Why South Koreans Are Rushing To Stockpile Sea Salt (independent.co.uk) 89
Long-time Slashdot reader beforewisdom shared this report from the Independent:
South Koreans have begun to hoard excessive amounts of sea salt and other items as Japan prepares to dump treated radioactive water from the Fukushima power plant into the ocean... Tokyo has repeatedly assured that the water is safe and has been filtered to remove most isotopes though it does contain traces of tritium, an isotope of hydrogen hard to separate from water.
Although Japan has not set a date for the release, the announcement has made fishermen and shoppers across the region apprehensive. South Korea's fisheries authorities have vowed to ramp up efforts to monitor natural salt farms for any rise in radioactive substances and maintain a ban on seafood from the waters near Fukushima... The panic buying has led to a 27 per cent rise in the price of salt in South Korea in June from two months ago, though officials say the weather and lower production were also to blame. The Korean government in response has decided to release about 50 metric tons of salt a day from stocks, at a 20 per cent discount from market prices, until 11 July...
More than 85 per cent of the South Korean public oppose Japan's plan, according to a survey last month by local pollster Research View. Seven in 10 people reportedly said that they would consume less seafood if the waste water release goes ahead.
Although Japan has not set a date for the release, the announcement has made fishermen and shoppers across the region apprehensive. South Korea's fisheries authorities have vowed to ramp up efforts to monitor natural salt farms for any rise in radioactive substances and maintain a ban on seafood from the waters near Fukushima... The panic buying has led to a 27 per cent rise in the price of salt in South Korea in June from two months ago, though officials say the weather and lower production were also to blame. The Korean government in response has decided to release about 50 metric tons of salt a day from stocks, at a 20 per cent discount from market prices, until 11 July...
More than 85 per cent of the South Korean public oppose Japan's plan, according to a survey last month by local pollster Research View. Seven in 10 people reportedly said that they would consume less seafood if the waste water release goes ahead.
Just go with the glow, I mean flow (Score:4, Funny)
a glow-in-the-dark wanker is hell cool. In fact, it's the only cool thing about me.
The general public are ill informed (Score:5, Insightful)
This is depressingly true. Given the breakdown in trust between governed and leaders, there are no obvious answers. Although the 'John Gummer' solution of inviting the TV cameras to see you feed the suspect material to your toddler (in that case British beef in the days of NewVCJ disease is impressive, too many won't believe it's legit.
It should be possible to explain just how little radioactivity will increase in ocean sea water and why it's not worth getting excited about. There's a serious PR project for someone...
someone famous drinking the Fukushima water (Score:2)
I mean i'd do it but no one knows who I am.
Re:The general public are ill informed (Score:5, Informative)
ust how little radioactivity will increase in ocean sea water
Except for all the animals which live in the ocean being exposed as well as ingesting from eating plants and other animals, those same animals we then eat which will have concentrated the tritium. Just as happens with lead or other pollutants in the ecosystem.
Except tritium doesn't bioaccumulate. Everything in the ocean will have exact same amounts of tritium as the water surrounding it - literally homeopathic.
Re: (Score:3)
Except tritium doesn't bioaccumulate.
Indeed. There is no bioaccumulation.
Also, tritium occurs naturally when cosmic rays strike nitrogen in the atmosphere. So it already exists in the oceans and you already have naturally occurring tritium in your body.
Re: The general public are ill informed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: The general public are ill informed (Score:2)
Lead also doesn't decay in useful times. Tritium decays rapidly, with a half-life of around six years. They're taking 40+ years to get rid of all the water, so between the extreme dilution and regular decay, negligible amounts will be around.
Seawater Naturally Glows in the Dark (Score:5, Informative)
Except for all the animals which live in the ocean being exposed
They are already being exposed to significant amounts of radioactive potassium-40 which is present in seawater. I'm part of a team building a neutrino detector [pacific-neutrino.org] in the pacific ocean off Vancouver island and we observe about 10,000 flashes of light per second in each photomultiplier from potassium-40 decays vs. basically zero from air.
If this is fresh water contaminated with a tiny amount of tritium it may even be less radioactive than seawater and, ironically, by stockpiling sea salt that concentrates the potassium-40 Koreans are going to be exposing themselves to more radiation than before. Especially since the tritium, which is an isotope of hydrogen, will be evaporated off any sea salt.
