[marktwain]

"The worry is with 300 tons of radioactive water going into the Pacific every day,

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A non-sensical measure? How much radiation is that? How far about background radiation?

1 m Sievert = 1 pCi (but that is conflating dose in a human with radiation levels, so it is not precise.)

http://people.uwec.edu/jolhm/EH/Rosenhoeft/index5.htm

Background radiation in the Oceans is about 330 pCi/Liter.

http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm

Ocean water is naturally radioactive, as is the ground, as is the air. What we would like to know, is how much more radioactive is the water that is going into the Pacific from the damaged nuclear plants, than the natural background level.

That is the critical measure that we are not being told.

If it a trillion times as radioactive, it might be a problem. Currently, they say 300 tons of the water is going into the ocean every day. That is about 300 cubic meters of water. The Pacific has a volume of about 6.549 x 10¹⁷ m³ cubic meters of water. To double the background radiation in the Pacific, if the water going in were a trillion times as radioactive, as ocean water, it would take six years of that output.

We do not see anywhere near that level of radioactivity rise in the oceans, so the water going in must be much, much less radioactive than a trillion times as much as the natural background.

How much is it above background levels? Double? Triple? A million times? A billion times? At even a billion times, it would raise the background level only .01 percent in six years.

The numbers are important.

Math done quickly, but I think the numbers are close.

The particular radioactive isotopes and their half lives are likely far more important.

[zek157]

A voice of reason. It’s not good situation, but it’s a big ocean.

Remember the talk about soviets sinking their old nuclear subs? If true, I would think there has been quite a bit of materiel that has been quietly soaking in the ocean for the last fourty + years.

[goldbux]

Thank you for your intelligent, informed, accurate calculations, clearly explained.

[farming pharmer]

Thank you for a dose of sanity. I’ve got a nuclear pharmacy background and a lot of the preceding is bunk.

[Myrddin]

Your assumptions are based on uniform mixing and dilution. That is not happening. Much of the material is caught in surface currents. It never gets much below 40 ft below the surface. When high winds cause frothy waves, the cesium-137/cesium-134 is lofted into the air and is blown far inland. It has been picked up 300 miles east of the CA coast. Plant life on the west coast is incorporating radioactive material blown in by storms and rained down. I've seen 30,000 CPM of alpha particles on fresh rain water from a person in the western Washington state area. Counts abate as the water soaks into the soil.

I'm waiting for the reports of strontium-90. It's coming.