San Onofre's ongoing tritium issues: Are they a significant health risk?

The nuclear industry refuses to understand the risks from radiation. This is, of course, intentional. The reality is that there is no such thing as a "trivial" release, all radiation damage is cumulative. Extremely low doses are almost certainly MORE dangerous relative to higher doses on a per-dose basis. This is known as a "supralinear" effect (see page 6 of my Code Killers book (free pdfs online, this is not a sales pitch!)). Supralinearity hasn't been proven beyond a reasonable doubt yet because the effects of extremely low doses are hidden by all the other "assaults" on life from chemicals, diet, variations in people's health to begin with, and nobody has been able to design a proper test for it yet. However, the thing that convinces me it's correct is that the "minimum" radiation dose from any radioactive release (alpha, beta, gamma, neutron) is massive compared to the strength of any chemical bond in the body.

One emission from Tritium, which the industry (in the attached article, for example) ALWAYS describes as an "extremely low-dose beta emitter" (or words to that effect) will destroy thousands of chemical bonds when it occurs. When that tritium atom was originally part of a water molecule, it leaves behind an OH free radical, which does even more damage to the body and actually probably causes more damage than the beta emission itself. (But I'll talk more about the beta emission here anyway.)

First of all: The whole idea of calling ANY beta emission "low energy" just because its energy level might be a thousand times lower than a "high energy" beta emission is PURE PROPAGANDA. Why is this so? Let me explain:

A beta particle is a CHARGED PARTICLE. It's basically just an electron, with a negative charge of -1 like all electrons. That's enough charge when it passes by other electrons at high speed ("high speed" being a relative term, as I'll explain) to knock those other electrons out of their orbits. Thousands of electrons can be knocked away by a single beta emission. ANY beta emission, whether it's a low-energy emission or a high-energy emission. How does that work?

Here's how:

When ANY beta particle is emitted, whether a so-called low energy emission or a high one, that particle is traveling at about 99.7% the speed of light -- far faster than an alpha particle emission, for example, which "only" is about 98% the speed of light.

The beta particle (or "ray" if you prefer) is a charged particle, extremely small, and traveling very fast when first emitted. So it PASSES BY other atoms so fast that it's not near other atoms for very long, and DOESN'T have much or ANY effect on things it passes UNTIL it slows down. That's when virtually ALL the damage occurs. It would still be going very fast by "terrestrial" standards, but nothing like the 99.7% the speed of light.

Imagine passing a magnet over a bunch of nails. If you do it very, very quickly, the magnet won't pick up ANY of the nails or even move them around at all. But if you pass the magnet slowly over the nail, it will affect them all. It's basically the same thing for charged particles passing other charged particles. At nearly the speed of light, the beta particle (or "ray" as some prefer to call it) passes other atoms so quickly that nothing significant happens.

So both high and low-energy beta particles do more or less the same amount of damage because virtually ALL the damage is done at the end of the track, when the particle has slowed down significantly.

The nuclear industry NEVER mentions tritium without calling it a Low Energy Beta Emitter. And that's BS. Nuclear propaganda. The vast majority of workers in the nuclear industry have no idea what I'm talking about, but of course, this comes from experts I've talked to many times, including three Manhattan Project scientists. (At least two of them, specifically about Tritium, and the third founded the Health Physics Society.)

The small creatures of the world -- that our lives depend on (plankton, bees, everything in the food chain) are far more at risk from tritium than larger animals, and diluting the releases does nothing to prevent tritium from harming something or someone, it just spreads the danger out, as with all radiation releases that they "dilute" to "safe" levels. There are no safe levels of any radioactive substance. That said, I've had half a dozen CTs and PETs, mostly in the last five years. The doses were tens of thousands of times higher than anything I'll absorb from SanO. If there were no other safer, cheaper, better ways to generate electricity, society might choose to use nuclear power IF the operating releases were the only problem. But there ARE safer, cheaper, better ways to generate electricity, and the "spent" fuel that is left over is millions of times more hazardous that the "fresh" fuel that went into the reactor. In other words, SanO operated as a manufacturer of the most deadly poisons on earth for many decades, but fortunately, SO FAR, has only released what they call "trivial" amounts over the years. It's all the other stuff, in those canisters by the beach, that scares me the most.

One small fraction of one canister contains more radiation -- that can be released into the environment at any moment -- than all the continuous releases from SanO add up to, starting from Day One, Unit 1, the first day Unit 1 operated for the first time.

Lastly, let me address the question: Is your individual risk from SanO's tritium releases worth worrying about? Basically no.

If you smoke tobacco, that's far more likely to kill you than all the tritium releases from SanO, diluted as they are before they get to anyone. If you drive regularly any great distance, that risk of death or injury is far higher. If you are significantly overweight or don't exercise, your risk is far higher than whatever you've recieved or will recieve from all the tritium that SanO has ever released. Dilution as a solution to pollution does have its benefits (for locals, anyway)!

