Let's do a little tritium math exercise.

[FBaggins]

Scenario - A nuclear reactor leaks an estimates 180,000 gallons of water reportedly contaminated with 1 million picocuries of tritium per liter of water.

Side note - Self-illuminating emergency exit signs are frequently "powered" by tritium.



Final exam question - Quantitatively compare the amount of tritium contained in the nuclear spill to the amount found in the sign.

Extra credit - Imagine that you could consume the entire 180,000 gallons in one sitting. What would your whole body dose (in rads) or exposure (rems or sieverts) be over the first month (assuming the longer 10-day biological half life).

[jpak]

1. Let's do a reality exercise - how many exit signs do people ingest?

and when you contaminate an aquifer that supplies drinking water with tritium above federal guidelines (and violate your NRC license) - it means you make that water unfit for human consumption

keep on

(((((((((((SPINNING)))))))))))

[FBaggins]

2. Transation? "the math is beyond me"

But thanks for playing.

Let's give someone else a chance.

[AnOhioan]

3. Peddle your spin somewhere else....Most here ain't buying

[FBaggins]

4. Beyond you too, eh?

"Don't confuse me with the facts, I've already made up my mind"

[AnOhioan]

5. Insults are so mature

Your "facts" are spin.

[FBaggins]

7. Yeah...

Like "peddle your spin" ?

It was a straight question intended to educate people who were irrationally fearful based on incomplete information.

It's also an opportunity for some of the anti-nuclear crowd on E&E to demonstrate whether they have the slightest understanding of the science involved.

[AnOhioan]

8. I will not argue semantics with you.

Have a nice life...

[FBaggins]

10. Of course you will

You certainly won't argue the facts or the science.

But that's ok... thanks for pitching in. :)

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jpak]

11. yes - math is beyond me!

:rofl:

[FBaggins]

13. This much is obvious.

Tell me. What part of the question scares you so much?

Just hang around for awhile. Someone who can use a calculator will no doubt come along eventually.

On edit - jdlh8894 came close enough below.

But that extra credit is still available if you think you can handle the math/science.

[jpak]

15. Yes, and it is pretty obvious that anyone willing to ingest 0.68 curies of tritium is a

fucking fool

:rofl:

[FBaggins]

17. You do realize

that this is the amount in the ENTIRE 180,000 gallon spill, right?

The goal of the extra credit is to compare that amount to a reasonable danger threshold and identify the actual threat.

[jpak]

18. yes - I did the math before I realized I couldn't do the math and...

:rofl:

and anyone willing to ingest that much tritium is an idiot

yup!

[FBaggins]

19. Still dodging, eh?

You did the easy part (and ignored the fact that this is 1/10th the radiation in any one of millions of exit signs in public buildings all around the country) and ignored what it means

anyone willing to ingest that much tritium is an idiot

Oh? And you don't think that drinking 180,000 gallons of pure water would be pretty stupid too?

[jpak]

27. Let me remind you that the contaminated water from that plant is well above "safe" federal levels

and therefore

unsafe

and anyone ingesting a small quantity of tritium would have to undergo decontamination if it was detected in their urine

and if they were using tritium under an NRC research license - they would probably lose their license and/or get fined

do you know why?

nope!

[FBaggins]

32. "Decontamination" ?

Lol... you mean "drink extra water" ?

Nice spin with the "anyone" BS. Did you expect anyone to buy that?

Come now. If you can't calculate the dose and compare it to what residents are breathing of, say, redon every single day... why draw attention to yourself?

[jpak]

36. Radon kills 21,000 Americans a year - breathtaking ignorance

http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/citguide.html



Radon is estimated to cause about 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year, according to EPA's 2003 Assessment of Risks from Radon in Homes (EPA 402-R-03-003). The numbers of deaths from other causes are taken from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2005-2006 National Center for Injury Prevention and Control Report and 2006 National Safety Council Reports.

fail

epic

yup

[FBaggins]

39. "fail epic fail"

You just don't get it, do you?

I'm well aware that thousands of people die from radon every year. It's just part of being alive. But there are parts of the country where the risk is many times greater than others and we don't force everyone to move away. Nobody is saying that there is no risk from radon... OR that there is no risk from a tritium-illuminated exit sign... but that those are NORMAL risks.

The point was to compare the risk to normal everyday risks and show that you've already wasted more of your life worrying about this risk that doesn't even really exist than you would give up if you were the one drinking from the town's well.

You graph also shows the number of people who die from drunk driving. Will you never get in a car again? Your risk of dying there is at least a million times as high as the event you're being paranoid about.

