Protesters gathered in the capital of South Korea on Saturday to demand that the government take steps to avoid what they fear is a looming disaster from Japan's release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
The treated water contains traces of other radioactive elements that do bioaccumulate. While the water alone is below the legal food limit, that can’t be considered as a fair limit due to bioaccumulation of heavier radioactive isotopes.
They filtered out the majority of the other bio-accumulating isotopes. “Trace amounts” of isotopes exist in every single element independent of nuclear power plants.
But the traces in the wastewater are fairly high, falling just below legal food limits (ignoring that bioaccumulation by definition accumulates toxins from the water into animals).
Where are you reading that? I saw that the heavy metals were all filtered out and this discharge is for the Tritated Water only, with “trace” amounts of the heavy metals, meaning what you would find in normal salt water.
The variance in concentrations is massive. The concentrations on average is barely below legal limits and the bioaccumulation factor for these isotopes is fairly sizable in marine life.
Tepco is cutting corners on this release. They have a history of cutting corners and they will continue to cut corners. The cleanup is a massive money sink for the Japanese government and is something they are eager to be rid of (also, y’know, some old people dying is probably good for Japan’s demographics). Unfortunately for Japan, they aren’t the only people eating fish caught in Japan.
Per this source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abc1507
The treated water contains traces of other radioactive elements that do bioaccumulate. While the water alone is below the legal food limit, that can’t be considered as a fair limit due to bioaccumulation of heavier radioactive isotopes.
They filtered out the majority of the other bio-accumulating isotopes. “Trace amounts” of isotopes exist in every single element independent of nuclear power plants.
But the traces in the wastewater are fairly high, falling just below legal food limits (ignoring that bioaccumulation by definition accumulates toxins from the water into animals).
Where are you reading that? I saw that the heavy metals were all filtered out and this discharge is for the Tritated Water only, with “trace” amounts of the heavy metals, meaning what you would find in normal salt water.
That isn’t what trace means, though.
This is the data averaged over the tanks: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abc1507
The variance in concentrations is massive. The concentrations on average is barely below legal limits and the bioaccumulation factor for these isotopes is fairly sizable in marine life.
Tepco is cutting corners on this release. They have a history of cutting corners and they will continue to cut corners. The cleanup is a massive money sink for the Japanese government and is something they are eager to be rid of (also, y’know, some old people dying is probably good for Japan’s demographics). Unfortunately for Japan, they aren’t the only people eating fish caught in Japan.