Another Crumbling Reactor Springs a Tritium Leak 466
mdsolar writes "The decrepit nuclear reactor Vermont Yankee has sprung a radioactive leak similar to those at other poorly run reactors in Illinois (Braidwood, Byron and Dresden), Arizona (Palo Verde), and New York (Indian Point). Greenpeace noted 3 years ago that radioactive tritium leaks even threaten Champagne from France. Tritium and its decay product helium 3 are incredibly valuable and there is currently a shortage of helium 3. What, besides shutting down leaky old nuclear plants, could be done to better control release of tritium into the environment?"
Re:What could be done? (Score:3, Informative)
While I appreciate your support of nuclear energy, I'm going to ask you to educate yourself a bit. There are ZERO reactors that use tritium. It is an unavoidable by-product of fission. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium
Re:What could be done? (Score:3, Informative)
Time to switch to thorium! *Seriously*, time to switch to thorium..
Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
The linked article says that the tritium levels are only half what must be reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And let's think about what 17,000 parts per liter is. A liter of water contains 3.34192092 * 1025 molecules. So those 17,000 atoms mean that, assuming one tritum atom per molecule, 0.00000000000000000005% of the water is contaminated with tritium. At 3.3ppb the concentration of uranium in seawater is several orders of magnitude higher [wikipedia.org]. This is not to say that the leak shouldn't be found and fixed, but the notion that this demonstrates that our nuclear power plants are unsafe is absurd.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:5, Informative)
The words "crumbling," "decrepit" and "poorly run" are pretty loaded, especially referring to levels of tritium around half the limit found on site, and no detectable levels off site.
Re:Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately the author of the article fudged the units (presumably he couldn't spell the name of the actual unit). The level of contamination is 17,000 picocuries per liter, not parts per liter.
It is still a low level, and is less than the EPA standard for drinking water. But not as low as your calculation.
Re:Carbon taxes (Score:4, Informative)
It's not immediately clear that nuclear power doesn't have its own externalities or that the externalities can be approximated for either alternative, but that doesn't really make what he's saying any more or less of an opinion.
Re:What could be done? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, apart from the already mentioned fact that tritium is a natural by-product of fission, most modern reactors (pressurized water reactors or boiling water reactors, yes, not even pebble bed) are "melt down proof." Chernobyl is a superb example of why even old American designs are very, very safe and the old Russian designs are very, very insane.
It is extremely disheartening to see someone so clearly misinformed about such a very easily researched topic.
Re:Here's one solution... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:3, Informative)
> Other than the fact that it passingly mentions Greenpeace at all,
> what do you find wrong with the summary?
>
> I'm genuinely curious. I tried to find any anti-nuclear spin (no
> pun intended) there, but couldn't find any.
Byron Station has consistently been one of the best-run and best-performing nuclear power plants in the world from the day it went into service (well before that, actually), so any article that starts out by claiming the opposite is a bit, um, suspect as to the rest.
sPh
Re:Three words: (Score:3, Informative)
Three words:
Still produce tritium
Re:Helium (Score:4, Informative)
Helium-3 != Helium-4
Helium-3 is a rare isotope of Helium on the earth. It has promise for an alternative nuclear fusion fuel as well as whatever else scientists like to do with rare isotopes.
Tritium is fairly common... (Score:5, Informative)
The unit of measure of tritium in water is the tritium unit (TU). One tritium unit equals 1 tritium atom in 1018 hydrogen atoms. In SI units, one tritium unit is about 0.118 bequerels per liter (Bq/L), where the bequerel is one decay per second. In picocuries per liter, 1 TU is approximately 3.19 pCi/L. Tritium occurs in very small quantities naturally, being produced in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays. Natural (pre-nuclear age) levels of tritium in precipitation are on the order of 1 to 5 TU. Nuclear-weapons testing during the 1950s and 1960s created relatively large amounts of tritium in the atmosphere that can be detected in ground water that was recharged during this period. Greatly elevated levels of tritium can be present in ground water contaminated with radioactive wastes.
