Tritiated water behaves just like H2O and is excreted from the body quickly with a biological half life of 3.5 days. For this reason it doesn’t bioaccumulate up the food chain and diffuses and dilutes rapidly in lakes and oceans.
It may come as a shock to some journalists but the natural world, including our lakes and oceans, are naturally radioactive thanks to cosmic rays and the decay of naturally occurring radionuclides like Potassium 40.
Its all doom and gloom for Nuclear in @BentFlyvbjerg's new book "How Big Things Get Done"
But did he miss some nuance when conflating the Korean/UAE collaboration which will have delivered four 1400MW reactors in 12 yrs with the unfolding fiasco of Vogtle 1/
In the book @BentFlyvbjerg and @dgardner contrast the Guggenheim museum and the Sydney Opera house to draw important lessons from two very cutting edge buildings. 2/
The Guggenheim is the product of meticulous iterative planning by a mature dreamteam of architects & engineers who routinely pull off complex projects on budget/on time, the Opera House a couple of sketches by an inexperienced architect which balooned into a budgetary fiasco 3/
Unshielded & fresh out of the reactor exposure for seconds would result in certain death.
But somehow there has not been a single documented death from storing civilian nuclear waste. Ever.
Here's what you need to know: a 🧵
We make dangerous things, like nuclear waste, safe.
Consider civil aviation.
In 2019, 4.5 billion passengers took 42 million flights worldwide flying 900km/hr at 30,000 feet in thin skinned, pressurized aircraft often over vast oceans.
There were only 289 fatalities.
The truth is that it's a lot easier to handle and store nuclear waste than to meticulously maintain an airliner which has over 10,000 mission critical moving parts.
This Hydrogen Alliance is coming under increasing scrutiny due to allegations of a conflict of interest arising out of the Premier of Newfoundland, Andrew Furey's luxury trip to a lodge owned by Canadian billionaire John Risley this summer. 2/
Risley happens to be one of the principal investors in a project called Nujio’qonik, one of three projects competing to be part of the Canada German Hydrogen Alliance alongside EverWind Fuels in Nova Scotia and the Port of Belledune project in New Brunswick. 3/
Greta called on Germany not to close its nuclear as it pivots back to coal.
Wilkinson claims that gas is not used for electricity generation in Ger. This is factually incorrect. 1/
Here is Germany’s electricity generation by source in 2021. Gas was a significant part of their electricity. EU Natural Gas reached an all time high of 345 euro/MWh on the TTF in March of 2022 which has driven even more coal burning as a way to ration gas use on the grid. 2/
Germany despite a 550 billion euro wind & solar dominant “energy transition” used Coal as its #1 source of electricity in 2021 (BEFORE PUTIN’s INVASION)
Ontario by contrast used nuclear to phaseout coal.
As doctors we explain the risks & benefits of treatment plans on a daily basis. The risk/benefit profile of nuclear energy is clear. Nuclear is extremely safe, our lowest CO2 energy source & is essential to reaching our climate goals. 1/
After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, many Americans felt that flying was too risky and started driving instead. 2/
An analysis by the U.S. Department of Transportation revealed a significant rise in fatal crashes in the final three months of 2001: an extra 353 deaths compared to previous years due to increased traffic on the roads. 3/