[jpak]

40. No you don't get it - researchers that work with tritium have to use it under an NRC license

and they have to undergo radiation safety training yearly

and were gloves and lab coats and goggles

and do daily swipes

and dispose of the waste using NRC protocols

and count your urine for tritium weekly

and you are not allowed to have more than 5 millicuries on hand at any one time.

5 millicuries

but you claim it's OK to ingest curies of the stuff

fail

epic

yup

[FBaggins]

42. Wow... all that?

And yet they stick the stuff inside your office and YOU don't get all that training?

Amazing stuff.

but you claim it's OK to ingest curies of the stuff

Stawman... I've claimed no such thing. I've merly asked you to estimate how much of the stuff is in ALL of that leaked water and compare it to a damaging dose. I'm not saying you'd be fine if you drank it all... I'm comparing it to the total dose the average person gets just living a normal life. THEN we can divide that by the millions that would be the largest dose any one person would ever get and THEN we can talk about whether it's "ok" or not.

We have landfills all around us leaking far more of this stuff, yet your panic is absent in those cases?

and you are not allowed to have more than 5 millicuries on hand at any one time.

5 millicuries

Lol... yet they'll put as much as five thousand times that much in an exit sign?

Stunning.

[jpak]

45. Yeah, all that for 5 millicuries in aqueous solution

still don't get it do you

[FBaggins]

47. Lol... I call BS.

You sure that "on hand" wasn't per hand?

5 millicuries is the amount of tritium that they allow in EACH hand on a wristwatch. They allow five times that much per timepiece.

So the researcher is allows to wear a watch with five times the tritium they're allows to have on hand any any one time? And the glowing compass on his sailboat can have 100+ times as much?

I rather doubt it.

[jpak]

48. still don't get it

and apparently never will

Oyster Creek violated its NRC license and released tritium contaminated water into an aquifer that supplies drinking water.

the level of contamination is well above federal guidelines

NJ DEP takes this very seriously

the NRC does too

the NJ residents living near this plant take this seriously

even Excelon takes ths seriously

pronuculars?

not so much

[FBaggins]

52. So you're saying that you can't back it up?

What a surprise.

Oyster Creek violated its NRC license

Yep.

well above federal guidelines

Yep.

NJ DEP takes this very seriously

As they should.

the NRC does too

I don't know about that. I thought they gave them a pass. But they certainly SHOULD take it seriously.

the NJ residents living near this plant take this seriously

And they should "take it seriously". They just shouldn't get irrationally paranoid that something dangerous has happened. It doesn't make the plant (or nuclear power in general) any less safe nor does it put any lives at risk.

They should be fined and they should be forced to clean it up... but nobody shouls worry about it as a public safety issue.

[jpak]

54. "but nobody shouls worry about it as a public safety issue."

(((((((((spin))))))))))

(((((((((SPIN))))))))))

:rofl:

[FBaggins]

56. So go ahead and quantify the safety issue

if you can.

[jpak]

63. It's already been quantified and measured by NJ DEP

guess you didn't get the memo

and I'm sure there are folks that firmly believe that, when the oil comes washing ashore in the Gulf, it is not a public health or safety issue either

lalalalalala

[FBaggins]

65. So I guess what you're saying is..

....that you DO think that the safety levels are set just a tad below the "danger" level?

and I'm sure there are folks that firmly believe that, when the oil comes washing ashore in the Gulf, it is not a public health or safety issue either

Nope. The oil spill is likely billions of times as significant as the tritium leak. Mentioning them in the same sentence proves in itself how ridiculously wrong-headed your position is. You really think there's a comparison to be made? :rofl:

And were you going to get around to backing up that ridiculous claim that researchers can only have 5 millicuries on hand at any one time? Don't worry... I'm not holding my breath. :rofl:

[FBaggins]

6. Straight answer

"FAR More than people will get from this leak"

These signs can break... they can be dropped. There are two million of these things in use and few people know there there's even a danger.

when you contaminate an aquifer that supplies drinking water with tritium above federal guidelines (and violate your NRC license) - it means you make that water unfit for human consumption

Don't be ridiculous. Do you seriously pretend that the guidelines are set at "anything about this line is unfit for consumption"? Do you know how many utilities operate above some guidelines on a regular basis?

[jdlh8894]

9. Final exam question - Quantitatively compare the amount of tritium contained in the nuclear spill to

Appox. 20%

[FBaggins]

12. Edited - Close enough!

I'd say it's closer to half of that, but full points awarded. :toast:

Care to try for the extra credit?

