Judging by the all-beta numbers, the leaked waste water (extremely high in beta nuclides but not so much in gamma nuclides) hasn't reached the drains or the ocean in great quantities yet.
TEPCO's handout for the press in English, 9/4/2013:
(Click to enlarge)
The highest all-beta reading of 700 Bq/L is at B-3, where the B Drain and C Drain meet. At the ocean at T-2, all-beta is ND.
The number to look out for for all-beta is in tens of thousands of becquerels per liter (i.e. number in the order of 1.0E+05 per liter) or higher for the water in the drains.
The last time the Reverse Osmosis (RO) waste water leaked from the Reverse Osmosis Apparatus itself and reached the ocean (March 2012), all-beta in the water in the drain reached 86,000 Bq/L. Once it reached the ocean, the contamination was diluted to less than 1/1000, and only 55 Bq/L of all-beta was detected at T-2 location in the diagram above. However, when the water leaked from the Evaporative Condensation Apparatus in December 2011, the number for all-beta was four orders of magnitude bigger for the drain water (1.0E+0.5 per cubic centimeter).
So far the number like those hasn't happened.
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8 comments:
What we need to know now is the precise concentration of the strontium-90 and the alpha emitters in the tank water. It's all very well to observe that the sea water greatly dilutes it, but the fundamental problem is organisms constantly concentrate it.
So dilution is not the safety-valve that it appears to be, or which people wish it to be, or assume it is.
We need continuous systematic long-term GPS transect-line catch-sampling of the fish over the width and breadth and depths of the littoral, for 100km north and south of the plant for the next 10 years, so that we actually now what is happening within the marine environment. And the results need to be published in full, regularly, in open access formats.
Fukushima fishermen should be paid to perform this task, since they know the area best, where fish gather, and will also need such work, and are best equipped to do it.
Until long-term sampling programs are doing this the question-mark over Fukushima is not going to go away.
This is what professional Govt marine research and fisheries research organizations should already be doing here, and providing up to date systematic data on this. It's troubling the lack of information available on this.
Trawling the bottom is not going to be possible due to the heavy debris from the tsunami, so troll-lines, hand-fishing and set fish-traps will be needed.
Well, if contaminated water did not get "to the ocean in great quantities yet" it is going to get there sooner or later. Primavera-san, what kind of post is this...?
i'm with commenter #1. We need to know what is happening in real time. not months and years later. God help us all if sfp4 fails.
What kind of post is this? To let you know what kind of numbers to look for when the media reports on the contamination of water from this leak. Clearly I failed.
You did not fail. Rather, you posted something that is quite helpful for people who are not specialists, either by background or by current study. Thank-you!
Now we only have to hope that the media actually regale us with actual numbers in their stories.
Woods Hole is another nuclear shill. The question is not dilution but concentration.
test
Such a tragedy that all of that water has been contaminated.
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