Thursday, October 27, 2011

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: 2,600 Bq/Liter Tritium in Water Being Sprayed in the Plant Compound

On October 24, TEPCO quietly released the analysis of the water being sprayed in the plant compound, supposedly for fire and dust suppression.

The water comes from the basements of Reactors 5 and 6, and is treated, apparently, by the system that uses reverse osmosis. TEPCO assures us the water is safer than the seawater cleared for ocean bathing, though it does exceed the WHO standard.

One notable nuclide that does remain after the RO treatment is tritium (H3). From TEPCO's handout for the press (10/24/2011):

In fact, the treated water is so safe that a cabinet officer of the Noda administration has vowed to drink up the water (link in Japanese) to appeal safety. Seriously.

Apparently, TEPCO at Fuku-I plant is getting ready to shoot the video of water collection for the officer, according to the tweet from a plant worker. The worker is a bit cross with this performance by the politician and TEPCO's willingness to accommodate him.

I hope this officer knows that tritium is a beta emitter, and not really recommended for ingestion.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yfUBMkddhE8#!

Anonymous said...

nothin like a good ole beta emitter to contaminate the water supply even more mmmmmm it feels warmmm

Anonymous said...

TEPCO should start selling tritium drinks! The Japanese have a way of dealing with things when pushed....

Anonymous said...

Kanpai!

M- said...

Obviously, this cabinet officer won't suffer any ill effects from the "decontaminated" water, because he's confident in it. This means that he's happy, and happy people don't suffer health risks from radiation exposure.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@M, exactly. And the Ministry of the Environment is looking for an employee with a positive attitude to deal with decontamination in Fukushima, as if positive attitude is all it takes to "decontaminate".

Yosaku said...

arevamirpal::laprimavera,

Valuable info, but you say "TEPCO assures us the water is safer than the seawater cleared for ocean bathing, though it does exceed the WHO standard."

But the chart says that the WHO limit is 10 bq/cm^3 and that the reading was 2.6 bq/cm^3.

This does not exceed the standard.

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