
No One Knows What to Do with Fukushima’s Endless Tanks of Radioactive Water - rl3
http://nautil.us/blog/no-one-knows-what-to-do-with-fukushimas-endless-tanks-of-radioactive-water
======
tdy721
This is not the kind of problem it's being made out to be here.

First of all, Tritium is an beta emitter, blocked by a piece of paper or the
skin. It's not dangerous in the environment unless it's consumed. Even better,
it does not bio-accumulate, because it's water.

Second, the half life of Tritium is 12.4 years.

Consider this excerpt:

""" The World Health Organization’s standard for tritium in drinking water is
10,000 becquerels per liter (34 ounces). According to Mayumi Yoshida, a TEPCO
communications officer, Fukushima’s stored water contains between 1 and 5
million becquerels per liter. """

So our radioactive waste is acceptable as _Drinking Water_ at 10K.

Lets do the math

5000000/(2^9) = 9765.625

9*12.4 = 111.6 years

No one knows what do about the Radioactive Water?

How's about we wait few generations, and drink it!

This is child's play next to the real problems posed by long lived (400K+ year
long half life) bio-accumulating isotope disposal.

I wouldn't mind if they dumped it in the ocean TBH.

~~~
manigandham
Considering we have lots of nuclear reactors floating around (ships and
submarines), some of which have been destroyed and ended up in the ocean -
it's probably the best place to put this stuff.

The world's oceans are absolutely massive and already have millions of tons of
radioactive material dissolved along with plenty of cooling power. Maybe the
specific dumping zone would be a little radiated for a bit but that can be
solved by spreading it out in the deep sea and through natural ocean currents.

~~~
coldtea
That's the spirit. The earth is our dumbster, and let future technology short
it out...

~~~
maxerickson
Your second sentence doesn't capture what is being said, not at all. It
wouldn't contribute significantly to the amount of tritium that is naturally
in the oceans (here's a dismissive comparison: it isn't even the sort of waste
you would bother with a dumpster for), and it would dissipate in ~100 years.

------
grecy
What I learned during the Fukushima disaster and ongoing clean up is that the
human race literally has no plan or technology to deal with things when
nuclear plants go bad.

I'm not anti-nuclear by any stretch, but it boggles my mind that we just stood
around and said "well, shit. We don't have a backup plan, and we're stuck with
this for a very, _very_ long time".

~~~
toomuchtodo
Same here! I argue constantly for wind and solar instead of nuclear not
because nuclear is a bad technology, but we are bad as a species at managing
it.

EDIT: It takes 10-20 years to get a nuclear generation plant built, starting
at $1 billion USD, and I've never seen a wind turbine or solar panel need to
be kept cool for days after having moderator rods dropped to prevent fuel rods
from melting down and hydrogen gas destroying a pressured containment vessel.

Don't talk to me about thorium, MSRs, breeders, or whatever new fangled
reactor is being pushed this year unless you're willing to guarantee with
incredibly steep financial penalties that if you start building a reactor
today, you _will_ be done on time, and within your budget.

Otherwise, move out of the way while we build out solar, wind, and utility-
scale battery storage, all proven to work with existing tech, needing no
liability waivers from the government nor permanent spent fuel storage that
doesn't (and won't ever) exist.

~~~
vidarh
_Despite_ how bad we are at dealing with it, more people die from solar (or
pretty much any other alternative form of power generation) per unit of energy
generated through e.g. installation and maintenance accidents.

You could grind up all the current radioactive waste into particles and pump
it into the atmosphere on purpose, and nuclear would still likely cause less
harm than most of the alternatives.

The problem with nuclear is fear and politics.

And most of the management "problems" with nuclear is down to exactly that
too. We have plants that generate more waste than necessary because of cold
war politics. We have storage "problems" because of irrational levels of fear
of the risks.

Meanwhile we keep burning coal that continues to shower us in radioactivity
and other nastiness sufficient to do as much damage (including deaths) as a
Chernobyl sized incident every couple of year or more.

~~~
lcswi
>Despite how bad we are at dealing with it, more people die from solar (or
pretty much any other alternative form of power generation) per unit of energy
generated through e.g. installation and maintenance accidents.

Citation please.

