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?"
WTF is up with the summary? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this the fucking Greenpeace sight?
Can't we keep the Luddites from being /. editors?
Re:What could be done? (Score:5, Insightful)
Build new nuclear reactors, specifically of the design that, either, doesn't use tritium or is melt down proof. Why are the same people that bitch about the safety of nuclear reactors all at once the people whole also hold it back from being a, somewhat, excellent energy source? Uncool green peace, uncool.
Exactly. We should be embracing the technology and improving it with newer installations and better designs. But instead, I'm sure we'll hear from every anti-group in the world about how this leak is the sign of the apocalypse or some nonsense.
We seem to have done a pretty damn good job with the automobile over the last 50 years of improvements. Why we can't seem to do the same thing with this energy source is beyond me.
Re:Carbon taxes (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess that doesn't fatten the right purses though, does it?
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Self-inflicted (Score:5, Insightful)
What, besides shutting down leaky old nuclear plants, could be done to better control release of tritium into the environment?"
Well maybe if somebody, HINT HINT, would let us build new, safer, and more efficient ones, instead of having to rely on the older ones.
Re:What could be done? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from cost, public opinion is the real factor holding back exactly what you describe. It's a total case of NIMBY. Not in my back yard. "Nobody" wants a nuclear anything anywhere near them. Nuclear bad. Radiation bad. Eeeeevil.
So. All you need to do is convince everyone you meet to stop being afraid of nuclear energy. While you're at it, please do the same for fears of the boogeyman, terrorists, cloning, cancer, and people with different coloured skin.
Hey uh (Score:1, Insightful)
Why don't we try throwing toilet water on it?
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think Greenpeace supporters are luddites, their views are just lean a little too far over.
My problem with Greenpeace is in their ridiculous stunts that not only endanger themselves, but others around them. Oh, also that they blatantly misinform the public to push their agenda, but that's par for the course for many political groups.
Re:Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
kdawson's the posting editor. 'Nuff said.
Re:What could be done? (Score:3, Insightful)
How are PWRs meltdown proof? Three Mile Island was a PWR.
I need to know how fast the sky is falling! (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got to love the innumeracy of the reporter on this article:
by Wednesday, the contamination had jumped to 17,000 parts per liter.
Ah yes, parts per liter. One of those quaint old-fashioned units of concentration, I guess, like horsepower per cubit. I wish someone could remind me how we convert to a more familiar unit like grams per liter, moles per liter, parts per million.
Re:Self-inflicted (Score:3, Insightful)
An ounce of prevention could have saved them from having to shell out for a pound of cure.
Instead of using thinner pipes, they could have used what the original plans called for. Instead of using crappier seals, they could have used the ones the original plans called for. Instead of compacting everything into one area, they could have left it at two, like the original plans probably called for.
This is engineering, and it's the way it's been done on damn near everything for a long time. Engineers draw up plans, bean counters go back and make changes. Engineers make new plans to work around what the bean counters did, but it's too late, because the modified plans are by that time already in production. Of course, the original plans are the ones that are submitted to the safety agencies for verification...
Re:What could be done? (Score:5, Insightful)
Any nuclear fission reactor generates neutrons. If water is used in the reactor (e.g. for cooling), some of the hydrogen in the water will absorb neutrons and become deuterium or tritium. If the reactor uses heavy water (e.g. CANDU reactor, which is not the case here) tritium production is maximized, since you need to absorb less neutrons to produce the same amount of tritium. Tritium [wikipedia.org] is a weak beta emitter, so it is only dangerous if you ingest it in sufficient amounts. It decays into stable Helium-3. Even natural water has some trace amounts of tritium in it. FWIW the maximum permissible level of Tritium in Canada is way, way larger than in the USA. Guess where the 'C' in CANDU comes from...
FWIW Tritium is not the thing I am most concerned about in terms of nuclear waste. Iodine-131 or Strontium-90, now those are nasty.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
I tried to find any anti-nuclear spin (no pun intended) there, but couldn't find any.
The fact that your spin-detector can't sense anything from the summary is indicative of greater problems.
But I digress. Let's begin with the title.
Another Crumbling Reactor Springs a Tritium Leak
Of the seven words in that title, three are designed to create a perception of the situation that is far worse than reality.
