Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumFukushima nuclear plant: Toxic isotope found in groundwater
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said tests showed Strontium-90 was present at 30 times the legal rate.
The radioactive isotope tritium has also been detected at elevated levels.
...
Strontium-90 is formed as a by-product of nuclear fission. Tests showed that levels of strontium in groundwater at the Fukushima plant had increased 100-fold since the end of last year, Toshihiko Fukuda, a Tepco official, told media.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22964089
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madokie
(51,076 posts)The gift that keeps on giving. How anyone can advocate for more of these nuclear power plants is beyond me. Other than the people who have a vested interest in them that is.
How clean is it when you have a technology that can render a whole area off limits for the foreseeable future? How intelligent is it to build more of these when we know what can and does happen with them? Why is it a smart thing to do to keep throwing money at a process that has shown us how dangerous it is? All the while that we're fiddling with this the co2 is climbing and money and most important precious time is being wasted on something that will not stop this global warming. Those of us who can think for ourselves can see that there is alternates to the way that we make our electricity. Wind, Solar and Geothermal can and will save us. We don't have to continue to rape the planet to get the energy we need. Nuclear energy proponents should be cast aside as one would a person advocating for a return to communism. They simply are not needed, both the people who want more of them and the nuke plants themselves.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)???
A "return to communism"? When did we try communism? The catastrophic failures of our society are entirely due to capitalism. In fact, you could say that, if there were still some significant communist countries in the world, our predatory capitalists would be more reined in by their fears of a labor/poor people revolt (as they in fact were in previous eras).
Do you mean in Russia and China? They would both do well to return to SOME principles of communism, including food, shelter, education, and decent jobs, salaries and pensions for all human beings, but perhaps even more important, a strong sense of "the commons"--our common humanity, our common fate, our common needs, including our need for common ownership and control of vital human systems--water, power and communications, for instance; or natural resources; or financial institutions.
Just because communism failed in societies that had never known democracy doesn't mean that all of its ideas are wrong. Capitalists-gone-wild seek to privatize EVERYTHING. THAT is wrong. Indeed, it is a plague! And we have at least one sterling example of a "communist" idea implemented in our society--Social Security: the idea that the elderly shouldn't be left to starve and die, when their usefulness to capitalists was over, but rather that workers should pool their savings, and employers should contribute, to create a common pension fund. Labor unions and collective bargaining were once considered to be--and once WERE--communist ideas. They have been under devastating attack, from capitalists, for three decades now (since Reagan's busting of the air controllers union). Should we dread a "return" to these ideas, as we dread nuclear power and its potential to destroy all life on earth?
Your analogy between advocates of nuclear power and advocates of "a return to communism" is...well, weird. Nuclear power has no redeeming features. It was a horribly bad idea to start with. It is a horribly bad idea now. It is armageddon waiting to happen. And those who advocate it are self-interested. Short-term profit is their goal; they try to blind us to its very real and very terrible danger. Communism, on the other hand--even in its most tyrannical forms--fed, clothed, housed, educated and employed billions of people who would otherwise have been savagely neglected. With the predatory capitalism of this era, we are seeing that savage world re-created--the world of 19th Century robber barons, imperialists, banksters, official mafias, thieves and war profiteers--the world in which communist ideals were born, with notions of fairness, labor rights, human rights, social responsibility and collective power.
So, though we in the west have never really tried communism, full bore, this might well be a time to reconsider its ideas, in light of our current situation, and with our historical knowledge of what works and what doesn't.**
Nuclear power is an entirely different category of idea. It cannot be combined with its opposite, benign power (for instance, solar power), to make it "safe"; whereas some communist ideas and some capitalist ideas could, indeed, be combined--and would be improved by being combined--to make a successful society. (We once had a successful society by combining them!) (--though we didn't go far enough in curtailing corporate/war profiteer power and protecting "the commons" and the common welfare).