It hasn't been until recently that the detection of the very miniscule ammounts of Tritium leakage through several feet of rebar, concrete, steel, and lead have been detectible as the units of measure are so minute to be nearly indetectable. As such, they don't pose much of a threat to humans, or other creatures in general. The half-life of Tritium in the typicaly human is roughly ten days, and is of such a low yield of energy to be about as harmful as living in Colorado being bombarded with a multiple increase of Cosmic rays versus people who live closer to sea level. In fact, when measuring the radioactive levels of Tritium you will notice that the K+ ions in bananas are radioactive as well.
Basically, all of this overreacting to 'radioactive' stuff should result in EVERYTHING being banned that's radioactive. If they were so concerned with such low level contamination, they should do away with Limestone rock on the walls of schools (radioactive), granite countertops (radioactive), bananas (radioactive), and all manner of other things that emit EM and positron/neutron radiation on such low levels.
The irony of all the craziness over 'radioactivity' is that on average, people who work near nuclear reactors, or have 'any' exposure on an ongoing basis at a very low level are typically healthier than the crazy people scared of all this radiation floating around.
If you take all the TLD (thermo-luminescent devices) worn by all Department of Energy employees and Nuclear Sub/Carrier personnel to measure very accurately the radiation exposure over a year, and add up every TLD in the DOE and Navy, it is still less radiation than 1 person receives by living in Denver Colorado for a year.
Thus, by this non-sensical IT'S RADIOACTIVE IT MUST BE BAD FOR US logic, we should quarantine Colorado, because obviously it's going to end up becoming a mutated Zombieland where only those highly paranoid, and well adept at using all manner of sharp, blunt, and dangerous instruments for maiming Zombies will survive.
Re:Forget about champagne (Score:1, Informative)
is my beer in danger? That's what I would like to know!
*burps* Not any more, mate, no worries.
Re:Big Deal...? (Score:5, Informative)
We're talking about *tritium* here, not plutonium. It's just not all that dangerous as far as radioactive materials go. You might well be *WEARING* some right now if you have a watch that glows in the dark. Unless they're releasing hundreds of pounds of it at a time here (they aren't, there's ~165lbs of the stuff in the US right now) , any farm even a kilometer away is not a real health hazard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium [wikipedia.org]
Absolutely correct! I am in fact wearing some right now! I have a necklace that has a "beta light" or as it is called in the UK a "Tritium Kit Marker". I carry this as it is part of my survival kit (I spend a good deal of time out doors) and having it in a necklace as a pendant always keeps it with me for emergencies.
Why do I carry it? Because it will stay glowing for roughly 15 years. The half-life of this gas is 12.3 years, and that is round about enough to keep the pendant glowing for 15 years or so. I can read by it in complete darkness, and almost hike by it in total darkness (as in a cave).
Now, before people freak out - Tritium is a beta emitter. Barely any electrons make it through the boro-silicate glass or plastic secondary container. Those that do are unlikely to penetrate my first layer of skin.
In order to do myself some damage with it, I would have to remove it from the plastic casing, crush the glass vial in my teeth, while carefully keeping my mouth closed (as tritium gas is lighter than air) then swallow the lot with some water to make certain it all goes down. Even then, after I pee it out in about 1-2 weeks time, I will have received a dosage roughly equivalent to a chest X-Ray.
For those of you who are still skeptical, I had the vial tested by some Physicists from Alamogordo at the Trinity Test Site this year, and in Los Alamos with Geiger counters. It registers as radioactive... but then again, so does a banana. I forget how many rems it gives off, but it was not much higher than normal background radiation, and far lower than may other common things such as a smoke detector.
Re:Tritium is fairly common... (Score:4, Informative)
The unit of measure of tritium in water is the tritium unit (TU). One tritium unit equals 1 tritium atom in 1018 hydrogen atoms.
10^18?
Also, it's polite to cite the sources you copy large blocks of text from [usgs.gov]
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What could be done? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What could be done? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rose-colored perspective (Score:4, Informative)
File under "OSPD" ("operation successful, patient died").