Also I'd like to know if the numbers are in any way significant compared to
overall construction work accidents.

~~~
jhartmann
Here is a good summary of the stats from various sources. Death rate per
terawatt/hr is 0.04 for Nuclear and 0.44 for Rooftop Solar. Basically Rooftop
solar is a full order of magnitude more dangerous. Coal is WAY more nasty at a
world average of around 100 deaths per terawatt/hr if you consider
heating/cooking/electricity or 60 for just electricity. Those numbers for
China are 170 & 90 respectively. If you include the worst hydro accident,
Hydro is 1.4 deaths per terawatt/hr, or 0.10 if that is excluded.

Nuclear is the best game in town, even though the accidents are well
publicized and the marketing for alternatives have done a really good job of
making us scared of the nasty radioactivity, nuclear has the best safety
culture and safety record.

[http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-
so...](http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html)

~~~
pgeorgi
Rooftop solar. Not sure that the problem is the photovoltaics and not the
rooftops.

Even crowded Germany manages to set up fields full of solar panels, so I guess
the US can do just as well.

Leave rooftop solar installation to those who build new homes or repair the
roof, so there's no additional risk from climbing around in high places.

~~~
vidarh
Here [1] is Osha's page on solar safety issues. Here [2] (pdf) is a manual
going over solar installation safety issues. You'll note they go well beyond
falls, though you have a point that the page in question mentions roof
installations.

But also keep in mind that solar also causes mining deaths (sand quarries are
not without accidents just because they're not deep mines; but of course
nuclear has related mining accidents too) as well as work with hazardous
chemicals during production of the cells. There are also related fire risks.
Not huge, but they are there, and given sufficiently deployed capacity it adds
up.

Also keep in mind that solar is not nearly all photovoltaics. Here's an
article about a lethal accident at a concentrating solar power plant in South
Africa [3], though generally we will likely see fewer deaths per kwh for large
plants. But even fields full of solar panels involves plenty of construction
work and electrical work that can kill.

Basically, anything labour intensive, no matter what, will have a death toll.
Even hiring a bunch of people to sit around and do nothing all day will have a
death toll from accidents one way or another. As such, all else being equal
(and of course they never are), the least labour intensive alternative will
win out. Similarly, all else beiny equal, the larger / more electrical
installations you add the more fires etc. you will have.

Since all things are not equal, it gets complicated, but it doesn't help to
pretend that these alternatives does not have risks.

> Leave rooftop solar installation to those who build new homes or repair the
> roof, so there's no additional risk from climbing around in high places.

They're not immune to death just because they have experience, and there will
always be additional risk because it means more time is spent climbing around
in high places. There's been plenty of professional installers and
construction workers falling to their deaths too. The pages I referenced are
targeted at professionals, for a reason.

[1]
[https://www.osha.gov/dep/greenjobs/solar.html](https://www.osha.gov/dep/greenjobs/solar.html)
[2]
[http://www.coshnetwork.org/sites/default/files/OSEIA_Solar_S...](http://www.coshnetwork.org/sites/default/files/OSEIA_Solar_Safety_12-06.pdf)
[3] [http://www.csp-world.com/news/20141104/001395/two-killed-
and...](http://www.csp-world.com/news/20141104/001395/two-killed-
and-7-injured-accident-abengoas-csp-plant-under-construction-south)

------
tptacek
If it's just tritiated water, is there a good reason it can't just be dumped
into the ocean? It won't bioaccumulate, right?

~~~
joshuapants
As they say in the article, tritium is usually not considered a health hazard,
but organizations are starting to question that standpoint. It would, as they
also say in the article, be politically unpopular to do so regardless of what
the actual effects are.

~~~
tptacek
Well, there's two questions, right? The first is how harmful tritiated water
is to begin with. It's a low-energy beta emitter and, because it mixes quickly
and permanently with water, it's eliminated quickly as well. You wouldn't want
to go out of your way to drink it, though.

The second question is, what is the environmental impact of dumping it in the
ocean? No matter how dangerous it is, the ocean is gigantic. So you want to
know: are there environmental processes that concentrate or amplify it?

 _Later: I had to leave before writing this last part._

Obviously, all things being equal, you'd rather TEPCO keep spending money to
keep this stuff out of the ocean. But are all things equal? Is it riskier to
try to contain it?

~~~
mapt
Normal ocean water has potassium and rubidium radionuclides that run to
11Bq/L.

At the higher level of 5MBq/L, they would need to dilute it into 3000km^3 of
seawater in order to reach double background radiation levels, or a patch of
the 6km deep Pacific abyssal plain that is 22km x 22km.

~~~
tptacek
That is a microscopic fraction of the 6km+ deep Pacific, right?

------
lsiebert
Tritium is actually useful for luminescent devices like emergency exit signs.

Which now that I think about it, is a little ironic.

~~~
curtis
Actually, you may be on to something.