"Another": indicating more than one, or the latest in a series, or a connection to a greater ongoing situation. This is a spin word because it gives the impression that tritium leaks are special events that deserve special attention. This is not true. Reactors have been known for a very long time to create tritium and leak it, sometimes deliberately. CANDU reactors release tritium into the surrounding environment as a consequence of their design. They are allowed to do this because such leaks are not dangerous.
"Crumbling": indicating an advanced state of disrepair and decrepitude, a state of 'going to pieces', extreme unsoundness in structure or the inability to support it's own weight. This is a spin word because only a technical, literal definition of "crumbling" can apply to the reactor in question, the same definition that can be applied to anything, because everything not being created is in a state of entropic decay.
"Springs": indicating a sudden or forceful event. This is a spin word because it gives a false picture of what is plausibly taking place. Many reactors leak tritium as it diffuses through concrete and steel or in their cooling water. Any sudden or forceful leak of tritium would most likely be accompanied by a sudden and forceful leak of super-heated steam, which obviously hasn't happened.
Onto the summary.
"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).
"Decrepit", "sprung" and "poorly run" are all loaded words. They make unsupported judgments about the reactor in question. The supposed problem is then also attributed to a number of other reactors the reader may or may not know about. This sentence assumes a problem and is constructed to make it appear to be widespread.
The use of the words "radioactive leak" is also spin, since anything radioactive escaping from anywhere can be counted. Dropping an ionizing smoke detector on the ground could be described as a "radioactive leak".
Greenpeace noted 3 years ago that radioactive tritium leaks even threaten Champagne from France.
This is spin, but it relies on the reader taking Greenpeace to be in a position of authority to make such judgments.
Tritium and its decay product helium 3 are incredibly valuable and there is currently a shortage of helium 3.
This is the only non-spin sentence in the summary. It may or may not be factually correct, I don't know, but it's stated as a fact and does not contain any loaded language I can see.
What, besides shutting down leaky old nuclear plants, could be done to better control release of tritium into the environment?"
The spin here is the loaded question which implies that the current release of tritium into the environment is a problem worthy of attention and further control.
So, yeah, there's the anti-nuclear spin. Lots of loaded words, ill-defined terms, misleading wording and an appeal to authority thrown in to boot.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
radioactive materials are notoriously corrosive
No they aren't. The earth's atmosphere is notoriously corrosive. Most radioactive materials are just, well, radioactive.
Is it that little fact that radiation causes cancer? Because that is true you know.
Sure, but most radiation induced cancers probably come from sunlight and radon gas, not a tritium leak virtually nobody is exposed to in any meaningful dose.
Re:Rose-colored perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
> To the advocates of nuclear power, Chernobyl isn't a demonstration of the danger of nuclear power...
I'm interested in hearing a contrary opinion, but really. It was a demonstration of something we all know, that if you try really hard to screw something up you usually succeed.
Chernobyl was a poorly designed Russian reactor that would have never been issued a permit anywhere in the Western world but that wasn't why it failed. We still don't know all of the details of what they were researching but the assholes had intentionally turned off what safety features it did have. It is really hard to design something so idiot proof that it can withstand a determined effort by trained engineers to subvert the safety cutoffs.
Actually, the cause of failure is well known, just read the Wiki article. They were testing emergency shutoff procedures, specifically the ability of the steam turbines to continue operating the cooling water pumps using their rotational inertia, like a flywheel. They stuffed up the test procedure. Operators with little understanding of the complex interactions of the nuclear poisons created during low power operation put the reactor into a dangerous configuration.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:4, Insightful)
Other than the fact that it passingly mentions Greenpeace at all, what do you find wrong with the summary?
The fact that tritium is one of the worlds most expensive manufactured materials and sells for somewhere on the order of $50,000 / gram
The fact that tritium is relatively harmless; it is used for glow-in-the-dark effects on watch dials, exit signs, etc, cost permitting.
Are we to believe that a for-profit company that is already in the business of selling tritium runs a reactor that "sprung" a tritium "leak", and they have no incentive to do anything about it?
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:1, Insightful)
My problem with Greenpeace is that in spite of the latter half of their name, they support acts of violence for the cause.
