[junon]

Nuclear waterwaste != nuclear waste. Water cannot be radioactive, and in fact water is a fantastic insulator for radiation. The water had contaminates in it and the argument is whether or not the current level of contaminates is safe.

The article's title makes it sound like they're just going to dump the Elephant Foot directly into the pacific. It's clearly a sensationalistic anti-nuclear title edit.

[ben_w]

While water is indeed a fantastic radiation shield, tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and quite capable of replacing normal hydrogen in a water molecule, so even pure water can absolutely be radioactive.

It’s one of the least dangerous radioisotopes out there, so I’m not particularly fussed, but it is incorrect to say water can’t be radioactive.

[walnutclosefarm]

In this case, the water is radioactive. They are talking about releasing water in which a small fraction of the molecules are composed of Hydrogen, Tritium and Oxygen (HTO), rather than ordinary H20. HTO acts chemically just like H20, and is literally radioactive water.

[pvaldes]

> Water cannot be radioactive

To start, seawater has more things than water. Both Hydrogen and Oxygen have isotopes that can decay and emit radioactivity, so yes, water can definitely be radioactive, by definition. For a relatively short time because is not plutonium of course, but it can be.

And, unlike Plutonium, the problem is that life beings are mostly made of water and we didn't coevolved with a such rare element as tritium is in nature. Water is freely allowed to enter and travel and has granted access to every part of the human body. We trade a big danger for other, but this does not mean that radioactive water can't harm us.

[u320]

Tritium has a biological half-life in humans of 8 days. It's not a "big danger". Japan has gone out of their way to take all the precautions here, but since it's nuclear you know somebody is going to raise a stink anyway.

[pvaldes]

We share the planet with other organisms, and we even eat some of them.

"Is not a danger" here means "we don't know and, as long as liability is impossible to be traced back to us, we don't care".

[LightG]

I invite you to take a swim in it.