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?"
A Sticky Situation (Score:4, Funny)
No, that won't do (Score:5, Funny)
Superpowers (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Superpowers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Superpowers (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Superpowers (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Superpowers (Score:4, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
WTF is up with the summary? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this the fucking Greenpeace sight?
Can't we keep the Luddites from being /. editors?
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Is this the fucking Greenpeace sight?
No, but it is the Greenpeace site
.
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A nit - it's "site" instead of "sight"
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.
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I needed only read all the pejoratives in the summary to realize no rational representation of the story would be found here.
Obviously the poster "mdsolar" is an unbiased source of info. Perhaps he has a plan to produce 1/100th as much power with solar as is produced by nukes.
More likely he would just shut them down and burn more coal.
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No it is not the greenpeace "sight" it is not even the greenpeace site. It is the website of a Vermont newspaper that is local to the situation. How does that sound? Can you use that information to hurl a random ill-informed insult?
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:5, Interesting)
No. As a "greenie" since the 70's I can assure you greenpeace were blinded by ideology a long time ago.
I think this became pretty obvious when they started campaigning against chlorinated water a couple of decades ago. Despite the fact it has been repeatedly pointed out to them, it seems to have escaped their attention that chlorination was probably the single largest improvement in public health in the 20th century.
It happens to all political movements, they start off with a real issue and end up handling associated facts with the same respect fox news does. Often the founders end up either quitting in disgust (as is the case with GP) or being pushed out by the spin doctors. Organisations such as GP are also susceptable to having people form "tea parties" and go off doing their own thing under the organisations banner.
None of this means leaky reactors are not "news for nerds", that's just you sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "la, la, la, la" because you saw the word greenpeace. If TFA that I haven't read is a bullshit press release from GP then by the time it reaches the bottom of the front page there will be a dozen or more highly rated post that debunk it with sound logic, reputable references and a bit of humour.
BTW: You almost got it right, "Luddite" accurately describes some parts of GP policy but it's doubtfull the editor who posted TFA subscribes to it.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:4, Funny)
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How did you figure out it is not hazardous at all? Last time it was tested it was at less than threshold levels, but the concentration is increasing, nobody knows where the leak is and if radioactive materials are notoriously corrosive so a small leak that is not addressed can easily become a much bigger leak.
None of the articles linked used the word crumbling. They mentioned that the reactors were old (which they are) and leaking (which they also are).
And I do not know what is all that evil anti-radiation
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: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: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: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)
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None of the articles linked used the word crumbling.
No, but the /. article did, hence the complaint.
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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.
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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.
Re:WTF is up with the summary? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
But in his defense, he did refer to Illinois, and those three words should be the state motto.
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.
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Here is the real rub. There are 11 of these reactors still running.
It should also be noted that other Russian designs are more similar to western design and many
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> 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
Well run? (Score:5, Informative)
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, Funny)
Nothing. For the sake of the environment we should shut down these dirty, poluting nuclear power plants and replace them with clean eco-friendly coal burning plants at once.
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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 sp
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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 ru
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?
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Forget about champagne (Score:5, Funny)
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Sounds like a job for Radioactive Man [youtube.com]!
What could be done? (Score:2)
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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
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Time to switch to thorium! *Seriously*, time to switch to thorium..
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: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.
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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.
The hippies had no political power - thus bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
There are some that have sucumbed to the "too cheap to meter" PR that will dispute the above problem and I can only suggest to them that they get so
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.
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How are PWRs meltdown proof? Three Mile Island was a PWR.
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Re:What could be done? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Big Deal...? (Score:5, Interesting)
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: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.
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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: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.
Three words: (Score:2)
Pebble Bed Reactor
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Three words:
Still produce tritium
Helium (Score:2)
We may be a bit short of helium, but I don't think the bit that's produced from tritium decay is going to do much to fix anything.
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.
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:Perspective (Score:5, Funny)
IIf you're a homeopath that's worse, isn't it?
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That was the most awesome comment I've seen here in years.