Mutagenic effects of Tritium (Score:3, Informative)
In case there is any doubt regarding Triated water's effect on living beings the following information may help. Tritium is biologically mutagenic *because* it's a low energy emitter. This characteristic makes readily absorbed by surrounding cells. The available evidence from studies conducted journal a list of effects, so I'll just quote from those works;
Tritium can be inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through skin. Eating food containing 3H can be even more damaging than drinking 3H bound in water. Consequently, an estimated radiation dose based only on ingestion of tritiated water may underestimate the health effects if the person has also consumed food contaminated with tritium. (Komatsu)
Studies indicate that lower doses of tritium can cause more cell death (Dobson, 1976), mutations (Ito) and chromosome damage (Hori) per dose than higher tritium doses. Tritium can impart damage which is two or more times greater per dose than either x-rays or gamma rays.
(Straume) (Dobson, 1976) There is no evidence of a threshold for damage from 3H exposure; even the smallest amount of tritium can have negative health impacts. (Dobson, 1974) Organically bound tritium (tritium bound in animal or plant tissue) can stay in the body for 10 years or more. For those who think "of all the elements in nuclear waste tritium is one of the more harmless ones"
Tritium can cause mutations, tumors and cell death. (Rytomaa) Tritiated water is associated with significantly decreased weight of brain and genital tract organs in mice (Torok) and can cause irreversible loss of female germ cells in both mice and monkeys even at low concentrations. (Dobson, 1979) (Laskey) Tritium from tritiated water can become incorporated into DNA, the molecular basis of heredity for living organisms. DNA is especially sensitive to radiation. (Hori) A cell's exposure to tritium bound in DNA can be even more toxic than its exposure to tritium in water. (Straume)(Carr)
First, as an isotope of hydrogen (the cell's most ubiquitous element), tritium can be incorporated into essentially all portions of the living machinery; and it is not innocuous -- deaths have occurred in industry from occupational overexposure. R. Lowry Dobson, MD, PhD. (1979)
References;
Re:Big Deal...? (Score:5, Informative)
YES if your sitting next to a sold block of tritium
If you're sitting next to a solid block of Tritium, your largest problem is going to be hypothermia, as it'd be -257degC. Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen, a gas at STP.
Others here have already documented how ingestion of small amounts of Tritium (and the amounts available at the concentration discussed in the article are indeed quite small) is about the equivalent of a chest X-ray, so I will leave the above example of your ignorance of basic physics as proof enough that your opinion is likely based on speculation.
Also, comparing Tritium to Plutonium is pretty weak sauce as well. They are only alike in that they're both radioactive.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:5, Informative)
neutrons aren't corrosive; corrosion is a chemical process. Neutron radiation is a nuclear process. Sodium metal in liquid metasl cooled reactors is corrosive. Water at extremely high temperatures in the reactor is corrosive. Radioactive materials are not in of themselves corrosive unless their chemical properties dictate this to be such.
Re:What could be done? (Score:3, Informative)
Public opinion is the cost problem: the major difficulty in building a new nuclear plant isn't the actual construction, but fighting the inevitable and endless stream of lawsuits. It's ridiculous.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:3, Informative)
None of the articles linked used the word crumbling.
No, but the /. article did, hence the complaint.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't want to take away for a second from your extremely detailed parsing of the summary, but...
Let's take it is a given that the summary is spin-laden. Let's further assume (safely, I think) that the author has a real problem with nuclear technology in general, or at least with the way it's currently implemented.
In fact, let's assume that slashdot readers, being the clever types that they are, have spotted this spin coming from about 5 blocks away. I still have one question:
Are the assertions of the summary true or not?:
The answer, for what it's worth, is no. FTFA:
Re:Superpowers (Score:2, Informative)
Well run? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:4, Informative)
Corrosion is the wrong word to use, but you are really just arguing semantics. Radiation can have quite a damaging effect on materials. Radiation interactng with structural materials in a reactor core can cause:
Ionization of materials- accelerating corrosion on the surface of the material and shifts within it Radio-activation of materials- which decay changing the chemical makeup of the material and therefore the disrupting the microscopic structure and weakening it Helium and production - some modes of decay of irradiated structural materials can produce helium (alpha particle) which displaces other atoms in the material and can produce voids within the material
In general the effect this has is mostly in the form of "embrittlement" and "swelling" of the material. While this is notably different than corrosion, it does increase the risk of microscopic cracks and fractures occuring in the pressure vessel. It is through these cracks that some leaks may form- though they are usually so small that it is mostly only the lightest elements like hydrogen that can escape in noteworthy quantity. Still, there the threat that this tritium poses is relatively minor even when released into the environment.
