Nearly 10 years after a tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan and caused an unprecedented release of radioactivity into the ocean, radiation levels have dropped to safe levels in all but the sea areas in those closest to the closed facility. Today fishing is possible again in these safe areas as their radiation levels are within the radioactive contamination limits imposed in Japan. However, there is a risk that not only persists, but also increases in size: the number of storage tanks installed and containing on land around the power plant radioactive waterincreases day by day.
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Ken Buesseler, radiochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) in the USA, has been studying the spread of radiation from Fukushima in the Pacific since 2011. In June of that year, he mobilized a team of scientists to carry out the first international marine exploration expedition, devoted to studying the first routes that the Cesium-134 and the Cesium-137Two radioactive cesium isotopes produced in reactors recorded when they entered the powerful Kuroshio Current off the coast of Japan. A network of volunteers has also been established in the US and Canada who do not necessarily have formal academic training and who do support work for scientific research, a form of collaboration commonly known as “citizen science”. This network of volunteers has helped monitor the arrival and movement of radioactive material from Fukushima on the Pacific coast of North America.
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He cares more now the thousand long tanks on the site of the nuclear power plant that are filled with radioactive water, especially groundwater and cooling water, which have been contaminated through contact with the reactors and their security buildings. Sophisticated cleaning processes have removed many radioactive isotopes, and efforts to divert the groundwater flows around the reactors have significantly reduced the amount of radioactive water collected to less than 200 tons per year, however some estimates suggest that the storage of radioactive Tank water will reach capacity limits in the near future, prompting some plant managers to propose the possibility of treating the radioactive water from the sea to free up space in tanks and store new radioactive water.
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The tanks installed on the site around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant contain radioactive water with a mixture of radioactive isotopes that are difficult to handle. (Photo: Ken Buesseler, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
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One of the radioactive isotopes that remains in treated radioactive water in higher quantities and that would be released into the sea according to this proposal is Tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that can hardly be eliminated because it becomes part of the water molecule itself. However, tritium has one Half-life relatively briefly, it is not easily absorbed by marine life or seabed sediments and produces beta particles that are not as harmful to living tissues as other forms of radiation.
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Other isotopes that remain in the treated radioactive water include Carbon-14he Cobalt-60 and the Strontium-90. These and the other isotopes that are still present in this radioactive water have Half-lives much longer and a much higher affinity for seabed sediments and marine organisms such as fish, meaning they can be potentially dangerous to humans and the environment for much longer and in more ways.It is complex compared to the effects of tritium. (Source: NCYT from Amazings)