According to Wikipedia, Tritium is worth $30,000 per gram [1]. I can only
assume that we can separate super-heavy water (T20) from regular water since
we can separate heavy water (D20) from regular water. I don't know if $30K per
gram is enough to cover the separation cost, but it seems like it might...

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Self-
powered_lighting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Self-powered_lighting)

~~~
mcv
If Fukushima produces Tritium at such an alarming pace, I wonder if it could
tank the world Tritium market.

How much Tritium does the world really need?

------
stretchwithme
Freeze it and drop it in an antarctic glacier that will take a long time to
melt.

Bury where there's already plenty of radioactivity. It does occur in nature, I
hear.

The more radioactive it is, the shorter the half-life, right?

~~~
krschultz
The half life is 12.3 years. If the amount of water was not growing it
wouldn't be a huge problem. The tanks they are building will probably last at
least 40+ years before having to be replaced, at which point we're talking
about water that is not all that dangerous. If you release a tiny bit at a
time it shouldn't be a problem.

However the water keeps accumulating. I don't think that part is sustainable.
Until they fix the root cause of a seemingly endless amount of water that
needs to be stored, this is going to be a problem.

------
logfromblammo
Um... how about separate out the tritium? It goes for like $30k per gram,
doesn't it?

Corner the self-illuminated exit sign market!

~~~
kijin
According to this [1], the amount of tritium that currently exists in
Fukushima is no more than 4 grams.

At first I thought that might have been a unit conversion error, but Wolfram
Alpha [2] seems to confirm the tiny mass.

So if it costs more than $120k to separate it from the rest of the water, it
would not be worth the effort.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Fukushima_Daiichi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Fukushima_Daiichi)

[2]
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=mass+of+1+petabecquerel...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=mass+of+1+petabecquerel+of+tritium)

~~~
maerF0x0
It's worth the effort if (Cost of extraction -$120k) < (Next best solution)

ie, if the next best is to store it, and it would cost $1M. but filtration
costs $1.1M , its actually $20k better to filter it.

~~~
logfromblammo
4 grams tritium in 620000 tons of water, though?

Seems like the politically expedient thing to do would be to separate a few
tons to show that someone is doing something, and smuggle the rest out in
ballast tanks.

~~~
mcv
Where does the self-powered light industry get their tritium? If they normally
get it from sea water, it's probably easier for them to get it from this water
instead.

------
sixdimensional
Are there any bacteria that consume tritium? A quick google search of "tritium
bacteria" shows some relationship between bacteria and tritium - in some cases
it kills bacteria and in others, there are bacteria that can consume it.

For example: "Possible use of A̲l̲c̲a̲l̲i̲g̲e̲n̲e̲s̲ p̲a̲r̲a̲d̲o̲x̲u̲s̲ as a
biological monitor"

~~~
j-pb
The bacteria might be able to harness some energy from radioactive decay, but
it won't speed up that process. Afaik, chemical processes should have zero
effect on the decay rate.

------
rip747
maybe I'm missing something. Is there any reason why they couldn't just pop
the lids off the tanks and let nature do what it does, evaporate the water.
Figure it could take a couple of years or so for all the water to evaporate
and at the same time rain water would dilute whatever is in there.

------
zamalek
Instead of trying to find out what to do to dispose of it, couldn't we
possibly find a use for it?

------
icanhackit
Could you create robust, modular storage vats that double as interlocking
elements of a sea-wall to hold back future tsunamis? I imagine it'd be
expensive but you're killing a few birds with one stone. If containment in a
single vat fails then the radioactive water is dispersed in a vast sea as
opposed to a small land area.

I also wonder if you could blast pellets of radioactive waste with a very big
laser like the one at the NIF [0]. I don't know much about physics so I accept
this could be a disastrous or futile idea but if anyone can comment that would
be great.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility)

~~~
tdy721
The NIF is not the answer here. I suspect that the facility will only "Blast"
a few grams or kilograms of material in its lifetime, we need to deal with
TONS of water.

------
jkyle
We could feed to lizards and moths and stuff.

That always seems to turn out well in the movies.

------
notatoad
Is there a reason it can't just stay in the tanks indefinitely?

~~~
joshuapants
I think the biggest problem is that it isn't just a few tanks of water, it's a
constantly growing amount. It's expensive and impractical to keep building
tanks, it's expensive and impractical to filter out the tritium, and it's
questionable whether just pumping it out to sea is acceptable (I imagine that
if they were able to dump it far into the ocean away from any land it would be
more palatable, but that would also be, you guessed it, impractical and
expensive).