I once reviewed a Greenpeace publication where they proudly stated that they had supplied flame-throwers to protesters in the Solomon Islands
They even went as far as spelling out that the intent was to cause millions of dollars of damage to machinery and infrastructure.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
By the time things got slack again Chenobyl reminded everyone to stop taking stupid shortcuts. Now we've got to a point where it's just written off as dumb Russians and the superior people in the USA can never make mistakes even if they are taking stupid shortcuts - you'll see that attitude very strongly exhibited every time Chenobyl here. Patriotic fervour is not going to save anyone doing stupid stuff from the consequences of their actions - Russian stupidity, American stupidity - it's all stuipid. It's a matter of putting things under competant adult supervision instead of the usual horse judges or waiting for something that will scare the horse judges into action and hope it's a TMI and not a Chenobyl. That is what regulatory agencies are for but if someone is stupid enough to hide things from them for commericial advantage everyone loses.
New designs small enough that they can never fail as dramaticly as either accident are an option but the old US nuclear lobby is pushing 1970s crap with a coat of green paint. New stuff requires R&D which is something the nuclear lobby hasn't really done in thirty years. South Africa and Australia are way ahead in some areas on tiny as distinct from zero budgets. If the nuclear lobby had actually tried to do more than collect welfare then civilian nuclear power may have actually become a commercial proposition by now.
Re:VT Voters - Contact your Legislator! (Score:3, Insightful)
And rational decision making has no place in todays emotion driven politics.
I wish this was just sarcasm.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because the summary is loaded doesn't mean nuclear power is not dangerous. However well run a nuclear power plant is, and however low the probability, a Chernobyl style accident that causes contamination of a large area for thousands of years cannot happen with other kinds of power plants.
Why are we running these plants? Maybe it's less costly than burning coal, but if that's the only reason, we should shut them down when we finish switching to wind, water, and solar. There are other reasons to run a nuclear plant, such as educational and research purposes, making bombs, and producing radioactive isotopes used for all sorts of purposes, medical and otherwise. It can be argued that we don't have our priorities right. The extreme consequences of an accident suggest we should only fool with radioactive material for important things that cannot be done any other way, and there are lots of other ways to generate power. Plenty of things can kill thousands of people, but the only one I know that can make land uninhabitable for millenia is radioactivity. Makes salting the earth look tame.
There seems to be a view that the public is irrationally afraid of nuclear power, that there are nuances the public doesn't appreciate and there are many kinds of nuclear plants that are much safer than Chernobyl, and that cannot produce the really bad radioactive isotopes. I'm not so sure the fears are irrational. Rather, I think nuclear power boosters are too quick to minimize and dismiss the dangers and problems. What if a plant were to be bombed or raided by terrorists? What are we going to do with all the waste? Come up with ways to clean up every kind of radiation spill quickly, and demonstrate them by restoring the area around Chernobyl, and only then am I willing to change my mind about the unique dangers of nuclear power.
what can be done (Score:3, Insightful)
Is obvious. Stop being religious about nuclear technology.
Yes, it has its dangers. But unless you are totally insane, you have to agree that a modern reactor is a lot better than the decade old ones we're running on right now. The absolute worst case scenario - and it is happening in many first-world countries right now, is that there's a ban on the construction of new reactors, while the permissions to run the old ones are extended again and again, well beyond their lifetimes.
Allow the building of new reactors again. Make it a condition that for each new one built, an old one has to be dismantled. In other words: Give the whole lot a refreshment. That doesn't make things worse, and even if you'd like to see them all shut down you'll have to agree that 10 new and modern ones are a whole lot better than 10 old and leaky ones.
Re:Big Deal...? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Wow... that sounds a lot like what would happen if your water supply was contaminated by tritium.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the Nuclear supporters here have a rabid fanboi attitude which puts the in the realm of Dogmatic Skeptics.
Once their belief systems are challenged they resort to ad-hominem attacks as I'm sure you have experienced.
Well, the old hypocrisy acting up these days, MrKaos? I'm not even going to bother to mention which side of this debate I sit on, since it is utterly irrelevant to my point, and I am not even attempting to participate in the debate with this post. The juxtaposition of those two sentences just threw up all kinds of red flags, and I felt something had to be said.
This ain't right.