[jdlh8894]

14. Guess it got cut.

Was trying to post your question in subject line.
Final Answer - Appox. 20%

[FBaggins]

16. Yep. You got it right and I missed it.

See above... I thought you were asking a related question and wasn't sure what you were saying.

When I realized that you were just copying the question, it made more sense and I edited it.

I think it's closer to 7 curies in the average exit sign and .7 curies in the tritiated water... but you can't get that close without at least understanding the basics. Good job!

[jdlh8894]

20. Care to try for the extra credit?

Not @ the present time.Will take me a few minutes(and a nice hot bath that is waiting)Will get back later.

[FBaggins]

21. Don't worry... we'll all still be waiting...

...for some posters to even give it a try. They'll just keep talking around the issue (while pretending that they COULD do it if they wanted to).

:rofl:

[Pholus]

46. Aw c'mon.

I am waiting for the grade on the extra credit there teacher! :)

[FBaggins]

49. Lol... Close enough again

I came up with 43 rem IIRC (should have written it down).

Which would roughly double someone's lifetime dose. Obviously not a good thing... 180,000 of water would kill you first anyway. :)

But I regularly drop/add a zero when I convert pico/mille/etc so I figures anything within an order of magnitude would be fine.

[Pholus]

50. But you do agree that perception is important.

Caesar's wife MUST be above reproach. And as such ANY violation by a nuke power company, no matter how tiny, needs to be punished harshly if only to create incentives to make safety first at all costs.

[FBaggins]

55. Certainly perception is important

but reality is even more important.

[Pholus]

57. Not when you have to convince nonscientists.

Perception is everything. Why did Fermilab insist on such a nice park (with deer herds and the whole bit) on the grounds?

[FBaggins]

59. I agree.

But it's hillarious when the nonscientists are the ones trying to do the convincing and base their opinions (knowingly or not) on irrational fears.

Oh well... it was fun but I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Off to bed.

Have a good evening.

[Pholus]

61. It was a fun way to kill an hour.

My margarita needs a refresh. Have a good night too!

[Pholus]

53. Also, our difference in numbers implies

you used an 80 kg person. Slightly more realistic for most. I used my mass. Large, but conveniently a round number (hahaha) in SI for physics problems.

[FBaggins]

58. I'd claim that...

...but I really just used a shorthand conversion calculation. The guys who came up with that ratio likely used an 80kg person, but I just skipped it because if it was 160kg instead of 80kg wouldn't matter since I just wanted to come within one or two orders of magnitude.

Well done. :)

[jpak]

22. here's what the EPA says about tritium exit signs

"Do not handle damaged tritium signs."

they are banned in the EU and Canada

yup!

[FBaggins]

26. I'm not saying that they're without any danger

After all... each one has ten times the tritium as this entire 180,000 gallon leak... surely there must be SOME damage.

But other sites just tell you to be sure to "wear gloves".

Note that the same page tells you that they're disposed of in landfills all the time?

Two million of these things and you think none have ever fallen from their mount and broken in an office? I'd bet is dozens of times as many as there have been tritium leaks.

[jpak]

33. it's illegal to dispose them in landfills

"If not damaged during demolition, tritium exit signs can be broken when they are illegally dumped in community landfills."

try again

[FBaggins]

37. Of course it is.

But it still happens all the time. Care to guess how often?

Most people don't KNOW that the signs contain anything dangerous.

"Try again" ? They just told you it happens. You going to pretend that we can ignore it because it's illegal?

[FBaggins]

41. "It's illegal" - I guess that settles it... oh wait...

The PA DEP did testing at their landfills in 2004 and 2005.

93% and 97% of those test wells showed tritium contamination above background levels... and the only known source comes from damaged exit signs.

Levels as high as 181,700 pCi/L were discovered.

[tavalon]

51. I'm not against nuclear power

I figure we have a very limited time left on this earth and any number of fuckups could help speed the process (I'm thinking of one down in the gulf right now). And besides I spent 5 years working in a hospital that was carpeted and we used mercury thermometers which broke with some regularity on said carpet. The "hazmat" clean up consisted of maintenance coming up and vacuuming the general area with an every day vacuum. I figure a little tritium with my mercury ain't all that.

[Pholus]

23. Now you do some homework, FBaggins

Your problem was simple.

180000 gallons = 680000 liters, 680000 million picocuries, 0.68 curies. Trivial.

Here is my homework question for you. Which diffuses to a safe level quicker: 10 curies of gaseous tritium dispersed in air or 0.68 curies of liquid in water?

[Pholus]

25. And some extra credit too.

Why is the EPA acceptable standard 20000 picocuries/liter. What goes into that decision?

