>

can i get a pic of ppl swimming in it before its dumped to confirm safeness?
Most ppl will get way more radiation from an airplane flight than swimming on that coastline. Radiation scares are often paid for by oil and gas companies because it's a direct threat to their industry >

The oil and gas lobby have been funding anti-nuclear groups for decades:

In 1970, a leader of the petroleum industry and the head of the Atlantic Richfield Co. named Robert O. Anderson contributed $200,000 to fund Friends of the Earth, an organization that is strident in its opposition to nuclear energy, citing both safety and cost issues.^1

Even the KGB saw the movement as target of opportunity^2 >

In a world where renewables are the near future dominant power generator, fossil fuel funding anti-nuclear campaigns is like abacus companies funding anti-calculator campaigns. >

Yeah, if big abacus had the world by it's short curlies, that is >

About time... It's tritium folks. Occurs naturally when sun rays interact water molecules, so there is plenty in the ocean already. Though in very very low concentration. But Pacific ocean is pretty big, so a tad more won't be noticed. >

Are you citing Tepco studies?
The same Tepco that promised the plant could survive an earthquake? >

I mean were right no ? The earthquake wasn't the issue. The tsunami was. >

Yeah who could've predicted tsunamis along the East coast of Honshu. >

The Japanese did. Fukushima was protected by a sea wall due to the risk of tsunamis. And they had not long before the 2011 tsunami, increased the height of it based on the height of the 2006 Indian Ocean tsunami. The only thing they didn't factor in was an even bigger tsunami than the 2006 one. 
In fact, the real problem wasn't so much that they built a nuclear power plant on the coast of an island prone to earthquakes. The real problem was they had positioned the backup generators for the cooling system in the basement, which left the cooling system vulnerable to flooding. 
To that end, the whole Fukushima disaster would have been avoided if they had elevated the backup generators for the colling system. >


kushima disaster would have been avoided if they had elevated the backup generators for the c

Yea this guy is right.  Having been there an been involved with the military response, (and seeing many reports/studies) the power plant survived both the earthquake and tsunami.  But it did not survive the extended site-black-out power-loss.  So had they relocated the generators from the basement to the nearby hillside, as was on their 'do list someday' a meltdown could have been prevented.  Note that the second power plant complex built a decadish later has it's generators on high ground. >

Homeopathic folks in shambles…the more they dilute the isotopes the stronger they become. >

I studied environmental science and I can tell you this is misleading because pure lab physics does not apply to the environment the way most people think it does. >

I desperately want to downvote this, but this is an educational opportunity. 
I work on nuclear reactors on a daily basis. I get more radiation from going outside for a smoke than I do from the reactor. I have literally drank primary coolant before and I am fine. Nuclear reactors are the safest form of power generation, bar hydroelectric. >

Yes but marine life is much smaller and more fragile. Do microrganisms survive radiation at the same rate as people? Do you assume marine life cannot bioaccumulate radiation and why is that? >

If it were Co-60 and Cs-137 it could be a problem. Tritium is much less of a concern, especially at these concentrations. Go buy a glow in the dark watch and drop the hands in your fish tank. You’ve just exposed your fish to more tritium than they will get from this water. >

In which water? The dumping site? Within 200m of the dumping site? What is the dilution rate and how wide of a spread before it is virtually unnoticeable?
There are dead zones along popular beeches from the zinc in sunscreen.
Again do you have a source or did you make up that figure? The only source I could find from the IAEA is behind a paywall.
Why are you avoiding facts and my real concerns base don my experience in the exact relevant field?
Again its not physics in a fish tank. Water in the ocean does not work that way. Even mixing is what happens in a lab but irl temperature and density prevent bodies of water (containing different solutes and solids) do not readily mix.
Why are you avoiding the science? >

What I am talking about is discussed in pages 11, 12 and 13 of the article you shared. Notice that the effects on organic chamistry in salt water environments is unknown and the information is considered dated according to the article's authors. So what I said is 100% true. Data for most ecosystems is unknown an untested. Varied concentrations in marine organisms can be higher than thay of the surrounding water!
It clearly says organic molecules can cause a slowdown of the dissolution rate of the tritinium hydroxide. Hot take. Also what I said.
Local concentration (aka the dumping site) is discussed on page 14.
So you called me a moron and said I did not know the science but it is right there as I said it would be and the asumptions in the paper are the same as those I explained at length. So... I was right and you were just overly rude. Thanks for proving me right. >

