima-crisis-tv-this-is-a-major-humanitarian-crisis-nyt-nobody-really-knows-if-nuclear-fuel-r/comment-page-2#comment-536300

            rogerthat over, Houston. 🙂

  4. The CANDU system discharges 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more Tritium than PWR and/or BWR. This CLEARLY EXCESSIVE H3 discharge is primarily due to three factors: use of D2O, multiple, piped-together reactor vessels, and a cheesey containment scheme.

    Items 1 and 2 are inherent design limitations, with offsetting operational advantages. Item 3 is: typical, ‘Team Nuke’, slovenly, ‘don’t give a shit’, irresponsible, cheapskate criminality.

    1. “Tritium Unlimited” was entitled, apparently, in regards to lax standards concerning tritium in Canada.

      http ://www.ccnr.org/#tr

      There’s a whole lot of “trouble with tritium”.

      Quote: “Do the radiation guidelines prevent biological damage?

      No. In the case of cancer, leukemia, and genetic damage, the scientific consensus is that every additional exposure to radiation adds to the total risk and therefore to the incidence of these diseases in exposed populations. In the case of developmental damage to unborn babies exposed in the womb, scientists have so far found it impossible to determine what level of exposure to tritium constitutes a “damaging dose”.

      According to a 470-page report published by the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA) in 1980, existing AECB standards for public exposure to another radioactive substance — radon — “may well be viewed as tantamount to allowing an industrially-induced epidemic of cancer”.

      Chapter XXII of the BCMA Report is entitled “Atomic Energy Control. Board — Unfit to Regulate”, based on the AECB’s poor record of protecting the public health and safety (BCMA p.283).”

      http ://www.ccnr.org/tritium_1.html

      Quote: “Tritiated water (HTO) is a common chemical state of tritium, and it has easy and rapid access to living cells, including those of the embryo or foetus.

      HTO administered in the drinking water to rats throughout pregnancy produced significant decreases in relative weights of brain, testes, and probably ovaries, and increases in norepinephrine concentration, at doses of 10 microcuries per millilitre (estimated at 3 rads per day), and produced weight decreases in a number of [other] organs at higher doses.

      Because the length of the critical period [of vulnerability to damage] for various organs is not known, the total damaging dose cannot yet be estimated. Relative brain weight was found to be reduced at only 0.3 rads per day (one microcurie per millilitre of drinking water) when exposure began at the time of the mother’s conception.

      Even lower exposures (0.003 rads per day and 0.03 rads per day) have been implicated in the induction of behavioral damage, such as delayed development of the righting reflex and depressed spontaneous activity. However, because the data fail to show a clear dose dependence, there is some doubt about the validity of this suggestion.

      Tritiated drinking water has been used to study the effects of radiation on development of a sensitive cell type, the oocyte. Oocyte counts were made in serial sections of exposed and control animals. In squirrel monkeys continuously exposed from conception to birth, the LD-50 was 0.5 microcuries per millilitre of body water, giving a foetal dose rate estimated at 0.11 rads per day. Because the sensitive period for oocyte development is probably the last trimester, the LD-50 was calculated to be 5 rads. In the mouse, the sensitive period occurs during the first two weeks after birth, and, by a similar calculation, the LD-50 from tritiated drinking water at that time is slightly below 5 rads.”

      http ://www.ccnr.org/tritium_1.html#dam

      Thank you, Doctor Edwards.

      1. Lordy … can none of you do math without me to hold your hand.

        “0.3 rads per day (one microcurie per millilitre of drinking water)”

        one microcurie per milliliter = 37 million Bq/L

        0.3 rads per day = 3 mSv / day = 1 Sv/year

        Of course you’re going to see effects at these doses.

        1. … and for a 90 kg human that would be ingesting 3.3 billion Bq of tritium per day.

          Yeah. That’s going to leave a mark.

          1. Curious; what could elevated tritium (& assuming elevated deuterium) do at a quantum level. Could any compatible structures exist within the body that might aid energy release including heating?

            If one did actually consume what you have stated, could they be a candidate for “spontaneous human combustion”?

        2. Yes, actually, that is helpful. We all need more like thus, but expanded a little more for the reader to more easily learn to follow. Thank you.

        3. Was two weeks the specified test duration for the LD-50 calculation in that instance?

          1. Some ambiguity may be of note in that it appears unknown (to me @ this time) if this was applied orally or intravenously.

          2. Ah, WPPSS. It would have helped my previous reply had i read further first. Finding it diffinicult to concentrate lately, for some strange reason.

  5. Tritium Unlimited

    Presumably, the Neutron Flux continues, at a high level in and under the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

    The continued RISE in Tritiated Water Contamination Levels, speaks loudly.

    The MASSIVE Water Influx is moderating the neutrons; and preventing fission.

    It would be helpful, for the Japanese Yakuza Government to impound and secure all this water. Cement and Stainless Steel will secure this water. The ‘Dirt Slurpee’ will not.

    1. “The MASSIVE Water Influx is moderating the neutrons; and preventing fission.”

      Um… other way around.

      Moderating the neutrons increases the ability of a pile to sustain a chain reaction.

      Luckily a misshapen blob of fuel mixed with structural steel and concrete doesn’t have the right geometry to sustain a chain reaction.

      1. The neutrons captured by the water are halting those neutrons. Those neutrons are converting into various forms of ‘heavy water’, Deuterium and Tritium. DHO, DDO, THO, TDO & TTO; as well as the various Oxygen Isotopes.

        A few whiffs of fission products are detected in the region, from time to time. Perhaps they are from Fukushima, North Korea or a nuclear navy incident.

        We hope, the corium is sufficiently alloyed to prevent fission, for now. Fission can certainly rekindle itself, in unstable corium changes.

  6. “The neutrons captured by the water are halting those neutrons. Those neutrons are converting into various forms of ‘heavy water’, Deuterium and Tritium. DHO, DDO, THO, TDO & TTO; as well as the various Oxygen Isotopes.”

    Correct! Although that’s not big enough to stop the chain reaction in a normally operating reactor.

    … and yes, stable non-radioactive O16 will occasionally capture a neutron and become stable non-radioactive O17 which will occasionally capture a neuron and become stable non-radioactive O18 which can then capture a neutron and become O19 with it’s 23 second half-life but I’m not sure why I should care.

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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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