It was already done... (Score:3)
It would be nice for someone less nervous to do it. [theguardian.com]
If it is so safe... (Score:2)
Re:If it is so safe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Concentrating beta emissions near the Diet building probably wouldn't be that much of a problem. With that said, you spread it out more and it is even less significant. Tritium has a half-life of a little over 12 years. There was quite a bit of it in the environment from above-ground nuclear tests, and there is definitely more on Earth in the environment than there was before nuclear tests started, but it was always present. You drank some today, almost assuredly.
It doesn't require being a physicist to understand tritium. I don't get the know-nothingism today about these matters. I mean if someone was suggesting you drink a short half-life gamma emitter, that would be a different story, but that is not the case here.
Re: (Score:2)
The last above ground test was 1980, so over 40 years ago, 3 half-lives, so 1/8 of what there once was.
The last US above ground test was 1962, so 60 years ago, 5 half-lives, so only 1/32 of that is left.
Re: (Score:1)
The last above ground test was 1980, so over 40 years ago, 3 half-lives, so 1/8 of what there once was.
The last US above ground test was 1962, so 60 years ago, 5 half-lives, so only 1/32 of that is left.
Or eat a banana, potato, some Brazil nuts [wikipedia.org]....
Re: (Score:2)
People don't trust Tepco because they time they issue a statement, it's a lie.
People don't trust the Japanese government because they keep backing up Tepco.
Believing that Tepco is only going to be emitting Tritium is based on trusting Tepco. Why do you trust Tepco?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine... [www.cbc.ca]
https://joi.ito.com/weblog/200... [ito.com]
https://japantoday.com/categor... [japantoday.com]
Re: (Score:2)
If society is trust-free, there is no point in even having discussions.
Re: (Score:2)
If society is trust-free, there is no point in even having discussions.
There is no point in having discussions about Fukushima with anyone who trusts any statement issued by Tepco. They have proven that they are insufficiently discerning to have an opinion worth listening to. On the other hand, they're ideal people to involve in a scheme requiring dupes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd focus more on the fact that when you've extracted sea salt, it won't contain any tritium at all.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're concerned about trace amounts of radiation... don't eat sea salt.
Re: (Score:3)
I guess those people haven't been informed about microplastics yet.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
A little hard to blame them given what happened. Pearl harbor was barely a slap on the hand in comparison to what they got.
Re: (Score:2)
Even the Japanese don't trust the Japanese government or TEPCO on this. They mis-handled the situation from before the accident even happened, and are clearly motivated by not wanting to be sued even more. They also failed several times to decontaminate nearby towns, and in some cases the problems were only discovered by citizens with Geiger counters.
It doesn't work like that (Score:5, Insightful)
Panics like this are driven by activists who live by the fear they generate causing people to contribute to their cause. Radioactivity is scary - so it is an easy target to frighten people about - and activists have been digging at that sore for decades. Note also that China is stirring the pot because it allows them to score points over Japan, despite its being invalid science. Let's not be surprised...
By contrast microplastics is a new threat which has not yet gained the traction in the activist world for them to have the enthusiasm to start talking about it a lot. As a result it's getting far less attention than it deserves - not least because all the available attention is focused on radioactivity. Yes, this is a disaster in the making possibly, but you can't expect activists to abandon the cause that keeps them fed for new issues that won't get them fed.
There are days when I hope I'm wrong...
Re: (Score:2)
An above average suggestion (Score:2)
Thank you.
Re: (Score:1)
If this accident had happened in China, and China was now telling you that the water was safe to dump into the sea, would you trust them?
Would you take the CCP's word for it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.unep.org/news-and-... [unep.org]
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
Plenty more found by a search...
Re: It doesn't work like that (Score:3)
As it happens, the Guardian's got an article today (Score:2)
https://www.theguardian.com/li... [theguardian.com]
This offers a nuanced discussion. I agree that it's possible to get over excited about microplastics; certain artificial chemicals out there are probably a greater cause of concern. But it does seem there is a developing problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:always so safe (Score:5, Insightful)
i bet the folks that say that dumping radioactive waste into the ocean is safe are the same ones who said building a nuclear reactor is safe.
No. They are the ones who say nuclear reactors are unsafe and mandate incredibly reliable safety systems to be in place.
it is like they have an incentive to make sure people believe everything is safe no matter how bad the current situation is.
And how bad is the current situation? Radioactive isotopes in water, literally the best and safest place for them, being dumped into the ocean that is already full of them. It sounds like the current situation is less than a nothingburger because there's no burger to speak of.
stop saying everything is fine. nuclear power isn’t safe.