Never called you any names. Don’t know wtf you are talking about.
Energy generation is always going to have unknowns and trade offs. Tritium contamination from nuclear power plants is very low on the list of potential environmental catastrophes humans have caused/are still currently causing. >

Clickbait by the BBC, one of the oldest, venerated institutions of journalism. These are dark times. >

With how they insist on treating the lives of the royal family as front page news, the BBC is basically just a gossip tabloid at this point. >

This is total non-issue, and like dihydrogen monoxide only demonstrates how scientifically illiterate most people are.
Releasing the waste water into the ocean simply reduces the concentration of tritium, which is what's emitting the radiation. And since radiation poisoning depends on exposure to high concentrations, this release of waste water is simply diluting the tritium to a level that makes it pretty much harmless.
This release of radioactive waste water into the ocean is the equivalent of putting a teaspoon of sulfuric acid into a glass of water and then pouring that glass into an Olympic sized swimming pool. >

Damn >

It's roughly equivalent to 40 olympic sized swimming pools full in volume. >

So 40 teaspoons of sulfuric acid in 40 glasses of water , the comparison still stands. >

It actually works out to 40 Olympians in one glass of sulfuric acid. >

Honestly, it’s a pretty insignificant amount. While not great, chances are you won’t even notice if you’re looking for it with the dilution that will happen. >

The water is also barely radioactive. It's not like this is highly toxic water or anything >

Dang really? You should feed it to your kids to make sure it's safe for the rest of us. >

Anyone who lives near a coal mine or power plant already drinks water more radioactive than this is going to be. >

Again? Jesus this non-story has been sensationally posted about 4 times now. >

I imagine all the garbage and micro plastics floating in the ocean are a bigger threat to the environment. >

Why don't they just bottle it up and sell it as "gamer girl bathwater" 
/s >

People tend to see this stuff and imagine cartoonistly evil people dumping full barrels of glowing green water into the ocean. >

Ive worked in ecotoxicology and its not far off. Government restrictions in my country are some of the strictest and dumping can occur at a concentration that has an LD 50 that is equal to or under 50% mortality dor select species. In acute studies... >

Fucking fear mongering with nuclear energy.
The title could just as much say that Japan is releasing heavy water that occurs naturally on the ocean.
A million tons of water with a little more tritium then normal in the damn pacific ocean is like a drop of rat poison dropped on a entire reservoir. Sure it is better not to, but wont happen shit in that concentration >

Sadly it does not distribute evenly and marine ecosystems where the dumping happens will be affected. Bioacumulation will also occur which is far beyond a simple physics in a flask calculation of radiation dispersion and is really misleading. >

No they won't be as the level is of insignificance and it doesn't get dumped all at once. >

IAEA has that info behind a paywall.
Again as someone who studied environmental science this is not strictly a physics equation. Things like bioaccumulation come into effect.
Heat energy (a form of radiation) is not evenly dispersed in the ocean due to a variety of factors. >

It's not really a big deal. You'd think highly radioactive water would be bad environmentally, but it would be diluted immediately due to the immensity of the ocean.
In comparison, the world's hydrosphere has a mass of 1.4 x 10^18 tonnes. It would be like throwing a rock into a black hole. >

Sadly thats not how the environment works. Check out zinc damage near popular beaches and bioaccumulation of heavy metals in fish. A simple math calculation only works for sterile water in a flask at room temperature and even density which is not what the ocean is like. My field of study was environmental science. >

Yeah but they are dumping it out in the ocean not near the coastline. They aren't just releasing the water from floodgates which would have a ridiculous impact to the environment. Hence what I meant by my analogy.
The alternative is to have radioactive isotopes remaining in their floodwater, which would pose a greater risk than doing than nothing. Same time, the environmental impact so far from the Fukushima meltdown, has been not as bad as you would think. >

