Japan To Release Radioactive Fukushima Water Into Ocean


Still_Small_Voice
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Nishan Degnarain -- Contributor -- October 18th 2020

The new Prime Minister of Japan, Yoshihide Suga, is facing additional international pressure over the weekend, amid reports that Japan will be accelerating plans to dump millions of gallons of radioactive water directly into the ocean.

Reports have being widely circulated among Japan’s leading news agency and across international media that suggest the decision has already been taken by the new Japanese Government, and will be publicly communicated later this month.

Over 1.2 million tons of radioactive cooling water from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant will be released.

While the water will be treated, it will still be radioactive. 170 tons of new radioactive wastewater is generated each day and is stored in 1000 specially designed tanks.

Read more at:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/nishandegnarain/2020/10/18/japan-to-release-radioactive-fukishima-water-into-ocean/?sh=46bceb334329

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I don't understand why Japan does not set up a water cooling system to cool the radioactive waste in Fukushima and then recycle the water so they do not end up with radioactive water.  Perhaps I am too uneducated on the subject.

Edit:  I mistyped.  I do not understand why Japan just does not continue to use the radioactive water they have already used and cooled to cycle it again with the radioactive waste.  Just keep using that same water over and over again.  This would prevent more radioactive water storage that they do not know what to do with.

Edited by Still_Small_Voice
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Sometimes headlines can be quite misleading.  Radiation or radio active particles come from the decay of already existing particles.  Nuclear plants do not create new radiation.  We do enrich or concentrate radio active particles and it is the concentration of particles that becomes dangerous.   The reality is that the aggerate radiation is being reduced just by the passing of time.

Having said this - I would not live down wind from a nuclear plant - even though it would be safer than a coal fired generator or a refinery.   The real problem is the scaling up of any means to generate the ever increasing desire for energy from our world population.  Dealing with the waist left over from batteries is a bigger environmental problem than nuclear waist but it is politically incorrect to criticize anything that is electric.

 

The Traveler

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2 hours ago, Traveler said:

Sometimes headlines can be quite misleading.  Radiation or radio active particles come from the decay of already existing particles.  Nuclear plants do not create new radiation.  We do enrich or concentrate radio active particles and it is the concentration of particles that becomes dangerous.   The reality is that the aggerate radiation is being reduced just by the passing of time.

 

So if Japan went about seventy miles east out into the Pacific Ocean and began dumping this radiated waste water it would have zero to very little environmental effects?

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2 hours ago, Still_Small_Voice said:

 

So if Japan went about seventy miles east out into the Pacific Ocean and began dumping this radiated waste water it would have zero to very little environmental effects?

All life has an environmental impact on this planet.  There is nothing on this planet that was not here before it was used and became garbage or waist.  The problem is not so much nuclear waist.  The problem is the the concentration of nuclear waist.  One of the problems here in Utah is radon gas.  This come from the breakdown of granite rock and the radon gas being trapped undergrown - especially when humans build residential neighborhoods on top of it.  The solution is to suck the radon gas out of the ground and disperse it into the air.  But when the Salt Lake valley has a thermal inversion (as it does for several weeks in the winter every year) the radon gas added to the pollution can cause dangerous toxicity levels that exceeds, by far, a controlled release of nuclear waist. 

I am not saying this is wonderful and there is no concern - I am just saying we can pick our poison.   Even wind farms have some harmful environmental impact.  Our technology is improving.  In Utah the air quality is much better than when the pioneers first arrived and heated their homes with wood and coal.   And the mass use of silver nitrates used in the manufacturing of solar panels has an impact as well - especially in the future as we dispose of those panels. 

For 50 years my commute to work was mostly on a bicycle (being the least harmful impact on the environment form of travel).  Sometimes the distance was 25 miles one way.  Most people thought I was nuts, but far beyond the environmental impact - the health and economic impact would be striking if just 15% of the population would take advantage of the opportunity.  I personally think it is somewhat futile to expect everybody else but me do something to help the environment.  I do not intend to sound harsh but for those that drive everywhere in their cars and insist on the latest electronics - ought not to complain about what anyone else is doing.

 

The Traveler

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