Maybe SOME DAY nuclear power could be made truly safe. But these current experiments are way, WAY too risky--they risk everything; they risk life itself, and completely unnecessarily.
Predatory capitalism, by the way, is equally dangerous. It is destroying planet Earth just as surely as several Fukishima's would do--the Fukushima's waiting to happen--though on a slightly slower time-table. Capitalists are destroying the atmosphere and climate stability, at the same time using their enormous untoward power over government and communications to resist efforts to stop this catastrophe. 10 to 20 years and the planet will start becoming unlivable; it is already on that path--and nothing is being done! This is as unconscionable as continuing to build nuke power plants after Fukushima.
But neither communism nor capitalism--in the forms we have known them--would provide solutions. Democracy would do so, if we had democracy. Our fake democracy will never respond. A combination of REAL democracy, communistic respect for "the commons," and the creativity of a real marketplace (not one that nuke and fossil fuel monopolists control) could provide solutions. An absolute monarch could provide solutions. Maybe that's what it will all come down to. Maybe we need a monarch--who is traditionally, symbolically and spiritually associated with "the land"--to protect the land. The "barons" aren't going to do it. And the "barons" aren't going to permit democracy either. They've made that very, very clear.
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**(For instance, I would say, thinking of social/governmental systems in a theoretical way, that democracy--real democracy--is the first requisite of communist economic ideas working out well, in the long term and for the benefit of all--including strong guards against centralized power becoming tyrannical power. Secondly, while basic human needs, education and good jobs for all are "must do's," in a just and fair society, suppression of real marketplaces is a bad idea and will stifle human creativity. The key is to suppress monopolies and untoward big business power. Making things and selling things in a REAL marketplace IS a human need--and should not be suppressed--while corporate monopolies and their untoward power (and the inevitable mafias in a capitalistic system) are bad and should be suppressed by democratic government, in favor of REAL markets. Also, ALL should fairly contribute--through labor or taxes--to the collective democratic power of government and to the social welfare.)
Javaman
(62,530 posts)makes bones...er...something they're not now!
xchrom
(108,903 posts)
wtmusic
(39,166 posts)"A number of studies by the Radiation Public Health Project1 assert that levels of radioactive strontium-90 (Sr-90) are rising in the environment and that these increased levels are responsible for increases in cancers, particularly cancers in children, and infant mortality. The group claims that radioactive effluents from nuclear power plants are directly responsible for the increases in Sr-90. In one study, researchers reported that Sr-90 concentrations in baby teeth are higher in areas around nuclear power plants than in other areas. This has sometimes been referred to as “The Tooth Fairy Project.” However, numerous peer-reviewed, scientific studies do not substantiate such claims.
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"By far, the largest source of Sr-90 in the environment (~99%) is from weapons testing fallout. Approximately 16.8 million curies of strontium-90 were produced and globally dispersed in atmospheric nuclear weapons testing until 1980 (UNSCEAR 2001)2. With a 28 year half-life, Sr-90 still remains in the environment at nominal levels. Numerous measurements were made during weapons testing which found that the worldwide average radiation dose from ingesting Sr-90 (1945 to present) is 9.7 millirem (about equal to radiation doses from a transpolar flight), and the dose from inhaling strontium-90 (1945 to 1985) is 0.92 millirem (about equal to the dose from an arm or leg x-ray). These doses are well below those doses known to cause any effects on health (NCRP 1991)3. The doses from Sr-90 in the environment are about 0.3% of the average annual dose a person in the United States receives from natural background radiation (~300 millirem)."
Fukushima residents' daily intake from weapons testing far exceeds what they'll ever see from the Fukushima disaster.