~~~
eck
> it's a constantly growing amount.

If they're still pumping coolant into the reactors, why aren't they reusing
the water that's already radioactive for that purpose?

~~~
hydrogen18
They pump in freshwater to the cooling circuit of the reactor, like from the
tap. The water that comes back out of the discharge has gained temperature but
has no tritium. They probably just return this water to the sewer system for
now.

Just the water from the leaks has be retained at present.

If they mixed the water from the tanks, they'd have to retain 100% of the flow
of the water.

Now if they built a big cooling pond and stuff they could reuse the water
'forever'. But the last thing you want is a big pond of slightly radioactive
water than all kinds of wildlife can come live in.

------
mkesper
Also, this blocks very very many resources of Japan for tens of years trying
to decontaminate the land. Look here (original german, but the texts might be
usable):
[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=h...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Freportage.wdr.de%2Ffukushima)

------
brianwawok
Does tritium evaporate? Or could we condense all the tanks from say 1 million
gallons of water + 1 pound of tritium, down to say 100 gallons of water and 1
pound of tritium? Seems the volume of water is what makes it tricky, not the
actual tritium.

------
jbert
Does it have to be an open system?

Can't the already-contaminated water be used for cooling in a mostly-closed
system?

And if the expansion due to rainwater is significant, perhaps some kind of
large tent arrangement?

------
myrandomcomment
Ah, the age old dumbasses that think the world nuclear is bad. At the current
contamination level of the water, dump it in the ocean. No one will notice. It
is water and alpha decay.

------
savage_platypus
Nuclear has a lot to learn from the oil and gas industry, especially that
dilution is the solution to pollution.

~~~
astrodust
Yeah, the Gulf is going just _great_.

------
csense
The tanks aren't endless compared to the ocean. Just dump it in the middle of
the Pacific or something.

------
mcv
Isn't tritium useful for nuclear fusion? Can't they give it to some
experimental fusion plants?

------
mkandes
"Dilute the son of a bitch."

------
pvaldes
Okay, maybe its time to clear some things.

1- "Even better, it does not bio-accumulate, because it's water".

Myth: First of all tritium is not water, is radioactive hydrogen. Hydrogen is
a common piece in the metabolism of all living beings.

 _" The study showed that inorganic tritium accumulated differentially in
mussel tissues in a dose-dependent manner, with the gut accumulating the
highest amount of radioactivity, followed by the gill, mantle, muscle, foot
and byssus thread_".

-> Awadhesh, Dogra, Turner, Millward (2005) _Impact of low doses of tritium on the marine mussel, Mytilus edulis: Genotoxic effects and tissue-specific bioconcentration_. Mutation Research/Genetic Toxicology and Environmental Mutagenesis. 586, 1: 47–57

-> Inomata T (1983). _Accumulation and lethal effect of tritium (tritiated water) in Rhodopseudomonas spheroides. Under light-anaerobic and dark-aerobic conditions_. Radiat Environ Biophys. 21(4):281-94.

-> Inomata T, Higuchi M. (1976) _Incorporation of tritium into cell materials of Rhodopseudomonas spheroides from tritiated water in the medium under aerobic conditions_. J Biochem. 80(3):569-78.

2- "Tritium is safe to drink if diluted".

True. But dangerous if eaten (and marine organisms can also pick up and
reconcentrate again some substances). Japanese eat marine fishes, algae and
clams all the time.

 _" Our results demonstrated that the dose calculation based on tissue-free-
water tritium alone would under-estimate the radiation exposure of the human
population exposed to tritiated food"_

-> Komatsu, Okumura and Sakamoto (1990) _Radiation dose to mouse liver cells from ingestion of tritiated food or water_. Health Phys. 58(5):625-9.

3- "Tritium radioactivity is blocked just by a sheet of paper or by the skin"

Paper's blocking properties are not relevant under the sea. Human skin is not
comparable to the structure or function of fish/crab/worm gills.

4- "Hundred kilos of tritium were released and nothing happened"

The fact is that hundred kilos of tritium where released and dozen of species
of corals (and all its associated fauna) are missing still 50 years later from
this area. This can be related with tritium or not, but "absence of evidence"
can not be granted "as evidence of absence". Is a common rule in science. It
only takes to briefly loose all its zooxanthellae to kill a 1000 years coral
colony.