But everything is fine, and no one here is talking about nuclear power. We're talking about nuclear wastewater.
broken nuclear reactors aren’t safe.
Of course not, which is why billions have been spent on making it safe.
Re: always so safe (Score:2)
Great points, but as we can see nuclear reactors can be used as pawns in proxy wars....
Re: (Score:1)
So
Re: (Score:2)
I'm \hesitant to say there's any risk of ecological damage at all. It turns out that wildlife adapts extremely well to nuclear fallout, and this is nothing compared to that. And we're talking all wildlife, micro, macro, and even megafauna, like bears in the case of Pripyat. Some forms of fungi even thrive on the constant massive barrage of gamma radiation around the remains of the Chernobyl 4 reactor, basically they convert it to food much like photosynthesis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
It's a fact that 1.5% of all electricity producing nuclear reactors ever built have melted down. That's excluding research and military reactors, just the ones built (mostly commercially) to generate electricity.
Given the severity of a meltdown, and the number of other less serious accidents, it's pretty clear that nuclear power does in fact need very stringent safety regulations.
How about a compromise? You can build a cheaper nuclear plant with lower safety standards, but you have to insure it yourself. Gi
Re: (Score:3)
Nothing is safe. Feel better now?
Same old, same old (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I hate to judge in such a fashion, but the anti-nuclear crowd is becoming a real roadblock in the advancement of our society and lowering of our carbon emissions.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You are right. It is really tough to be against nuclear power and hear such uninformed drivel from people on the same side.
Nuclear power is almost safe, and I would MUCH rather have my house next to a nuclear power plant than say an oil refinery. If the nuclear power plant goes boom, I may have to move, but I will almost certainly not die from it. Nuclear waste has the unique property of going away if you ignore it long enough, unlike lead or PFAS or any number of other exciting pollutants we have managed t
Re: (Score:2)
Lying scum, really? You sound like a pleasant person to be around.
Lead is a stable chemical element, it cannot break down. Nuclear waste is either highly radioactive, in which case it breaks down quickly, or not highly radioactive and therefore not a huge problem. There are no nuclear waste sites where people suffer terribly, unlike all the chemical waste sites that harm or kill millions of people across the world. (The exception is tailings from nuclear mining, but the problem there is mostly chemical, not
Re: (Score:1)
Lead will get absorbed. You probably intentionally did not read that word. Lead does not stay around unbound forever. As to nuclear waste, you just failed "Radioactive Elements 101". In fact, one of the most dangerous radioactive substances has radioadicity that is difficult to measure because even a piece of paper stops it: Plutonium. As to radioactive waste sites: Most stuff is _still_ not in permanent storage and ask people again in 100'000 years.
Seriously, why do you post such crap?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
plutonium is so dangerous because it bioaccumulates in the bone marrow, which is a chemical aspect, similar to the tailings issue.
Re: (Score:3)
And this is where YOU show your stupidity. Yet again.
The waste isotopes ( which make excellent fuel themselves, BUT BUT BUT a mysterious SOMEONE could make bombs from those reactors!!) that are extra harmful are the short lived ones.
That crap that doesn't decay down for 10 million years? There's a reason for that... it's because it literally doesn't decay and spit out any radiation all that much. You should be a hell of a lot more worried about isotopes that have half-life's between hours and a couple hund
Re: (Score:1)
And another idiot that has never heard of Plutonium. Nice.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh no! You said the scary "P" word!
Without even knowing what the fuck you are even talking about. Again. Even Pu239, which is what they use for bombs, is safe to handle for some time. And that only has a half-life of 24K years. That's literally why the unshielded demon core didn't kill anyone UNTIL they accidentally allowed the nuclear reaction to go critical.
You are more likely to get heavy metal / oxide poisoning from handling Pu than anything to do with radiation sickness. Hell, look up the UPPU group.
Re: (Score:2)
Breath a milligram. Then come again when you reliably have gotten lung cancer. The stuff is named after the god of hell for a reason.
Re: (Score:2)
I won't get lung cancer. I won't have to worry about it since I will have fucking heavy metal poisoning at that point. You know, same as with lead, or mercury, or any number of heavy elements that aren't radioactive.
Jesus christ, do some research before you make yourself sound even dumber.
Going Boom is Very Bad (Score:2)
If the nuclear power plant goes boom, I may have to move, but I will almost certainly not die from it.