Is the radiation from a single cross-country airplane flight more dangerous than the cumulative effects of SanO's releases to local residents? Probably -- although exploding packages put on planes by terrorists is probably an even greater risk these days. Suicidal pilots have crashed several planes as well in the past few decades (not just on 9-11).

I worry about the spent fuel, and the possibility of an airplane crashing into it, a terrorist attack on it, or tsunamis and earthquakes far more than about the tritium releases -- but there is no EXCUSE for the lies the nuclear industry propagates about tritium or about "low level" radiation dangers generally.

I hope these comments help and I apologize for the length of this response. It's not a simple topic -- nothing about radiation damage is simple, that's why they've gotten away with releasing so much from bomb tests, and from the nuclear industry. Dilution has always been their solution to pollution, and it just doesn't work. We need the plankton and the bees to survive, too. Only a tiny amount of tritium is produced naturally.

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA
November 25, 2024

Review of Arjun Makhijani's 2023 book Exploring Tritium Dangers:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2024/11/book-review-exploring-tritium-dangers.html

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Tritium exit sign (from NRC web site)

My 2007 essay on tritium:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environment/tritium/2007/ItsAllAboutTheDNA.htm
My 2006 essay (includes a glossary and some background):
http://animatedsoftware.com/environment/tritium/2006/EPATritiumStandard.htm
My first tritium essay (2004):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/2004/TritiumComments%2020041223.htm

Book review: Exploring Tritium Dangers by Arjun Makhijani reviewed by Sharon and Ace Hoffman

"Exploring Tritium Dangers: Health and Ecosystem Risks of Internally Incorporated Radionuclides" by Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D. is a concise book packed with facts and figures.

Tritium is a radioactive form of Hydrogen with a half-life of 12.3 years. Tritium is easily absorbed and ingested as Tritiated water which is created when Tritium replaces one or, very rarely, both of the Hydrogen atoms in water (H2O) creating HTO/TTO. "Exploring Tritium Dangers" focuses on Tritium in the bodies of pregnant women, embryos, and fetuses.

Tritium decays by emitting a beta particle with an average charge of about 5.7KeV (5.7 thousand electron-volts (maximum about 18.6KeV)). Because it is a charged particle, a beta particle can disrupt other charged particles, such as electrons. The resulting damage can ionize atoms (i.e., knock an electron completely away from its atom), rearrange molecular structures, and/or break chemical bonds. A single Tritium decay can destroy thousands of chemical bonds.

The nuclear industry describes Tritium as a "weak" beta emitter, meaning Tritium's energy level is low compared to the energy level of most other beta emitters. For example, a Plutonium-239 beta particle has an average energy level of about 5.245 MeV -- nearly 1,000 times the average energy of a Tritium beta particle.

However, the idea that a "weak" beta-emitter causes proportionately less damage than a "strong" beta emitter is false, as described to this author by a retired scientist from Lawrence Livermore Labs. Here's how that happens: The affect of a beta particle on other charged particles is similar to the affect of a magnet passing quickly beneath a piece of paper covered with iron filings, but on an atomic scale. If the magnet is moved very very quickly, the filings on the piece of paper will hardly be disrupted at all. Similarly, the faster a beta particle is moving, the LESS likely it is to disrupt other charged particles.

The initial speed of a beta particle, around 99.7% the speed of light, is directly related to its energy level. But for both a high-energy beta particle and low-energy beta particle, most of their damage is done after they have slowed down, near the end of their track.

Because of this, when a Radiation Absorbed Dose ("RAD") is measured by total amount of energy released, Tritium actually causes MORE damage than a "stronger" beta-emitter! For one plutonium beta particle emitted, about a thousand tritium beta particles are emitted for the same total energy released.

According to the US EPA (https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radiation-basics) "Beta particles ... can be stopped by a layer of clothing or by a thin layer of a substance such as aluminum. ...beta-emitters are most hazardous when they are inhaled or swallowed...".

As Exploring Tritium Dangers explains "Tritiated water...is chemically indistinguishable from ordinary (non-radioactive) water, which is the majority of the mass of animals and plants." Animals can consume Tritiated water in food and liquids. They can breath in Tritium gas and Tritiated water vapor, and absorb Tritium gas, Tritiated water, and Tritiated water vapor through their skin. Animals may also be exposed to beta particles emitted by organically-bound Tritium. For example, a person's bicep muscle or a vegetable that a person eats might contain organically-bound Tritium.

Exploring Tritium Dangers points out that "Tritium has a long enough half-life, 12.3 years, that it persists in the environment for decades (in diminishing amounts as it decays); yet its half-life is short enough that it is extremely radioactive. For a given mass, it is, for instance, about 150,000 times as radioactive, in terms of disintegrations per unit time, as Plutonium-239."

Exploring Tritium Dangers also warns about other types of damage Tritium can cause: "One of the ways that ionizing radiation ... damage living cells is by creating an excess of oxidants....In the specific case of Tritium, its beta particle emissions ionize molecules, including water, [which results in] the “hydroxyl radical” (OH), which is the most reactive of reactive oxygen species [ROS].... The 2006 National Academies report, BEIR VII, notes the potential for ROS to damage mitochondria ...".