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Did you mean 3.34192092 * 10^25?
Yes, Slashdot ate my <sup> tag.
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:Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
1 Curie [fusrapmaywood.com] = 2*10^12 disintigrations/minute .65 picograms of Tritium per liter of water. This water is just marginally more radioactive than brazil nuts [isu.edu].
17,000 picocuries = ~~625 disintigrations/second
This level of radiation would require
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Re:Rose-colored perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
> 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.
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> 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:Rose-colored perspective (Score:4, Informative)
File under "OSPD" ("operation successful, patient died").
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Question: What weighs more a kilogram of U-238 or a kilogram of Co-60?
Answer: Wait long enough and the correct answer is Co-60...
Sorry, couldn't resist. Just an alpha versus beta and gamma particle thing...
In reality though, the bio-half life of tritium of a week or two combined with it being a weak beta emitter means it really isn't all that dangerous in even close to the quantities discussed here... This is just a non-story.
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If it's safe, why should the leak be found and fixed?
I didn't say it was safe, just that it did not demonstrate that the plants are unsafe. If one car randomly explodes, does that prove that all cars are inherently unsafe? Neither did I say the leak was safe forever: obviously if the plant is leaking then something is going wrong. It may be safe now but problems left unattended tend to get worse over time.
Let's be honest here. To the advocates of nuclear power, Chernobyl isn't a demonstration of the dang
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.
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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
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Here's one solution... (Score:3, Interesting)
"What, besides shutting down leaky old nuclear plants, could be done to better control release of tritium into the environment?"
Maintain the plants and keep them in operation. Really, they won't hurt you; and the electricity they produce is cheap and clean.
Re:Here's one solution... (Score:4, Informative)
Tritium is hydrogen (Score:2)
Tritium is just an isotope of Hydrogen. Being that it is too light the Earth to hold onto it gravitationally so doesn't it all just end up wisping away into space?
Lame (Score:5, Interesting)
Good grief, could this /. article possibly be more biased? Who the hell does Slashdot think it is, the MSM? I thought the Internet was supposed to be an improvement.
Lets just agree with the idiots at Greenpeace.... on one condition, that if we agree the current plants are operating far beyond their original design life they agree with us that the solution is to replace them with modern safer reactors.
Re:Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
kdawson's the posting editor. 'Nuff said.
worse then stupid (Score:2)
as grond noted, the actual amount is trivial beyond belief.
However, there is another problem to this; the atual amount of radioactive material stored at plants, in total, is quite large; in the even of, say, a terrorist inspired meltdown, we would be looking at a lot of long lived alphas getting into the environment.
the other issue is the relation between civilian nukes an atomic weapons. To build an atomic bomb, one needs a fairly serious and complex industrial infrastructure; take, say just monitoring wor
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: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]
Lies! Lies! All LIES! (Score:2)
Aaaaaaaaargh.....
[fades out into oblivion]
Re: (Score:2)
They call it new clear power for a reason.
What's that? It's pronounced nucular now? I thought that was just for the weapons?
send in homer Simpson to fix it and also let him r (Score:3, Funny)
send in homer Simpson to fix it and also let him run sector 7G
Pollution levels (Score:3, Funny)
Wow, awesome deduction there, Sherlock.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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;
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: (Score:3)
Re:Carbon taxes (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess that doesn't fatten the right purses though, does it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Carbon taxes (Score:4, Funny)
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: (Score:2)
Yes, because Greenpeace is going to sniff your IP, cross check your user name, bribe your ISP to find where you live, then drive to your home and shoot you. All because you called them eco-terrorists.
Sometimes, you ARE just paranoid.
Re: (Score:2)
And all for a few bucks while Vermont burns in a nuclear fire due to neglect and mismanagement.
This sentence is why I don't take you seriously. Such hysteria has no place in rational decisions.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Would you stick to that position if you were burning in a cleansing nuclear fire?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And rational decision making has no place in todays emotion driven politics.
I wish this was just sarcasm.