[FBaggins]

31. A healthy excess of caution.

It certainly isn't "beyond this line lay radiation poisoning" :)

[Pholus]

34. True enough...

However, that being said I am now curious. We stopped project Orion because the fallout risk would supposedly eventually kill 1000 people a year. What level of lethality goes into this decision.

LD-50 for rats is 10 micro Ci/ml. But that's only 10 times greater than the intensity of this spill....

[Pholus]

28. And by the way, darn you

you've got me hooked. But I won't use your units in my answer. Just my little IQ test back.

[FBaggins]

29. No question

Of course the gaseous tritium.

But that isn't the point. We put these things in our office buildings. Of course .7 curies in a glass of water is going to be more dangerous than 7 curies of gaseous tritium released into an office... but the gaseous tritium would be FAR more dangerous than those same .7 curies in 180,000 gallons futher diluted into billions of gallons of water table.

[Pholus]

30. I think the question I'd have is what is the size of the water table.

50 times bigger just to get to the acceptable level. But acceptable means there are some risks.

I want a strong, safe nuclear power industry. Not one driven by the bottom line.

[FBaggins]

35. I think "50 times bigger" is a dramatic under-estimattion.

The water table would be many MANY millions of times as large.

Of course, it isn't a big pool that would mix homogeneously, but it's clear that the dilution you could expect would bring the level in drinking wells to WELL (pun intended) below the guidelines.

[Pholus]

38. This stuff makes people nervous. The company should have done better!

My bottom line on the topic, though I'm going to have a number for your extra credit question momentarily.

[Pholus]

43. Your answer

0.68 curies = 2.5 X 10^10 decays/sec

At a mean decay energy of 5.685 keV each, 2.3 X 10^-5 Joules.

Assuming a 100 kg person completely encompassing the flux, 2.3 X 10^-7 J/kg-s would be absorbed which translates as about 0.23 microgray/sec.

That, however, is the per second flux. You'd have to calculate the time it would stay in the system and your problem doesn't tell me how fast my
body would flush. Sadly, at 180,000 gallons it would be pretty quick since I'm bad at water retention (as witnessed by a long car trip).

But let's say I couldn't flush it and just had to wait for it to decay out. Letting the flux decay exponentially like a half life and working the integral I estimate that I would have absorbed 0.35 gray by the time it was gone. That is 35 rad.

Here is where my non-specialist knowledge starts to fade. I think the beta particles will actually transfer MORE energy to the host than x-ray/gamma rays (because the photons have a lower cross section for interaction despite the higher energy for the x-rays/gamma rays) so I believe that the conversion factor is higher than 1 rem/rad. But let's go with the assumtion.

If one person absorbed the batch, that's 35 rem. So you wouldn't die of radiation sickness even if you got the whole smash.

Long term cancer rates? Not so clear. And why these COMPANIES need to be more careful. Both for public perception and actual damages.

[Pholus]

44. So, when a company makes this kind of mistake.

Fine the living bejeebus out of them, just so that there is an incentive to not even let SMALL leaks occur.

It's the only way to be sure that nuclear power keeps a good reputation.

[D23MIURG23]

60. I'm not sure what you are getting at here.

If you are going to ask this question you should also include some background on exit signs and how the "powering" works, because I don't know the stoichiometry between photons emitted by the exit sign and electrons emitted through beta decay.

You should also consider that ingesting radioactive material is not necessarily the same thing as walking near it. Deuterated "heavy" water can be toxic to ingest, and it isn't even radioactive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water

[FBaggins]

62. Just trying to put context to a debate.

Your points are largely valid (you'll find correct-enough answers up-thread btw), but precision here isn't the key.

I'm just trying to get people to grasp how much radioactive material we're talking about (with one of the known tritium leaks at a nuke plant that has been in the news lately) and, more importantly, how that compares to everyday sources of radiation.

[kristopher]

64. Your point isn't the point.

It all goes back to the nuclear industry's need to claim infallibility. The spill in the Gulf is horrific, but it can't compare to the consequences of a Chernobyl scale disaster at a nuclear plant in terms of loss of life and overall economic consequences.

You will of course assert that the nuclear industry makes no claim to infallibility, however it is implicit every time that it is insisted that nuclear power is "safe" and "clean" just as it was implicit that there was no chance of such a catastrophic leak as the Deepwater Horizon when they asserted that drilling was "safe" and "clean".

What you are communicating isn't that the tritium leak is insignificant, it is that you yourself have no grasp of the nature of the risk posed by nuclear power nor how the widespread leaks speak to an atmosphere of arrogance and lax corporate management and indifferent, inept bureaucratic oversight.