"Sr-90, if ingested, tends to mimic calcium when it is in the body and therefore becomes concentrated in calcified tissues such as bones and teeth. If ingested in quantities that produce very large radiological dose rates (about a thousand times higher than doses we all receive from natural radiation), Sr-90 is known to increase the risk of bone cancer and leukemia in animals, and is presumed to do so in people. Below these doses, there is no evidence of excess cancer"
https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/tooth-fairy.html
Please don't feed the nucleophobes. Millions die annually from the effects of global warming and fossil fuels, completely preventable with 100% carbon-free nuclear power. Those are the facts.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)for "Fukushima residents' daily intake from weapons testing far exceeds what they'll ever see from the Fukushima disaster. " If they avoid the area with the groundwater at 30 times the legal level, perhaps.
wtmusic
(39,166 posts)Mr Fukuda said Tepco believed the elevated levels originated from a leak of contaminated water in April 2011 from one of the reactors.
"As it's near where the leak from reactor number two happened and taking into account the situation at the time, we believe that water left over from that time is the highest possibility," he said.
Tritium, used in glow-in-the-dark watches, was found at eight times the allowable level.
Mr Fukuda said that samples from the sea showed no rise in either substance and the company believed the groundwater was being contained by concrete foundations.
"When we look at the impact that is having on the ocean, the levels seem to be within past trends and so we don't believe it's having an effect."
If you want to assume that people are going to be sucking groundwater from inside the foundations of the plant itself, go ahead. That's an absurd, hysterical, and groundless assumption to which I'm not going to respond - because it doesn't deserve a response.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)...
Testing revealed strontium-90 readings of 1,000 becquerels per liter, 33 times more than the legal limit, as well as tritium readings of 500,000 becquerels per liter, 8.3 times the limit.
Tepco said it believes the radioactive groundwater has yet to reach the ocean, as radiation readings in seawater samples from near the shore have not shown significant shifts.
...
Tepco will soon begin building a bank protection along the shore that will be strengthened with waterproof liquid glass in an effort to prevent the contaminated groundwater from reaching the sea.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/06/20/national/strontium-in-groundwater-at-no-1-soars/#.UcHfhcWts_g
Of course, groundwater can go down as well as sideways, and it's not as if they'll build a horizontal base to any containment.
wtmusic
(39,166 posts)The point is when it enters seawater it will be diluted within moments by a factor of millions - well below atmospheric Sr-90 levels.
If it ends up in Fukushima fresh groundwater, in wells, with unsafe levels - that's an entirely different issue.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)"'Dump it into the ocean, and it will be fine.""
You remind me of the coal burners, who back in the 60's said if we just build higher smokestacks the pollution will be minimized and it will all go away.
Such idiotic reasoning is why our environment is so ill. And you are just continuing in the same vein.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)Or, maybe compare molarities, depending on what effects you want to study.
It also helps to remember that all this CO2 is released when the plants are operating correctly, it doesn't require any kind of accident.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)It all adds up.
The same thinking of what got us into this mess, the: ' a little more won't make a difference' idea, is what I was pointing out.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)I guess what I'm getting at is: There are something like 1800 tons of fuel (used and unused) at the Fukushima complex. Most of that will not diffuse out into the world. But for fun, suppose it did.
We release 36 billion tons of CO2 into the environment each year. That's just shy of 100,000 tons every day. So, every single day we release 50 times the mass of CO2 into the environment as there is fuel at Fukushima. We've released so much CO2 that we've literally changed the pH of the oceans. And that represents about 25% of the CO2 that we've released in total.
The Pacific ocean is not in any danger from Fukushima. It's in terrible danger from CO2. But the fact is, that people are terrified of nuclear power and they are not terrified of burning fossil fuels. Our risk assessments are currently way out of alignment with the real threat matrix.
I've decided that this is an interesting sociological problem all by itself. Why is this happening? I expect it's complicated, because people are complicated, but partly I feel sure it has something to do with movies about giant mutant monsters and post-nuclear-war apocalypse movies.
The real apocalypse will not be giant mutant monsters. It won't even be cancer. It will be sea animals unable to grow shells.