Tritium disperses rapidly in the environment since it diffuses exactly like normal hydrogen gas- this means the direct dose to individual people, plants, and animals in the area will be very low. Consequently, indirect exposure through livestock and produce will be even lower. Ground level exposure is generally exceptionally low compared to that from other potential byproduct releases due to the rapid and high (vertical) diffusion of both tritium gas and T2O. Exposure rates from tritium contamination, even from catastrophic accidents, is low enough to represent little threat to those in the immediate area and indirectly through affected food products and water supplies.
Even high levels of exposure, though unlikely, are generally not a significant threat. The mode of decay is a low energy beta-particle (electron) which is effectively attenuated by a sheet of paper or a thin layer of dead skin. This type of radiation is not particularly harmful, even when ingested. While very large doses over long periods of time can increase free radicals inside the body through ionization effects, the effect is so marginal that tritium is considered safe for use in exit signs. Even decay inside the body, from contaminated water, is unlikely to pose much of a statistical risk. In fact, a broken exit sign in a small movie theater would expose you to a greater dose than they these leaks from nuclear plants. That does is still low enough that, while caution is advised by manufacturers for the sake of prudence, that it does not amount to much more than your normal background dose. Tritium exposure is also considered to be a low enough risk that it is used in found in some gun sights and in some watches. Ingesting the tritium contents of one of these devices, while still far far greater than exposure from these plants, poses little to no real health risk.
In the case of the above story, the "well" described was a test well meant to monitor for releases of radioactive materials and not a drinkng water well- it was within the grounds of the power plant. It should be noted that the test well along the river showed no contamination. Now, even if you were to drink the water from this contaminated well for a year the increased exposure you would suffer beyond normal background radiation would be equivalent to about 1/1000th what you would get from a cross country flight in an aircraft. It is also slightly lower than what you would expect if you lived in an area with naturally elevated background radiation- which some studies have shown to actually produce a slight decrease in cancer rates. That might just be a statistical anomaly rather than an inoculative effect.
Aging power plants, in the US in particular, do pose some serious health and environmental challenges. Tritium leakage is not one of
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:2, Informative)
As most ores in the Earth's crust, coal also contains low levels of uranium, thorium, and other naturally-occurring radioactive isotopes whose release into the environment leads to radioactive contamination. While these substances are present as very small trace impurities, enough coal is burned that significant amounts of these substances are released. A 1,000 MW coal-burning power plant could have an uncontrolled release of as much as 5.2 tons/year of uranium (containing 74 pounds (34 kg) of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons/year of thorium.[19]
This has been known for decades, yet nuclear plants (which allows controlled handling of the waste, as opposed to releasing it in the atmosphere) is still incorrectly assumed by many people to release loads of radioactive material while coal exhaust is assumed to be "just carbon dioxide".
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:4, Informative)
Tritium decay : (3,1)H -> (3,2) He + e- + ve-
Tritium decays into a low-energy electron and an antineutrino.
Antineutrino's will start flying at near-light speeds and extremely likely not interact with anything until they hit a neutron star or a black hole. They are not dangerous for living beings, as they simply fly right through them. It carries off the majority of the energy (11-12 KeV)
The electron has an energy of close to 6 KeV (kilo electron volt). At these speeds electrons are not capable of penetrating human skin, or any layer of fluid. The only way to make tritium dangerous is to drink large amounts of it. The water in it gets built into your cells, and there it is close enough to do some (minor, compared to gamma decay) damage.
You can, however, shower perfectly safely in tritium. As rain can theoretically contain up to 0.5% tritium (though ten times less is much more likely), most of us will turn out to have actually done just that.
Conclusion : tritium is not corrosive. It is not dangerous (except as a useful component to make an atomic bomb)
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:2, Informative)