Even if the sea water touches the uranium bars directly, it seems that uranium is barely soluble in sea water and thus, only a very limited amount of uranium is flooded into the sea:
At least, this is what a quick google search told me. I only googled for uranium and there might be other elements at play too.
Mass media says “it is safe”:
Oh dear
Japanese government spent more than 80 billion yen on public relations. So the news you see has been “polished”. The Japanese government is reluctant to spend the money on dealing with nuclear pollution protection
According to your knowledge of physics, how many products are produced in the entire decay process of uranium?
These are the Uranium-235 and Uranium-238 decay chain (this are the main types of Uranium that the bars in the reactors are made of):
Uranium-235 has a half-life of 703.8 million years.
Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.5 Billion years.
After a U-235 or U-238 isotope decays, all the other isotopes in the decay chain decay rather fast.
It is important to note that U-235 and U-238 are both Alpha-emitters (Helium cores without electrons), that means a type of radiation that can be absorbed by a thin layer of paper or 1 meter of air.
Alpha-emitters can cause a lot of damage but only at short ranges.
When Uranium is in the sea, it can only become dangerous for water organisms if they get a lot of this contaminated water inside their bodies.
But since the contaminated water gets highly deluted, the risk of damage (amount of absorbed radiation per kilogram biomass) is extremely reduced.
The long half-life of natural Uranium is one of the reasons why there is still so much of it on earth, despite earth being 4 to 6 Billion years old.
99% of the natural Uranium is U-238 with a half-life of 4.5 Billion years.
So to answer your question:
Earth is full of Uranium and always has been.
When humans built a nuclear power plant, they dig for the Uranium and put it into a high concentration (in order to create a nuclear chain reaction for energy production).
When the nuclear power plant is no longer needed, the concentrated Uranium can be deluted and returned back into nature. This is what they are they are doing here with the Uranium contaminated water.
Humans take Uranium from earth and return it back to earth.
It only becomes a danger to organisms when humans return the Uranium back to nature in the artificially concentrated form.
Hope this helps.
PS: Are you from Japan?
It is crazy to think about this.
If you have 1 kg of U-238, that means that 4.5 Billion years later you will still have 0.5 kg of U-238.
Some processes in physical nature are super slow in terms of human perception.
No，I 'm from China. And you?
Don’t forget, this reactor core is still working and the fission is going on…
I am from Germany.
If I remember correct, the non-destroyed reactors of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were still in active use up until recently, despite the desaster of 1986.
yes, but they all closed in 2000. I think the fission reaction is stopped. It was then repaired and restarted.
Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, so most of the radioactive material was quickly fission, but not in Fukushima.
Hmm…
Honestly if I was from China I wouldn’t be worrying much about Japan’s environmental policies.
China has offered plans to encircle the waters around nuclear power plants. This could significantly reduce the risk of pollution to the world’s oceans. But Japan rejected the plan.
Some Russian scientists have proposed using hydrogen bombs.
Lol
Ok
Nuclear fission is both an angel and a devil. Nuclear fusion is the ultimate safe, clean energy source. some good news coming from an artificial sun plan, so hopefully we won’t have to wait another 50 years.
hahaha, Some people used to think Japanese toilet water was drinkable.
Let’s gather all the garbage, contaminated water, acid, nuclear waste from all over the planet and throw it in the sun
