ok real talk. 3 mile island reportedly had no result on the environment, on account of being fully contained. Chernobyl was significant, obviously.
Fukushima as far as we can tell today, has no significant long lasting effects. Notably i’ve read that rates of certain cancers in areas surrounding the plant did rise, but i’ve also heard that it was still below the nominal expected rate. So nothing of significant concern. The local sea life near to the plant could very well be an issue, but we don’t really have much data on that at the moment. Especially now that they’ve started releasing tritiated water into the ocean for the next 20-50 years or whatever the fuck the plan is supposed to be.
certain cancers in areas surrounding the plant did rise
just a note to add that if you start checking the population for something routinely like thyroid cancer… the rate that you find it goes up. This is why the detected cancer rate increasing is not considered a cause for alarm.
yeah, but then again if you did have a significant raise, you would expect it to be outside of what is statistically nominal for the general population, and from what i understand, it was not. So even if it was a result of the radiation. It would still be lower than the average human expectancy throughout one life time. I.E. Not statistically significant to any degree of concern.
Especially now that they’ve started releasing tritiated water into the ocean for the next 20-50 years or whatever the fuck the plan is supposed to be.
the tritiated water is no-more concentrated than what other power plants around the world release. (the latter may be surprising to know) In addition, tritium has a half-life of only 12.3 years and is diluted in a literal sea, which is an extremely good radiation shield.
yeah. This is all very true, but like most dilutions, things take time, and it’ll be interesting to follow the dilution process as it moves forwards. From what i understand the tritiated water is also released farther out form the shore to prevent local pollution, but i believe there are still elevated levels of radiation in sea life surrounding the shore. Though i can’t remember if that was significant or not. Regardless, humans consume fish, it’s something to be weary of to some degree (i believe there are laws around this already though)
Also, last i heard, they were handing out bottles of this tritiated water during a press conference they gave near the plant. Definitely not in accordance with regulations and stipulations recommending how you interact with this type of radiation, but then again, flying in for that press conference is going to expose you to more radiation anyway so.
BTW, fun fact for anyone curious as to why they don’t just “remove the water” It’s because tritiated water is so closely related to your average water molecule, that it’s basically identical from a molecular composition point of view (except for the fact that it has tritium in it) as a result, there is no way of removing it. Or, an easy way of removing it.
The part that I’m amazed by is that no civilian seems to know about the TVA meltdown. It’s the only full meltdown we ever had, and the Army Corps of Engineers lost all access to nuclear power because of that incident, as they intentionally melted it down to test China Syndrome. This was in the 50s. They did build the thing inside of a mountain to contain all the radiation, but had the physicist that came up with China Syndrome been right, that wouldn’t have really mattered. They also could have just done the math to figure out that, yet again, the physicist in question understood physics just fine, but lacked in mathematics.
Chernobyl and Fukushima were chemical explosions. Three Mile Island didn’t get to the meltdown stage, just got dangerously close. Seems that running nuclear power as a for profit venture isn’t a good idea.
i’ve never heard of it, i would assume it isn’t out there. Technically there is one other meltdown we had though, the SL-1 reactor, killed three people. Caused a bit of a mess, wasn’t super significant though.
Was that a naval/sub reactor? Or was this something else?
That was technically an Army test reactor. The Navy has a spotless record, so far. I say technically because there may have been some minor cross service collaboration in the design of that thing.
ye, i was mostly mentioning it because it is technically another true meltdown of a reactor within the US.
Naval sub reactors i know have a spotless record, across the aisle, amusingly. Ship reactors i would imagine are less of a problem, though im guessing those are just stolen from subs so equally spotless most likely.
ok real talk. 3 mile island reportedly had no result on the environment, on account of being fully contained. Chernobyl was significant, obviously.
Fukushima as far as we can tell today, has no significant long lasting effects. Notably i’ve read that rates of certain cancers in areas surrounding the plant did rise, but i’ve also heard that it was still below the nominal expected rate. So nothing of significant concern. The local sea life near to the plant could very well be an issue, but we don’t really have much data on that at the moment. Especially now that they’ve started releasing tritiated water into the ocean for the next 20-50 years or whatever the fuck the plan is supposed to be.
Nuclear energy fucks around sometimes.
just a note to add that if you start checking the population for something routinely like thyroid cancer… the rate that you find it goes up. This is why the detected cancer rate increasing is not considered a cause for alarm.
yeah, but then again if you did have a significant raise, you would expect it to be outside of what is statistically nominal for the general population, and from what i understand, it was not. So even if it was a result of the radiation. It would still be lower than the average human expectancy throughout one life time. I.E. Not statistically significant to any degree of concern.
the tritiated water is no-more concentrated than what other power plants around the world release. (the latter may be surprising to know) In addition, tritium has a half-life of only 12.3 years and is diluted in a literal sea, which is an extremely good radiation shield.
yeah. This is all very true, but like most dilutions, things take time, and it’ll be interesting to follow the dilution process as it moves forwards. From what i understand the tritiated water is also released farther out form the shore to prevent local pollution, but i believe there are still elevated levels of radiation in sea life surrounding the shore. Though i can’t remember if that was significant or not. Regardless, humans consume fish, it’s something to be weary of to some degree (i believe there are laws around this already though)
Also, last i heard, they were handing out bottles of this tritiated water during a press conference they gave near the plant. Definitely not in accordance with regulations and stipulations recommending how you interact with this type of radiation, but then again, flying in for that press conference is going to expose you to more radiation anyway so.
BTW, fun fact for anyone curious as to why they don’t just “remove the water” It’s because tritiated water is so closely related to your average water molecule, that it’s basically identical from a molecular composition point of view (except for the fact that it has tritium in it) as a result, there is no way of removing it. Or, an easy way of removing it.
The radiation near shore will also have any residual from the initial tsunami.
Who is doing the control TEPCO ? So we are safe 🙈
i think tepco the government, and the regular suspects in the international agencies.
Japan for what it’s worth has a culture that is pretty strict about these sorts of things, so i can’t imagine they would blunder this one.
The part that I’m amazed by is that no civilian seems to know about the TVA meltdown. It’s the only full meltdown we ever had, and the Army Corps of Engineers lost all access to nuclear power because of that incident, as they intentionally melted it down to test China Syndrome. This was in the 50s. They did build the thing inside of a mountain to contain all the radiation, but had the physicist that came up with China Syndrome been right, that wouldn’t have really mattered. They also could have just done the math to figure out that, yet again, the physicist in question understood physics just fine, but lacked in mathematics.
Chernobyl and Fukushima were chemical explosions. Three Mile Island didn’t get to the meltdown stage, just got dangerously close. Seems that running nuclear power as a for profit venture isn’t a good idea.
I looked up TVA meltdown, got no results about it.
It may still be classified. I learned about it in Nuclear Power School in the Navy
i’ve never heard of it, i would assume it isn’t out there. Technically there is one other meltdown we had though, the SL-1 reactor, killed three people. Caused a bit of a mess, wasn’t super significant though.
Was that a naval/sub reactor? Or was this something else?
That was technically an Army test reactor. The Navy has a spotless record, so far. I say technically because there may have been some minor cross service collaboration in the design of that thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
ye, i was mostly mentioning it because it is technically another true meltdown of a reactor within the US.
Naval sub reactors i know have a spotless record, across the aisle, amusingly. Ship reactors i would imagine are less of a problem, though im guessing those are just stolen from subs so equally spotless most likely.