Search Results for: tritium

Tritium – aka radioactive hydrogen – from reactors is not a threat to human health
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Tritium – aka radioactive hydrogen – from reactors is not a threat to human health

…t came out this month. http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/health/tritium/tritium-sewage-sludge.cfm As you probably know Canada allows higher levels of Tritium than the US. RRMeyer Would be nice if they divulged the actual analytical results in Bq/l and the actual dose estimates. “Well below” could mean anything from pico-Sievert to 0.1 mSv. Since sewage workers presumably don’t eat the stuff, the only exposure pathway would be by inhalat…

Comparing A Leak of Tritium That Causes A Flurry to Two Oil Leaks That Are Virtually Ignored

…n isotope of hydrogen with two neutrons in its nucleus). Health Effects of Tritium How does tritium affect people’s health? As with all ionizing radiation, exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer. However, because it emits very low energy radiation and leaves the body relatively quickly, for a given amount of activity ingested, tritium is one of the least dangerous radionuclides. Since tritium is almost always found as water, i…

How much tritium leaked from Vermont Yankee before the leak was stopped?

…The CNSC requires nuclear facility operators to closely monitor and report tritium releases into the environment. The releases of tritium into the environment are controlled, and do not pose a health risk. The CNSC sets the limit for the radiation dose for the public arising from the activities of nuclear facilities at 1 mSv per year. In addition, to minimize the environmental impact of tritium releases, the CNSC uses the ALARA principle, which me…

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Enough tritium for almost a million liters at 8,000,000 pCi/L

…ite. http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/tales-of-vanishing-tritium-exit-signs-prompt-health-concerns.html Engineer-Poet On this topic, I dug for “natural tritium in water” and came up with this 1966 USGS report: http://pubs.usgs.gov/wsp/1696d/report.pdf Among other test results (found on p. 20) was the natural background measured in Vienna at 110 “tritium units” at an enrichment factor of 6.1.  I make this an un-enriched level of ~…

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NRC only partially informs public about low risk of tritium

…sign glows green or red, chances are it contains a radioactive gas called tritium. The tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, is sealed into glass tubes lined with a chemical that glows in the dark. Tritium emits low-energy radiation that cannot penetrate paper or clothing and even if inhaled, it leaves the body relatively quickly. As long as the tubes remain sealed, the signs pose no health, safety, or security hazard. (Emphasis added.) How…

Sometimes The Best Defense is a Good Offense – Comparing Tritium Leaks to a Methane Leak

…in the US. While I am not dismissing the fact that a sufficient amount of tritium can be hazardous to human health, I am stating that this amount of tritium is so miniscule that it is worth accepting, especially when compared to other risks that people accept in order to enjoy all of the benefits that reliable electricity provides. Nuclear industry leaders and regulators should say this clearly and repeatedly; instead, they wring their hands and…

Response to New York Times Question – Has Trust Leaked Away With the Tritium

…However, I would have to ask for the water to be really concentrated – the tritium that leaked out was so diluted that I would have to drink 138,000 liters. How much tritium leaked from Vermont Yankee before the leak was stopped? Rod Adams Publisher, Atomic Insights Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast Update: (Posted on April 22, 2010 at 0120) There is some continuing discussion about tritium and energy sources at the New York Times article…

Quantifying Risks of Tritium in Response to an Op-Ed Piece from the "Radioactive Watchdog" at "Beyond Nuclear"

…urie as a penny is to $10 BILLION. A curie is not a large unit; a curie of tritium has a mass of just 0.1 milligrams. Putting all of those numbers in my spreadsheet tells me that 20,000 picocuries/liter is just 0.000000000002 grams of tritium in 1000 grams of water. You could drink that water for a year as your ONLY source of fluid and get a total dose of just 3-4 millirem which is 1/100th of the average annual dose from background radiation in th…

Vermont Health Department Reports One Leak Source Found at Vermont Yankee; All Samples For Isotopes Other Than Tritium are Natural Background

…n increase the risk of any illness. Additional Reading NRC Backgrounder on Tritium, Radiation Protection Limits, and Drinking Water Standards Aside:After reading the above fact sheet, I learned that I have been incorrectly computing the potential doses from tritium based on obsolete information. The drinking water limit in the US is 20,000 picocuries per liter. When that was determined in 1976, it was based on a computational assumption that a per…

Better use of Tritium for power

…ent in certain kinds of nuclear weapons. Don’t get me wrong – I think that tritium is an exceedingly useful isotope with incredible commercial potential, but I would rather see it be used in small, distributed, high value energy applications. As it decays at its steady and predictable rate, tritium releases low energy particles. In the nuclear lexicon, these particles are called “beta minus” particles, but an electrical engineer would call them el…

Admittedly Emotional Response to the Effort to Equate the Environmental Effects of TMI and Tritium Leaks With Deepwater Horizon

…or oil. And then, another crisis just happened. In New Jersey, radioactive tritium just leaked into the aquifer from a nuclear plant. It’s getting in people’s groundwater. Hopefully that disaster can show people that we’re really gambling with our children’s future when we’re giving tens of billions of dollars to nuclear energy in this bill. Joe Romm, a guy who generally claims that he is not opposed to nuclear energy, stated that the source of hi…

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Who is targeting FP&L’s Turkey Point power plant? Why? Part I

…om the CCS. However, at depth, the CCS appears to be the primary source of tritium, and using tritium as a tracer in the lower elevations of the Biscayne Aquifer is reasonable. Reported measurements show groundwater tritium concentrations in excess of 3000 pCi/L near the CCS, with concentrations decreasing with distance from the CCS, and found at concentrations of hundreds of pCi/L three miles west of the CCS at depth. The approximate limit of the…

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