5- "Tritium don't have any efect in the marine organisms". "Nobody will be
harmed"

Myth:

 _" Tritiated water delivering dose rates below 500 μGy h−1 was shown to be
capable of inducing genetic damage in the haemocytes of edible mussels"_

 _" Despite growing scientific, public and regulatory concern over the
discharge of radioactive substances, no serious attempts have been made to
develop a rationale to evaluate the impact of environmentally relevant
radionuclides in the aquatic environment." ... "The study suggests that the
generic dose limits recommended by the International Atomic Energy Agency for
the protection of aquatic biota might not be applicable to all aquatic
organisms"._

-> Awadhesh, Dogra, Turner, Millward (2005) _Impact of low doses of tritium on the marine mussel, Mytilus edulis: Genotoxic effects and tissue-specific bioconcentration_. Mutation Research/Genetic Toxicology and Environmental Mutagenesis. 586, 1: 47–57

New marine organisms are discovered every year. We just don't know the effect
of tritium on most marine organisms, specially with critical groups like sea
cucumbers (that process tons of silt and sand each year), sponges and filterer
worms (millions of water liters processed), or coral zooxanthellae.

6- "Come on, its only four grams... what could be happen?"

Many things, this four grams could cause a serious damage to the credibility
of the acuaculture japanese companies and to cultured shellfish, oysters and
clams as source of reliable food for example. The value of total japanese
aquaculture production in 2003 worth US$ 4 428 962 000 (source: FAO). Fish
related economy is a 'no joke' affair for japanese employing a lot of people
and moving big money each year so this would be also a political suicide
probably.

The impact of tritium in fish eggs, alaskan cods, right whales or californian
vaquita porpoises is totally unknown.

7- "Again, there's still no theory as to how tritium can do all this crazy
stuff".

False: Tritium effects are similar to other typical carcinogenetic substances.
On mice: abort of some mice embrios, increased mortality, bone marrow failure,
resorbtion of gonadal tissue and developping of solid tumours. It depends on
the dose.

 _" mice receiving a single intraperitoneal injection of tritiated water 7.4 x
10(8) Bq (20 mCi) died of bone marrow failure within 20 days"._

-> Seyama, Yamamoto, Kinomura and Yokoro (1991) Carcinogenic effects of tritiated water (HTO) in mice: in comparison to those of neutrons and gamma-rays. J Radiat Res. 32 Suppl 2:132-42.

8- "The early 1960s (which saw peak tritium levels) are not known for a huge
spike in inexplicable extinction events".

Myth (and not understanding how things really work in biology).

To prove extinction in marine organisms is notoriously difficult and in any
case it takes 50 years to declare a species extinct. Therefore species extinct
in 1960 are recognised as this by science in 2010, not in 1960.

And the fact also is that not enought research had be done. There is about 800
living hard corals providing support for 4.000 species of reef fishes, more
than 50.000 species of marine molluscs, and 13.800 species only in the Class
Polychaeta (a type of marine worms). Scientists estimate total number of
different species inhabiting coral reefs between 2 and 9 millions. We are
talking just of reef ecosystems here, there are also soft bottom ecosystems
and epi/meso pelagic and abyssal plains. Most of the marine species are still
undiscovered.

However, in years as recent as 2004 the World Conservation Union (IUCN) had
conducted threat assessments of _only 814 marine species_ (Baillie et al.
2004). The real situation of millions of species is unknown.

------
MichaelCrawford
What the US Navy actually does with its spent reactor coolant, is to make
concrete out of it. The concrete as well as the mixer are buried at Hanford.

I don't see why Japan couldn't do the same. I expect it already does this,
with the coolant from its other reactors.

The water used to mix cement doesn't evaporate, that is cement doesn't dry, it
sets or hardens. The binder is a chemical known as "Portland Cement"; it
hardens when it combines chemically with water.

------
skidoo
Sell it to Jim Beam.

~~~
filoeleven
This is more for fixing the surrounding area than the water, but if some fungi
really do eat radiation then there should be a way to filter the water as
well.

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/radiation-helps-
fu...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/radiation-helps-fungi-grow/)

> Based on experiments with three different types of fungi, they believe the
> melanin-containing breeds absorb the high levels of energy in ionizing
> radiation and somehow turn it into a biologically useful (and benign) form,
> akin to a dark and dangerous version of photosynthesis.

[http://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/using-fungi-
remediate...](http://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/using-fungi-remediate-
radiation-fukushima)

> G. glutinosus has been reported to absorb – via the mycelium – and
> concentrate radioactive Cesium 137 more than 10,000-fold over ambient
> background levels. Many other mycorrhizal mushroom species also hyper-
> accumulate.

The second method still leaves you with radioactive waste (harvested mushrooms
are burned, the ash is turned into glass) but it gets the radiation out of the
environment.

