Re: Is Tritium Really That "Nasty"?

[Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 02:52 29.01.1997 -0600, you wrote:
>In a message dated 97-01-29 03:21:46 EST, you write:
>
>>> I dislike furthermore the idea of living in a tritium world, where the
>>> "clean" fusion energy has replaced the "dirty" nuclear energy - don't you?
>
>Franz -
>One does not have much choice; we all live in a tritium world. Cosmic ray 
>interactions with the atmosphere produce about 4 million curies of tritium 
>per year, leading to an equilibruim inventory of about 70 million curies from
>
>cosmic ray interactions alone.
>
>Steve Frey, MS, CHP
>Stevenfrey@aol.com
>Phone: (800) 888-7008 (office)
>            (714) 646-4631 (home)
>
>..............................................

Steve, (and others)

I am not scared by the numbers you mention and which I know of course. I
still think that the most appropriate quantity to give an idea about risks
is concentration per volume of air or water. The situation is much "better"
than it was about 35 years ago, the environmental tritium levels are much
lower now. We live with tritium, C-14, Be-7, K-40 etc. 

What I was referring to is the prospect of having a world, contaminated by
huge quantities of tritium originating from fusion power plants - if they
ever will work. Tritium is in my opinion nasty, because it practically
cannot be contained safely anywhere and therefore even under normal drift
huge amounts of tritium will escape from fusion power plants. The
contamination following an accidential release must be tremendous. The
releases from fission reactors can be minimized with little problems and the
fission products can be conditioned and stored safely. Some gaseous
radionuclides may pose more difficulties (I-131, I-129, noble gases like
Kr-85) but can be handled safely as well. 

I am not an expert in fusion and I do not have data at hand, but maybe some
experienced radsafers could tell a little about the inventory of such a
(potential) fusion plant, the activation products in construction material etc.

Franz
Schoenhofer
Habichergasse 31/7
A-1160 WIEN
AUSTRIA/EUROPE
Tel./Fax:	+43-1-4955308
Tel.:		+43-664-3380333
e-mail:		schoenho@via.at