No, if it goes "boom" you are very likely to die from it or at least have a much shorter life. The point is that it is basically impossible for a modern nuclear power plant to go "boom" - even if the inner reactor somehow manages it (which itself is practically impossible) there is a secondary containment building so still no boom. It is so unlikely that if you worry about that then you should be absolutely panic-stricken about the threat from asteroid impacts.
Re: (Score:2)
The vast majority of people who lived near Chernobyl or Fukushima at the time survived and did not have their lives shortened. Now you can say that those two didn't go boom, but that is as boom as a nuclear power plant can realistically go.
Re: (Score:1)
You forget that this is the result of an accident that "could not happen". Yes, releasing this water into the ocean is not problematic. But the plants this water comes form are proof of lying, unsafe operation and general greedy fuckery in the nuclear power industry. I also bet that this accident alone will cost a lot more to clean up than all profits from nuclear power Japan ever had in its history. If they ever had profits, the nuclear industry is notorious for lying about its costs.
Re: (Score:1)
Mention the word "nuclear" and those without solid physics education become driven by fear.
I agree with you, and yet I can't blame the public. As another poster noted, the public's trust in their government(s) have been much eroded as of late. And in the case of nuclear waste, all of the following applies:
Missing the bigger news story - North Korea (Score:3)
Apparently North Korea has called on the international community to stop the release. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/0... [cnn.com]
North Korea. International community. This is significant because it shows that they are deluded enough to think that anyone in the international community will give even a micro-iota of a fuck about what North Korea thinks.
I actually wonder if this is a false flag operation to turn the entire event into a parody so people can laugh it off.
Re: (Score:3)
It's Tritium, not Radon or Uranium (Score:5, Insightful)
The Beta particles from it can't even get past the dead skin cells on your hand if they make it that far. The low energy of the Beta particle means it generally can't get past 6mm of air. Additionally, Tritium has a half life of less than 12 and a half years. So, it will be around for a while, but not thousands of years. If this stuff was truly a major hazard, Amazon probably would not allow it to be sold so freely. Look up Tritium gun sites and watches and even necklaces.
You wouldn't want to be releasing this stuff every day of every year and say there is nothing to it, but a diluted discharge over a short period is nothing to get so worked up about. While I am not a fan of whataboutism, it is worth considering that we don't have too much outcry over the radioactive compounds in coal ash. Interestingly, the EPA website doesn't have much good information, but the Oak Ridge National Laboratory does. And, ORNL talks about how "For the year 1982, assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons of thorium that year."
Please look up information and figure out what you really should be worried about.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: It's Tritium, not Radon or Uranium (Score:2)
How could I have forgotten about Carbon 14? Carbon 14 is so sexy, you just want to date it.
Tritium vs. Potassium (Score:2)
The Beta particles from it can't even get past the dead skin cells on your hand if they make it that far.
True, but the danger with tritium is that, as an isotope of hydrogen, it is chemically very active and can easily get incorporated into your body if you are exposed to it. Then it does not have to get past any skin cells. However, it is ridiculous to stockpile sea salt which, because the water is evaporated, will contain no tritium but it will contain lots of naturally occurring, radioactive potassium-40 which emits beta radiation that easily has enough energy to get through your skin every time you visit
Re: (Score:1)
Tritium in products like gun sights is safe because you don't put gun sights inside your body.
Tritium inside the body, carried in by water, is dangerous. There are protocols for handling it, basically flush your body by consuming as much water as possible. You need to consume quite a lot of tritium for it to present a significant risk, and it typically only spends a few weeks in you even if you don't flush, but it is still a real thing.
The levels in the water at Fukushima should be completely safe, IF they
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's WW2 that they are upset about. Comfort women and other atrocities.
Re: (Score:2)
Just keep it in an abandoned village (Score:2)
Exaggerated panic over all things nuclear (Score:2)
Sure radioactive stuff can be bad for your health, but so can non-radioactive stuff. California is full of sites contaminated with arsenic and mercury from gold rush era and who knows what from manufacturing plants. There are many does and don't about eating locally caught fish - what kind, how much, which parts, not when pregnant and so on. On the other hand, the issue is always concentration - topsoil in Chernobyl, a lake in California. When same things are diluted in enormous 3d volume of ocean, it does
Japan vs China (Score:1)
Mindless panic (Score:3)
There is a lot wrong with nuclear power (with a list basically too long to give here by now), but specifically this water release is not a problem. Of course what causes the need for this water release is a hugely expensive nuclear mess caused by shoddy planning, schoddy engineering and doing things cheaper than possible. The whole Fukushima disaster is an object lesson why the nuclear industry cannot be trusted to do things right.