Nuclear power isn't "safe", it isn't "clean" and most especially it isn't even needed.

[FBaggins]

66. Sorry... that doesn't follow

The wind solar and hydro "industries" ARE safe. That doesn't mean that nothing bad can/will ever happen... but that they don't add appreciably to the risk level of everyday life. Sure... you COULD be standing under a turbine at just the wrong moment and be killed by a defective blade (and the company would get sued and pay your family a bundle), but you could also die falling down the stairs or have a plane crash on your home. "Safe" doesn't in any way mean an implicit claim to infallibility. It means that it doesn't add unreasonable risk to everyday life.

And this tritium leak doesn't add to an argument that they are any less "safe".

[Warren Stupidity]

67. Fine. Then of course the liability shields for nuclear power plants should be lifted.

As the nuke industry can readily afford to purchase standard liability insurance to cover damage claims from the private market without federal help.

[FBaggins]

68. They HAVE standard liability insurance already

Do you mean instead that they should be forced to carry insurance for the absolute worst case scenario?

How much insurance is carried by the Grand Coulee or Hoover dams?

[Warren Stupidity]

69. They have a federally mandated cap on liability.

Nuclear Insurance: Price-Anderson Act
The Price-Anderson Act, which became law on September 2, 1957, was designed to ensure that adequate funds would be available to satisfy liability claims of members of the public for personal injury and property damage in the event of a catastrophic nuclear accident. The legislation helped encourage private investment in commercial nuclear power by placing a cap, or ceiling on the total amount of liability each holder of a nuclear power plant license faced in the event of a catastrophic accident. Over the years, the "limit of liability" for a catastrophic nuclear accident has increased the insurance pool to over $10 billion.

Under existing policy, utilities that operate nuclear power plants pay a premium each year for $300 million in private insurance for offsite liability coverage for each reactor unit. This primary insurance is supplemented by a second policy. In the event a nuclear accident causes damages in excess of $300 million, each licensed nuclear reactor would be assessed a prorated share of the excess up to $95.8 million. With 104 plants licensed to operate, this secondary pool contains about $8.6 billion. After 15 percent of this pool is expended, prioritization of the remaining funds is left to the discretion of local jurisdictions. After the insurance pool is used, responding organizations like State and local governments can petition Congress for additional disaster relief under the provisions of Price-Anderson.

One insurance pool, American Nuclear Insurers, is comprised of investor-owned stock insurance companies. About half the pool's total liability capacity comes from foreign sources like Lloyd's of London. The average annual premium for a single-unit reactor site is $400,000. The premium for a second or third reactor at the same site is discounted to reflect a sharing of limits.

Because virtually all property and liability insurance policies issued in the U.S. exclude nuclear accidents, claims resulting from nuclear accidents are covered under Price-Anderson. It includes any accident (including those that come about because of theft or sabotage) in the course of transporting nuclear fuel to a reactor site; in the storage of nuclear fuel or waste at a site; in the operation of a reactor, including the discharge of radioactive effluent; and in the transportation of irradiated nuclear fuel and nuclear waste from the reactor. Price-Anderson does not require coverage for spent fuel or nuclear waste stored at interim storage facilities, transportation of nuclear fuel or waste that is not either to or from a nuclear reactor, or acts of theft or sabotage occurring after planned transportation has ended.

Insurance under Price-Anderson provides financial assistance for bodily injury, sickness, disease or resulting death, property damage and loss as well as reasonable living expenses for individuals evacuated.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended the Price-Anderson Act to December 31, 2025.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/funds-fs.html

If you are going to advocate for nukes, and there are many honest well informed people who are making honest well informed cases for nuclear power, at least try to be honest and well informed.

[FBaggins]

70. I'm aware of that.

Not that it means they don't carry "standard liability insurance" or that the industry won't insure them (common false claims).

Now were you going to answer the question? Companies don't carry insurance for unlimited damages from the worst imaginable accidents... why do you seem to think that nuclear plants should? How much insurance do the big dams carry and who would pay the difference in a worst-case scenario?

For extra credit, can you compare the liability cap in place to that in the UK or under Vienna/Paris?

[Warren Stupidity]

71. What is wrong with you?

Seriously, what is your malfunction?

[FBaggins]

72. I guess I can take that as a "no... I can't answer those questions"

Sorry to burst your bubble. :)

You act as if it's a liability "shield" keeping them from paying for insurance that they would have had to otherwise purchase. That simple isn't the case. If anything, the law requires them to carry far MORE insurance.