1 yr. ago • 98%

Japan says no radioactivity found in Fukushima fish, Kyodo reports

www.reuters.com Japan says no radioactivity found in Fukushima fish, Kyodo reports

Japan's fisheries agency said on Saturday fish tested in waters around the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant did not contain detectable levels of the radioactive isotope tritium, Kyodo news service reported.

40 comments

I work with radiation. Radiation is hard for lay people to understand, and they are all afraid of it.

The technical language in this article is not helpful for lay people, but it is for me.

You get a much larger dose of a much worse kind of radiation exposure by eating a banana than drinking a liter of this seawater.

And things like Brazil nuts, your basement, living at altitude or near certain kinds of rocks, flying, smoke detectors, or dental X-rays are much, much worse.

Not to mention higher dose medical procedures (CT, PET, SPECT, and radiation therapy). Those, however, are borderline dangerous, but there's a trade-off. Your radiation therapy may lead to secondary cancer down the line, but your primary cancer is killing you right now.

These articles also need to mention that the actual experts -- the people who know what they're doing and understand this -- agree this is the best and safest course of action. I'm not that kind of person, but I know plenty of them. I assure you, they are very cautious.

86
- Thank you. Ppl hear radiation and immediately think of glowing fuel rods, and the three eyed fish from the Simpsons. Uv rays are more dangerous than this sea water
  
  28
  
  Oh yeah. I didn't even think about uv.
  
  Let's include "going to the beach to collect said seawater during the day" to my list.
  
  Edit: and driving to the beach.
  
  14
- Isn't the problem as much with the radiation itself as consuming radioactive elements that will stay in your body likely to the rest of your life and provide radiation from the inside?
  
  3
  
  Tritiated water mostly has a 12 day lifespan in your body, at max. Some of it may be used as tritium instead of normal hydrogen in putting things together, but it's not like other nasty radionuclides.
  
  4
- Thank you for this!
  
  2
- Thank you! I took ONE 100 level science class on radiation and every one almost always seem to be wrong in their understanding. Enough that I doubted everything I learned (for a while)
  
  2
- Ok but, people aren't talking about drinking the sea water, are they? It's about eating fish and sea vegetables that are living/growing in it. Do we know what the effect of eating these foods will be?
  
  A fish will be consuming a lot more than a litre of water over its lifespan.
  
  Edit: You could answer my question instead of downvoting me...
  
  -2
  
  I'm sure they'd let you drink some of you want. Seems much less safe to me and I'm not sure you could drink enough to make a difference, at least as far as the fish are concerned.
  
  1
  
  I'm sure they'd let you drink some of you want. Seems much less safe to me and I'm not sure you could drink enough to make a difference, at least as far as the fish are concerned.
  
  1
- Maybe this one act considered independently isn't that bad. What I don't like is the "dilution is the solution to pollution" attitude that comes from acceptance of this type of activity.
  
  -5
  
  For tritiated water, it largely is. For other bioaccumulative radio-isotopes it's not. There's still potential for concerns. But I think this release is good.
  
  8
  
  All radioactive elements decay. Tritium has a half life of about 12½ years and it turns into ordinary hydrogen. If they keep releasing tritium at the same rate for a long time, it will reach a maximum concentration in about 25 years (or maybe less, depending on how accurate my fuzzy math is). Once it reaches that point, it will decay as fast as it's released.
  
  It's also worth noting that if they want to release the tritium at a constant rate, they'll have to gradually increase the rate at which they release the contaminated water, because the tritium is already decaying in storage.
  
  7
Few weeks ago... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/24/fukushima-fish-with-180-times-legal-limit-of-radioactive-cesium-fuels-water-release-fears

6
- Rainwater from the areas around reactors one, two and three, which melted down during the March 2011 disaster, flows into the inner breakwater where the rockfish was caught in May.
  
  The water being released now is diluted and much less contaminated.
  
  3
  
  That concerns only 35% of the total water storage and keep in mind how many times did TEPCO lie.
  
  1
  
  Yes apparently they can't contains contained fishes. That's not a good signal. Keep in mind that les than 35% of the water can be released and how many times did tepco lie.
  
  1
  
  Less than 40% of the water is supposed to be treated. Apparently those fishes are supposed to come from the port a zone they can't even contain. Keep in mind how many times did TEPCO lie.
  
  1
Sure, just keep distracting from the fact that you just created Godzilla.

3
Good to see for the fish.

3
- It's actually really good, since China blocked imports and fish population will be able to grow
  
  8
  
  Touche!
  
  2
This is just dumb. They just started releasing the contaminated water and they will keep doing so for a long time. This will lead to ever increasing concentrations of tritium which will then be further concentrated in living organisms. So it'll take quite a while for effects to be seen.

0
- isn't this supposed to be mitigated by the fact that the tritium eventually blends into the larger ocean such that the concentration remains in harmless levels at the end anyway?
  
  7
- The half-life of tritium is 12.33 years, so no, it won't be ever-increasing. In 12.33 years, there will be half as much.
  
  6
  
  Date of meltdown: March 11, 2011.
  
  1
In America when the FBI investigates itself it find no wrongful shootings, same with the police.

Enjoy the fish.

-23
- Good thing it's not just Japan saying this then. Everyone that knows what the hell they're talking about are.
  
  17
  
  If it was Japan's word on it, I wouldn't trust it either. But the measurements are a solid science that's easy to do, and hasn't been disputed
  
  8
  
  And yet there are no studies of the time it takes to have radiation propagate through this specific ecosystem and a comprehensive accounting of it's potential downstream impacts and vectors. Thus making an early propoganda piece that imparts a false sense of safety, dangerous and irresponsible reporting.
  
  Additionally the assumption that the release of radioactive material will be a constant and consistent rate and not vary or get significantly worse is just that--an assumption.
  
  If you think the science on fukishma and releasing radioactive water into the ocean there is done and settled and everything is fine... No radiation in fish... Then brother do I have a deal on a slightly used bridge that you cannot afford to miss!
  
  1
- Cynicism is a lazy cognitive shortcut that leads to wrong conclusions almost as often as naivete does.
  
  14
  
  Denial of the realities of a capitalist world and it's horrors are how we got here in the first place. It's not just lazy to be blindly optimistic and ignore the track records of the nuclear industry and the failures of regulatory bodies in charge of them--it's literally deadly.
  
  Head in the sand is a luxury best left to shit posters on the internet. When they're actually able to influence things we end up with Fukishimas.
  
  1

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