Posted on 01/12/2015 11:29:15 AM PST by ilovesarah2012
ATHENS, AL (AP) - A newspaper reports that radioactive water leaked from a tank at an Alabama nuclear plant, releasing tritium into the environment.
The report said that the leak occurred last week at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant near Athens, Alabama.
A spokesman for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the plant, said the leak was quickly contained and presented no public risk.
The TVA said a drain line leaked 100 to 200 gallons of water containing tritium levels above acceptable drinking water standards.
(Excerpt) Read more at wrcbtv.com ...
Night sight juice?
The treatment is beer.
...line leaked 100 to 200 gallons of water containing tritium levels above acceptable drinking water standards.
Oh, sh!t. A friend’s husband works there.
The water containing the tritium may have exceeded safe levels, but it was immediately diluted by wherever it went to.
Save your money. Instead of spending it on those Trijicons, just have a couple glasses of water.
Agreed. I live about 12 miles downwind of the place... no concern.
Oh, and by the way: if we had to wait for a newspaper to write a story about it to find out, then there better darn well have been no safety issue involved!
Nearly nothing event. No worries.
Based on Chernobyl and Fukushima, the public will not be told promptly in order to avoid a “panic.” I lived in a town that had a new nuke plant in the area. I remember the drills and discussions etc. - but it’s all a waste of time because if you read up on actual nuclear “problems,” the public is not and will not be told. Which reduces all the discussion of air horns, escape routes and iodide capsules so much theatre.
In Chernobyl, they knew that had a blown out reactor with radiation venting into the air but they told the public not to worry and even encouraged the outdoor parade and celebration days later which took place in the shadow the smoking ruins of the reactor. Later, in an interview, their officials said, we never had evacuation drills prior to the accident because we didn’t want people to panic and then we were reluctant to evacuate because without drills, there would be panic. Then they did the math and realized the entire town’s population would be dead if exposed at ambient levels for 2 weeks so they told the public that they were temporarily being moved to another location in order to avoid panic and avoid having to transport belongings that people wished to keep. They all waited outside in the fallout, boarding buses with just hand bags and maybe an extra sweater etc. And when they arrived wherever they were bused, they were informed they could never return.
Fukushima - they had simulation data (SPEEDI) intended (and advertised) as a safety precaution to help the populace evacuate (and the nuke people always insist that will never happen) in the event of an emergency. Well, they had their emergency but the SPEEDI simulation data was suppressed. The reason it was suppressed, after translation from Japanese to English, was something like, “We did not feel like releasing the data.” Therefore, many in Fukushima looked at prevailing winds and determined that heading north and slightly west would take them directly out of the fallout plume. Unfortunately it kept them directly in the densest path of radioactive fallout and then they basically camped in contaminated zones until gov people wearing “space suits” and masks told, a few days later, it wasn’t safe.
Iodide is never distributed. In FUkushima, the governors were specifically ordered not to distribute iodide to children - only one mayor defied that order.
All notification measures and evacuation measures are theatre props. When it comes down to it, the nuke operators can’t face the admission of failure and the resulting chaos.
Tritium is itself short-lived, much like radon; once you contain the release, that which has been released decays quickly to harmless levels.
Tritium is used in a number of civilian applications. Much ado about Ho-Hum.
#2 Tritium poses no external threat because neutrons from its decay cannot penetrate skin.
#3 Ingested tritium can cause physiological effects but again this depends on amounts above nominal.
The hysteria of the use of the words "nuclear leak" could cause far more damage and injury.
Oh, I dunno. A little tritium in your morning coffee gives your skin that nice healthy glow.
Half-life is 12.3 years. That's quick relative to U-238 but long enough to be a problem in a large and uncontained release.
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