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Japan says no radioactivity found in Fukushima fish, Kyodo reports (www.reuters.com)
submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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Japan's fisheries agency said on Saturday fish tested in waters around the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant did not contain detectable levels of the radioactive isotope tritium, Kyodo news service reported.

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[-] PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world 84 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I work with radiation. Radiation is hard for lay people to understand, and they are all afraid of it.

The technical language in this article is not helpful for lay people, but it is for me.

You get a much larger dose of a much worse kind of radiation exposure by eating a banana than drinking a liter of this seawater.

And things like Brazil nuts, your basement, living at altitude or near certain kinds of rocks, flying, smoke detectors, or dental X-rays are much, much worse.

Not to mention higher dose medical procedures (CT, PET, SPECT, and radiation therapy). Those, however, are borderline dangerous, but there's a trade-off. Your radiation therapy may lead to secondary cancer down the line, but your primary cancer is killing you right now.

These articles also need to mention that the actual experts -- the people who know what they're doing and understand this -- agree this is the best and safest course of action. I'm not that kind of person, but I know plenty of them. I assure you, they are very cautious.

[-] stopthatgirl7@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Thank you for this!

[-] takeda@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Isn't the problem as much with the radiation itself as consuming radioactive elements that will stay in your body likely to the rest of your life and provide radiation from the inside?

[-] roguetrick@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Tritiated water mostly has a 12 day lifespan in your body, at max. Some of it may be used as tritium instead of normal hydrogen in putting things together, but it's not like other nasty radionuclides.

[-] takeda@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

That 12 days is not a half life, but it is how long it stays in the body before you pee it out. This only matters if you had a single incident of drinking the water or eating contaminated food not if you are constantly exposed to it then each time you consume affected foods you know it stays with you for about 12 days and small part of it stays with you forever as your body doesn't see the difference between tritium and hydrogen, so it will be happy to use the radioactive version, which could increase your chances of cancer as well as your future generations.

[-] PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I don't want to be insulting, but what you've described is exactly what a half life is.

But like I said, drinking a liter of this water is much less dangerous radiologically than eating a banana, and drinking a liter of sea water is not going to be good for you either.

[-] takeda@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

When I said half life, I made a mental shortcut that it degrades into harmless compounds.

The 12 days just means how long the body keeps most of tritium.

You are talking how much radiation the water causes and that it is smaller than radiation from banana, and I'm talking that this "banana" stays in your body for 12 days and part of it your body integrates by replacing your hydrogen with its radioactive counterpart.

You work with radiation, but this isn't just about radiation, but also involves organic chemistry and metabolism.

[-] innrautha@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

I think the gap between you two is that you are describing the "biological half life" of tritium while using the term "half life" to exclusively refer to the "physical half life". In Health Physics the distinction between the two is very important and generally once you start talking about the effect on people it is best practice to always clarify which one you're talking about.

The biological half life of tritium is also a little more complicated than "12 days", it depends on the form it is in. If inhaled as water vapor it almost immediately gets re-exhaled, whereas if drunk as liquid water it can be ~10 days depending on the person's water turn over (<8 hours if dialysis is used for treatment following extreme exposure) ... tritiated water is one of the few things that you can speed up the elimination of by drinking more water. For tritium bound up in organic molecules and ingested (food/fish) the biological half life can be closer to 40 days.

[-] roguetrick@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, that's why I have concerns about constant tritated waste dumping from an active plant. Not so much in this case. It's a very small amount over a very long time.

Edit: and in regards to it using it as hydrogen, even in that case, the tritium will likely damage whatever it's made into and quickly turn back into water. That's why fully titrated water is so oxidizing. It knocks it's own hydrogen off.

[-] PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yup. The other stuff has been removed. All that's left is the actual water, which is radioactive.

[-] BleatingZombie@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Thank you! I took ONE 100 level science class on radiation and every one almost always seem to be wrong in their understanding. Enough that I doubted everything I learned (for a while)

[-] Lazylazycat@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ok but, people aren't talking about drinking the sea water, are they? It's about eating fish and sea vegetables that are living/growing in it. Do we know what the effect of eating these foods will be?

A fish will be consuming a lot more than a litre of water over its lifespan.

Edit: You could answer my question instead of downvoting me...

[-] rivermonster@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In America when the FBI investigates itself it find no wrongful shootings, same with the police.

Enjoy the fish.

[-] Alto@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago

Good thing it's not just Japan saying this then. Everyone that knows what the hell they're talking about are.

[-] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago

If it was Japan's word on it, I wouldn't trust it either. But the measurements are a solid science that's easy to do, and hasn't been disputed

[-] rivermonster@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

The inferences drawn and assumptions of what the data means is not as cut and dry. Researches are regularly and constantly frustrated by this aspect of reporting on their findings.

[-] rivermonster@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

And yet there are no studies of the time it takes to have radiation propagate through this specific ecosystem and a comprehensive accounting of it's potential downstream impacts and vectors. Thus making an early propoganda piece that imparts a false sense of safety, dangerous and irresponsible reporting.

Additionally the assumption that the release of radioactive material will be a constant and consistent rate and not vary or get significantly worse is just that--an assumption.

If you think the science on fukishma and releasing radioactive water into the ocean there is done and settled and everything is fine... No radiation in fish... Then brother do I have a deal on a slightly used bridge that you cannot afford to miss!

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 17 points 1 year ago

Cynicism is a lazy cognitive shortcut that leads to wrong conclusions almost as often as naivete does.

[-] rivermonster@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Denial of the realities of a capitalist world and it's horrors are how we got here in the first place. It's not just lazy to be blindly optimistic and ignore the track records of the nuclear industry and the failures of regulatory bodies in charge of them--it's literally deadly.

Head in the sand is a luxury best left to shit posters on the internet. When they're actually able to influence things we end up with Fukishimas.

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not denying anything. You're the one ignoring everyone who actually knows what they're talking about.

[-] rivermonster@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're holding up a bad inference piece on data of questionable value that is touted by the Japanese fishing industry saying Japanese fish is fine to eat. And there are even contradicting studies.

Did you read this piece? if you cant see why this is not people who know what there talking about and instead an entire industry, commerce and job sector and country that have a financial incentive to produce a specific answer...

I dunno how to help.

Someone on this thread was even nice enough to have leaked other info for ya...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/24/fukushima-fish-with-180-times-legal-limit-of-radioactive-cesium-fuels-water-release-fears

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 points 1 year ago

That article does not support your claim. Cesium that was almost certainly released during the initial disaster has nothing to do with the IAEA-approved release of tritium now. You're just reinforcing my belief that you're pissed off about things you don't understand and you think you're smarter than the experts who study this shit for a living.

[-] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

This is just dumb. They just started releasing the contaminated water and they will keep doing so for a long time. This will lead to ever increasing concentrations of tritium which will then be further concentrated in living organisms. So it'll take quite a while for effects to be seen.

[-] lemmington_steele@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

isn't this supposed to be mitigated by the fact that the tritium eventually blends into the larger ocean such that the concentration remains in harmless levels at the end anyway?

[-] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

The half-life of tritium is 12.33 years, so no, it won't be ever-increasing. In 12.33 years, there will be half as much.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Sure, just keep distracting from the fact that you just created Godzilla.

[-] gnygnygny@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Few weeks ago... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/24/fukushima-fish-with-180-times-legal-limit-of-radioactive-cesium-fuels-water-release-fears

this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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