All of these factors make Tritium one of the most dangerous radioactive elements. Therefore, controlling Tritium in the environment is an important public health issue. Exploring Tritium Dangers makes these concerns, and especially their impacts during pregnancy, frighteningly apparent.

As Exploring Tritium Dangers explains, one of the particular dangers of radionuclides during pregnancy is that the concentration of a radionuclide in the fetus may be significantly different than the concentration in the mother's body. These concentrations vary by radionuclide and by when the radionuclide is ingested by the mother. Different concentrations of specific elements in the mother and the fetus are impacted by multiple factors, including the highly selective transfer of elements across the placenta.

For Tritium, the concentration in the fetus is approximately 1.6 times the concentration in the mother's body regardless of whether the Tritium was ingested before or during pregnancy. The most obvious reason for this difference is that a fetus can be up to 90% water (depending on the stage of the pregnancy) while an adult human is approximately 60% water. In addition, the concentration of Hydrogen ions (some of which may be Tritium) differs between maternal blood and fetal blood.

Another factor impacting the potential damage from Tritium during pregnancy is that heavy metals such as lead and mercury can cross the placenta. Exploring Tritium Dangers points out that radioactive damage may interact with other types of damage and that "...precautionary standards ... for chemicals and radiation combined is a critical and urgent matter for public and environmental health."

Exploring Tritium Dangers includes an analysis of the damage that can occur when an embryo or a fetus is exposed to Tritium, and how the potential impacts, such as miscarriages, birth defects, future disease, and multi-generational damage, vary at different times during a pregnancy.

The nuclear industry likes to emphasize that Tritium is a naturally occurring radioactive substance. However, as Exploring Tritium Dangers explains, the vast majority of Tritium on Earth is the result of nuclear bomb tests and nuclear reactor emissions:

“The equilibrium natural inventory is about 3 kilograms, that is roughly 30 million curies.”

“The Tritium remaining from atmospheric testing is about 20 kilograms – or roughly 200 million curies ...”

“...the inventory of Tritium in the nuclear weapons ... is likely to be much larger than the natural and weapons testing amounts combined. ...some of this Tritium may leak into the environment.”

“...for U.S. reactors, Argonne National Laboratory estimates the annual production in a typical reactor to be 2 grams or about 20,000 curies.”

Whenever nuclear power plants release water -- in any form -- some Hydrogen atoms will be radioactive Tritium. As Exploring Tritium Dangers points out "a tightening of drinking water standards is urgently needed, especially for Tritium, which is ... routinely emitted and discharged ... from commercial nuclear facilities ... a tightening of the drinking water standard ... is all the more needed in view of the long neglect of protection of pregnant women and the embryo and fetus.".

Exploring Tritium Dangers is highly recommended.

Review by Sharon & Ace Hoffman
July 6, 2023

(Quotes are from Exploring Tritium Dangers unless specifically attributed to a different source.)

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Every Nuclear Waste Factory and Nuclear Waste Dump Should Be Surrounded by Wind Turbines...for protection!

Think about how the terrorists on 9-11 flew the large commercial airliners into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Horizontally. The fourth plane was undoubtedly supposed to make an attack on the Capital itself, but was nearly taken over by several heroic passengers, so the terrorists simply dove the plane into the ground near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Thousands of suicidal Japanese kamikazi pilots during World War Two did it the same way: Diving only if they had to because the situation required it due to "ack-ack" (anti-aircraft fire coming up from the target area) or Allied fighters. Given a choice, it was always a horizontal attack on a ship.

Think about what kind of accuracy you would need to dive a commercial jetliner vertically into a reactor. You'd need practice to perform the maneuver, and you'd still need a good bit of luck to hit your mark, since you couldn't possibly practice in real life, with real wind and thermal conditions. Terrorists don't have the resources to rely on luck for their desired outcomes and must plan more carefully.

Because of these considerations, there is no BETTER way to protect nuclear waste factories (aka "reactors") or nuclear waste dumps (aka "Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations" or ISFSIs) from terrorist or even ACCIDENTAL airplane strikes...than surrounding the reactors or ISFSIs with...wind turbines! Who would have thunk it?

These wind turbines would have no effect on normal commercial flights, which are well above even the tallest wind turbine -- not that I have anything against tethered wind turbines that "float" in the upper atmosphere, which most certainly COULD be in the way of commercial airline traffic...except that traffic is all on preplanned routes, first of all, and second of all: We all need speedy cheap long-distance ground transportation.

Dedicated track national transportation systems are far safer per passenger mile than airplanes will ever be able to achieve, use far less energy, and you can't do any external damage (damage to other things) by hijacking a train -- especially an electric train that can be shut off remotely and might not even have a live operator on board! Have you ever tried to intimidate or threaten a machine?

By Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA