No detectable amount of tritium has been found in fish samples taken from waters near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, where the discharge of treated radioactive water into the sea began a month ago, the government said Monday.
Tritium was not detected in the latest sample of two olive flounders caught Sunday, the Fisheries Agency said on its website. The agency has provided almost daily updates since the start of the water release, in a bid to dispel harmful rumors both domestically and internationally about its environmental impact.
The results of the first collected samples were published Aug. 9, before the discharge of treated water from the complex commenced on Aug. 24. The water had been used to cool melted nuclear fuel at the plant but has undergone a treatment process that removes most radionuclides except tritium.
Sample size is critical to get a realistic result of the tritium toxicity. In this case, they sampled only 64 fish! That would not yield a statistically significant result!
Samples of local fish have been collected at two points within a 5-km radius of the discharge outlet, except during rough weather conditions, with the agency announcing its analysis results on an almost daily basis since Aug. 26.
No tritium was detected in 64 fish, which included flounder and six other species, collected since Aug. 8.
I mean… you could have read the article.
ignorance and paranoia about radioactivity go hand in hand.
i know so many otherwise smart people who lose it on this issue. because they just think any radioactivity = destroy planet forever . completely ignorant to how it actually works, and just think every power plant must eventually chernobyl and that one barrel of nuclear waste is enough to destroy 1000s of miles or something equally absurd.
totally sad.
When I was on nuclear submarines I got less radiation than a single flight on an aircraft. And you gotta know there were less-than-secret competitions on who could rack up the most mrem. Could never get close to significant.
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I appreciate the discourse, my only intent with my comment was to give a perspective as to how operationally safe it is. That is not to say I would be alright with being in the Reactor Compartment while it was operational, that would lead to certain and painful death.
I haven’t really considered the relative environmental impact of the extraction, refinement, removal, and waste management of nuclear fuel and how that compares to other alternatives like coal or gas. I would suspect that carbon emissions from that process are significantly more.
I would however expect that the environmental impact is significantly less for the other items on your list like transportation and more specifically operation.
You do seem to be pretty aware of the state of energy research, do you happen to have any recommended papers to take a look at that might shed some light on the overall environmental impacts of nuclear and how they compare to the current alternatives?