The dumping rate and acceptable LD quantity and isotopes in the water that are the IAEA standards are behind a paywall. Without data any conversation is somewhat speculation.
I can attest that LD 50 is considered a strict national standard in my country (so less than 50.01% of the population exposed to the dumped concentration die) which is considered acceptable in acute studies, not chronic exposure (as long term, low dumping rates would be). My country has comparatively very strict environmental standards.
So what I think is not super relevant. The facts are hidden from view so sttatments on what we think. 
Also any data that does not discuss bioaccumulation or unequal ocean mixing (heat radiation does not. Flow or mix evenly in the ocean due to water density that will cause a sort of non mixing concentration for the radioactive isotopes. Bioaccumulation means it will not fissipate in wwater but will collect in animals, a lot of data and research reflects this.
Mass die off zones occur near popular beaches due to zinc in sunscreen. Its obviously a much smaller volume than this radiation but causes massive dead zones due to its impact on the algae and plankton that are the bas eof the food chain. Coastal or not all ocean ecosystems rely on this process for nutrients.
Since ocean ecosystems are racing towards extinction (over a 95% drop in quantity of marine life in 40 years) so forgive me if I am skeptical and want precise details on the subject I am formally trained in.
So both the studies and modeling are inaccurate because they lack an ecology model and are treating it as they would heat energy or other radiation. In comparison heat from an aluminium plant can destroy scallop breeding grounds by raising the ocean temp locally by 1 degree as is the case in fishery regions where I worked. >

With everything that goes on in the world, I'm certain that we (the humans currently alive) are going to be last generations of life on this planet. They could just as viably transport this water to x location in a deep underground structure, but that probably costs too much money, because fuck the environment. Besides, I don't think Japan would have many places to put it. 
The last article I read went into some great detail about it, which relieved my skepticism, but generally this does seem like a terrible idea. This is dumping 500k barrels of contaminated water into the ocean, I'd like to believe it's safe but what can you do? >

The issue is basically they don't have much other choice. Bore holes are great near nuclear plants however the radiation in the air around the plant still keeps some 440k residents evacuated. Also due to the massive volume that needs to be emptied it is very dangerous for people to pick up and transport the material. To limit damamge to human life they will dump it. My concern is the fragility of the bottom rung of the ocean ecosystems. Also when the reactor first leaked the radiation was still measureable (in unsafe levels) ehen it reached Canadian shores. Mostly because thats the path of currents in that part of the ocean and it did not mix at great depth (immediately) due to density. Meaning it impacted plankton across a band of the pacific and impacts every animal that eats those plankton and every animal that eats those animals (ehich means the whole ecosystem basically. Scientists were muzzled and measurements stopped being taken as fear that the general public would see the findings. Again because there wasn't anything the govt could do about it. >

Dilution is the solution. >

Gojira. >

Other countries are buying nukes, Japan is feeding protein powder to Godzilla. >

3 people died during or quickly after the incident of radiation poisoning, and an expected 20 more people in total are expected to develop cancer due to exposure at some point. I believe 5 to 10 have already been identified in people with an average age of around 75. The 5000 people all across the population that died due to the flooding are rightfully but a mere afterthought compared to the horrors of the nuclear consequences. The lesson drawn from the tsunami should be that nuclear technology is super dangerous because the thing may have been 50 years old and exposed to events outside its design parameters, the resulting loss of lifetime was in the range of a soccer mom crashing her MPV and being unlucky, and that is, of course, unacceptable for the second worst nuclear accident ever. >

Tbh they could extract that tritium, pretty sure you can find plenty for clients for it. Its extremely expensive. Also ITER and future thermonuclear powerplants will need alot of it. >

the solution to pollution is dilution >

See, the guys that throw old car batteries into the ocean were right all along! >

They could use a billion tons of water in that Siberian fire pit they cant put out... >

Japanese whale hunting has gone far enough/s >

“Ozone healing, time to phuk some OTHER shit up!!!”  - humans >

Tritium is super expensive and hard to come by. If that’s all there is in it, why not sell it to a scientist who can use it?? >

Same reason the ocean adjacent land still has issues with fresh water supply.  PURE tritium is super expensive and hard to come by.  The tritium in this water is diluted amongst all the water rendering it useless. >

Another wealthy country exporting its problems as always >

Why are you being downvoted, you're right