That said, please, people, protest what is actually wrong with nuclear power. There is so much to choose from and so much of it is so very, very, wrong. Why the hell are you protesting one of the few things that are actually not a problem?
Re: (Score:3)
People find it easier to react to one specific event than something ongoing with the status quo. People generally don't want to show up month after month, year after year for each regulatory board meeting, unless they're getting paid a salary.
And if someone did want to protest at each meeting of the regulatory body, he'd be the lone "crazy guy" sitting out there. He'd have a stack of pamphlets printed up with the solution to the energy crisis and global warming, and nobody would read it.
Probably he gets arr
Re: (Score:2)
People find it easier to react to one specific event than something ongoing with the status quo.
True. And probably one of the main reasons why so many things are so fucked up.
Dear South-Coreans (Score:4, Insightful)
Sea-salt is full of microplastics, even the expensive Fleur de Sel, you can SEE the plastic fibers with a magnifying glass, if they're blue or red, even with the naked eye.
Use rock-salt instead, it was a few million years old before plastic was invented.
No water, no Tritium. (Score:3)
Dried and refined sea salt doesn't have any water in it. OK, yeah, a tiny trace but if your really going to be paranoid just put the salt in the oven for a hour or two at 250F to drive out the minuscule amount of water present. Probably going to be a market soon for kiln dried sea salt, 100% water free.
Given the amounts of Tritium involved and the shear volume of the ocean the water from Fukushima will be diluted in If I was going to worry about minor radiation sources that might cause me issues at some point 20-30 years down the road I'll stress out about the Carbon 14 in just about EVERYTHING around me. Even with the difference in half-life from Tritium there is way more of C14 in the local environment and the Beta radiation released when C14 decays is something like 50 times more energetic over Tritium's Beta decay product.
Re: No water, no Tritium. (Score:2)
It is refreshing that by and large, the posters here on slashdot get that this is a non-issue in the grand scheme of things.
Re: (Score:1)
Not in my backyard so I think those people are being irrational about their backyard. It's not like radiation works it's way up the food chain and concentrates near the top and it's not like humans are at the top of the food chain. So it's not a real problem... besides if 1000 people get cancer over the next few decades, it's like winning the lottery that you'll be one of them and they won't likely even have data with a low enough margin of error to prove anything; especially in court. Say you do, be happy
good idea (Score:2)
But what about all the other toxic crap (literally and figuratively) that gets pumped into the ocean on a daily basis?
Dump it in the middle of the ocean (Score:2)
Why don't they just load water into large tankers, go out to sea away from major land masses, and then dump the water there? Sure, it would have additional costs, but nothing compared to the bad PR this move is getting.
Statistics education (Score:2)
11 out of 10 people lack statistics knowledge.
Radioactive coal fly ash from China (Score:2)
Meanwhile, they are literally eating significant amounts of radioactive fly ash from the eleventybillion coal fired power plants in China, right next door. Nothing like a little Thorium and Uranium to spice things up. Half-life of Tritium is about 12yrs. Half-life of Thorium is 14.05 billion years...
Re: (Score:3)
Meanwhile, they are literally eating significant amounts of radioactive fly ash from the eleventybillion coal fired power plants in China, right next door. Nothing like a little Thorium and Uranium to spice things up. Half-life of Tritium is about 12yrs. Half-life of Thorium is 14.05 billion years...
Not sure that comparison does what you think it does. The shorter the half-life an isotope has, the more radioactive it is. Something with a half-life of 14B years is extremely safe, unless it's dangerous because of its chemical properties. Something with a half-life of 12 years could be dangerous in sufficient quantity and depending on what particles it emits and in what context. Tritium happens not to be very dangerous because the beta particles it emits can't penetrate the skin, and even if ingested it d
Expecting scary things (Score:2)
Fearmongering ... (Score:2)
The number of people who died as a direct result of the Fukushima Daiichi accident is around 50 ... all of who died due to being evacuated ... ....it will be very difficult to even measure the radiation in the seawater it's that low ...
But since it *Nuclear* and *Radiation* it *must* be deadly and scary ... ... Meanwhile there are people still living in Pripyat ...