Hacker News Reader

Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

The treated water should probably be pumped onto tanker ships and taken to the middle of the ocean for release. It would be so massively diluted as to be harmless, and remove any chance for local contamination. It would be far safer than leaving it in tanks on-site, which are subject to leaks, intentional damage, etc.

View on HN

The treated water isn't the problem, it's all of the water that has yet to be treated. Currently they are accumulating more water in tanks then they are treating it, which is a difficult process. Interestingly some of the cutting edge treatment techniques are being pioneered at the Hanford Nuclear site in Washington State, USA. I went on a tour there and talked to one of the scientists working at the ground water cleanup facilities and he said they have sent a lot of scientists over to Japan to help with Fukushima. Though he mentioned off hand that Tepco has not been as cooperative as they would have hoped.

I thought one of the lessons of Hanford groundwater cleanup was that it's an impossible task, at least with current methods---the returns of processing the water over and over diminish to nothing long before the task is done. (Sorry I have no source on this.)

Is there a reason why they don't run the irradiated water through chillers and recirculate? Closed loop system?

As I understand it, it's groundwater that's seeping up into the plant. See:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/info/images/130529...

Yeah but who's gonna crew a tanker of highly irradiated water?

The lowest bidder!

In all seriousness, radiation shielding (necessary thickness of metal, etc) is quite well understood. It's probably not even an especially hazardous cargo compared to what most tankers haul.

With adequate precautions (to name a few examples - shielding, crew dosimeters, crew rotation if more than one trip needed), I imagine it'd be a pretty safe cargo to take. I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually safer than hauling something like oil.

Do you really think a tanker filled with crude oil is much safer?

Dumping the radioactive waste into the ocean is an insanely bad idea.

Depends on what your dealing with. Many schools are built using cement that's radioactive enough to be detectable. So, we would call it radioactive waste if it was used near a reactor and not contaminated. But, if it was part of a school and exactly as radioactive then no problem.

Source? Sounds unlikely!

I can't find the school example, but this stuff is a hodge podge of different rules. The basic problem is:

Depending on who "owns" the waste, its handling and disposal is regulated differently. " In 10 C.F.R. § 20.2002, the NRC reserves the right to grant a free release of radioactive waste. The overall activity of such a disposal cannot exceed 1 mrem/yr and the NRC regards requests on a case-by-case basis. Low-level waste passing such strict regulations is then disposed of in a landfill with other garbage. Items allowed to be diposed of in this way are: glow-in-the-dark watches (radium) and smoke detectors (americium) among other things."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-level_waste

"Low-level waste (LLW) is nuclear waste that does not fit into the categorical definitions for intermediate-level waste (ILW), high-level waste (HLW), spent nuclear fuel (SNF), transuranic waste (TRU), or certain byproduct materials known as 11e(2) wastes, such as uranium mill tailings. In essence, it is a definition by exclusion, and LLW is that category of radioactive wastes that do not fit into the other categories. "

Of note, there is no exclusion for naturally occurring radioactivity.

No, it's not.

The sea has extractable uranium in it already, and the volume of water is pretty much a literal drop in the ocean.

Maybe shoot small amounts into space until it is all gone. That would probably be too risky and expensive.

Stunningly too expensive, according to the article they have "nearly million tonnes of radioactive water". That's a billion kilograms. Even at a pretty phenomenal $15,000 per kg to launch into space that would run an impressive $15 trillion.

And that really only puts it in low earth orbit, where it would fall back down again after a few months/years, maybe decades if you get it high enough.

Clearly the best method for dealing with radioactive waste is building a space elevator to get it out of the gravity well for cheap.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com