Researchers - removing radioactive tritium???

[Oscar]

Researchers develop technology to remove radioactive tritium from water

[ https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... na/013000c ]

by Koki Matsumoto, The Mainichi (Japan), August 28, 2023

QUOTE: "OSAKA -- A team of researchers from Kindai University and private companies in western Japan has developed a new filter enabling the removal of water containing radioactive tritium. . . . "

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[Oscar]

CAN TRITIUM BE REMOVED FROM WATER?

Dr. Gordon Edwards Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
[ http://ccnr.org/#tr ]

Background (August 30, 2023)

Thanks to Arnie Gundersen for calling attention to the article above . . . .

The nuclear industry’s promoters and defenders are only too eager to dump millions of gallons or even millions of tonnes of tritium-contaminated water into the Hudson River and the Pacific Ocean respectively, claiming that they are powerless to remove the radioactive tritium from the contaminated water.

So the apostles of this supposedly “advanced” technology – nuclear power – confess they have only incredibly primitive concepts for managing their newly created stockpile of highly toxic radioactive waste materials – either dig a hole and bury it; or make a huge mound and pile it up; or “recycle” it at a scrap yard thereby contaminating scrap metal; or just dump it into a nearby water body.

The tritium atom is three times more massive than the ordinary hydrogen atom, but it is otherwise almost identical to it as far as its chemical and biological behaviour goes. And of course it is radioactive. But the mass difference is the key to separating tritium atoms out from the non-radioactive hydrogen atoms.

Why should tritium be removed? Because if it is dumped it ends up in every living thing within range. Hydrogen combines with oxygen to make water molecules. Tritium does the same, making radioactive water molecules. Water has easy access to all living things and is omnipresent in living cells. The same goes for tritium. Every organic molecule including DNA, has carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms. Tritium makes radioactive organic molecules and radioactive DNA right inside the bodies of living things.

Governments with nuclear programs are so beholden to the nuclear industry that they are inclined to let the nuclear autocrats do whatever they want to do, rather than acting in the public interest to protect the environment and future generations by keeping human-made radioactive poisons out of the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe. Recently, thankfully, the governor of New York signed a law that prevents the industry from dumping tritium-contaminated water into the Hudson River. Bravo for her.

It turns out that the industry could indeed remove the radioactive tritium from the water. If they wanted to. They just don’t want to. It costs more money and does not add to their bottom line or help them balance their books. Nor do they want to store the tritium, for that means monitoring it and occasionally repackaging it. Dumping is so much better, they think, because then it is no longer their problem. It is someone else’s problem. For a very long time to come.

The Age of Nuclear Waste is just beginning. It is time for ordinary citizens to stand up and say no to callous industry plans to dump radioactive wastes without any provision for monitoring, retrieval, or repackaging. These wastes should be isolated form the environment of living things.

Unless and until nuclear waste owners can remove tritium from tritium-contaminated water, they should be required to store it safely and keep it out of the environment for as long as needed, repackaging when necessary. If the tritium can be removed from the water the amount to be stored will be dramatically reduced.

Gordon Edwards.

[Oscar]

WATCH: "A River Is Not A Radioactive Sewer" . . .
[ https://www.ccnr.org/radioactive_sewer_2023.pdf ]


LISTEN: "Tritium and the Hudson River" . . . . .
[ http://ccnr.org/GE_tritium_NY_radio_2023.mp3 ]


WATCH: "Dangers of Dumping Tritium into the Hudson River" - (New York, 2023) . . .
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WT9zFWzBN8 ]

[Oscar]

Radioactive Tritium in the Ocean as Japan Releases ‘Treated’ Water from Fukushima

[ https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/08/30 ... fukushima/ ]

August 30, 2023

In a process that will take decades to complete, Japan has started releasing treated water from the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, raising concerns about introducing residual tritium into the environment.

Other nuclear contaminants have been removed from the water, but there is no process for purging one contaminant—tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen—and so Japan is relying on a strategy of diluting the water to theoretically safe levels. Tests in the waters near the site following release did not indicate radioactivity, and tested fish showed no tritium contamination. . . . .

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