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Dangers of Tritiated Water Dumped in the Sea

Executive Summary

Tritiated water being dumped into the sea could cause a decline in mitosis and therefore affect reproduction in mammals both in the sea and mammals eating from the sea. There could also be effects similar to the bends with the production of 3He due to beta decay of the tritium. Tritium builds up in the body in the same fashion as lead however, tritium only stays around for up to 12.5 years. After this, it will change to deuterium and 3He. The body will start to excrete the deuterium which should still be bonded to oxygen forming heavy water. The deuterium (hydrogen-2 or 2H) does not decay as it is a stable isotope. Therefore all pure water (H2O) that is tritiated by nuclear power plants will become a form of heavy or semi-heavy water over time and the continued cycle eventually will convert all water to D2O and because of that, all mammals including humans will become extinct.

In More Detail

Tritiated water (T2O aka super-heavy water)[5] is being dumped or planned to be dumped into the sea by Japan[8]. They eat raw fish from the sea.[9] Note that it is tritiated water from the nuclear power plants so not pure tritium water, which is a good thing. Large quantities of tritiated may cause problems in high quantity as it is radioactive, although it has low levels of beta radiation which in itself is not as dangerous as ionising radiation, the decay process causes it to break down into other substances. There is approximately a 12-year half-life. One of the elements that form from the beta decay of tritium is helium-3 (a gas)[3][1] the other is deuterium aka hydrogen-2 (also a gas)[2]. In theory, the hydrogen would keep its bond with oxygen in T2O leaving deuterium water (D2O) aka heavy water[4]. But, the helium-3 (3He) is a noble gas, and therefore inert, which means that the gas is left roaming free. So if you eat foods from the sea or get tritiated water into your body the result may cause gas bubbles to form. It would probably be similar to the bends that divers can get when gas bubbles foam after rapid decompression. Tritiated water does occur naturally and the body can handle small doses but not complete body water replacement[7]. If levels become too highly concentrated then the body cannot remove the gasses from the blood, brain and organs.

Humans should not consume heavy water (D2O) as the D2O can stop cells from replicating in the body by disrupting the process of mitosis[6]. Tritiated water is more dangerous because, unlike D2O, T2O is harder to excrete from the body and can stay around for some years[7]. T2O changes to D2O within or up to its 12.5 half-life period (depending on when the T2O formed) and leaves 3He around. From T2O being introduced into the human body, you will get D2O that can be replaced by normal friendly H2O but also the free-roaming He3 which the body can remove in small amounts. During that time there will be a reduction in cellular replication which will be worse depending on the leaves of T2O.

In short, no one wants super-heavy water or heavy water in our food or water supplies. Thanks.

Notes

There can be DTO and HTO as well. Either would form 3He but only half as much as T2O.

Neutron radiation from the sun penetrates the Earth’s atmosphere where some T2O and HTO can be formed.[10]

  • Protium (1H) – stable – the friendly one everyone likes to have two of these bonded with oxygen that forms H2O
  • Deuterium (2H) – stable – not very nice because the strong bond with oxygen hurts mammals [6]
  • Tritium (3H) – unstable – beta decay – produces 2H and 3He, I don’t like you.

References

[1, EPA Fact About Tritium, https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0609/ML060960589.pdf]
[2, Deuterium, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterium, accessed 19th Jun 2021]
[3, Helium-3, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3, accessed 19th Jun 2021]
[4, Heavy Water, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water, accessed 19th Jun 2021]
[5, Super-Heavy Water, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritiated_water, accessed 19th Jun 2021]
[6, Can you drink heavy water?, https://www.thoughtco.com/can-you-drink-heavy-water-607731, accessed 19th Jun 2021]
[7, TRITIUM from Nuclear Power Plants: Its Biological Hazards, https://www.nirs.org/radiation/tritium/, accessed 19th Jun 2021]
[8, Fukushima: Japan approves releasing wastewater into ocean, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56728068, accessed 19th Jun 2021]
[9, Sashimi, https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2044.html, accessed 19th Jun 2021]
[10, https://www.irsn.fr/EN/Research/publications-documentation/radionuclides-sheets/environment/Pages/Tritium-environment.aspx, accessed 19th Jun 2021]

Errata

19th Jun 2021, 20:14 – Added comment in summary about H2O becoming D2O over time. Changed He3 to 3He. Correction to the summary about the H2O to D2O.

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Frustration with Posts Page

The WordPress Twenty Seventeen theme does not show recent posts on the Posts menu click. So…

I made a custom Posts menu link with a custom .php file. See code below:

<?php
/**
 * Loads the WordPress environment and template.
 *
 * @package WordPress
 */

if ( ! isset( $wp_did_header ) ) {

	$wp_did_header = true;

	// Load the WordPress library.
	require_once __DIR__ . '/wp-load.php';
}
// Get the most recent post date
$date = new DateTime( get_lastpostdate( 'server', 'post') );
// Redirect to the page using format of the most recent post date
header( "Location: " . get_site_url()  . "/" . $date->format( "Y" ) . "/" . $date->format( "m" ) . "/" );

die;
?>
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Quantum Computing More Atomic?

I wanted to look at the qubit to understand if it is really atomic rather than quantum, it depends on if you include the package or not, which I’m not. To dispel thoughts of radiation with my thoughts of atomic computing, in fact, the silicon is refined to remove unstable isotopes so it is not radio-active.[1] So radiation does have an impact otherwise the material would not need refining. That is only one way of manufacturing the qubit. The video is a short explanation of the qubit and its manufacturing.[2] So, a quantum bit is a single particle held in a determinate state and therefore it is quantum, not atomic and because atoms are made up of multiple different particles. It is obvious that you don’t want free neutrons, electrons or protons roaming around your qubit. 🙂 Well, in beta decay as there are free electrons that could upset it. That’s why it’s refined then, phew. So what effect would gamma radiation have on the qubit? So if I put a lump of uranium ore next to a quantum computer what is going to happen? That probably has both gamma and beta radiation coming from it.

The more descriptive version of the qubit. (See ref [1])
The glossed over simple version about the qubit manufacturing. (See ref [2])

14th Jun 2021 – I’ve re-worded my short explanation to try to clarify things and added references.

References
[1, How To Make a Quantum Bit, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNzzGgr2mhk, accessed 14th Jun 2021]
[2, A Qubit in the Making, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pB87H3_F_c, accessed 14th Jun 2021]