Friendly reminder that water is one of the best attenuators of radiation out there. You can be within 1m of a nuclear reactor’s rods and as long as they are inside water, the dose of radiation you will receive is just barely more than you get via background radiation. No nuclear gators here.
Supposedly, there's "high" levels of tritium in the water. But, you can probably find tritium anywhere, and it's short lived anyway (what's the pathway into the water via the power plant, anyway?).
Next time you're at a store and see an exit sign, look closely for the radioactive symbol. A lot of them use tritium to glow in the dark. They have to be licensed and tracked, but that's basically how harmless the stuff is. Also, wristwatches and gunsights and all use it.
NMS is basically Minecraft in space. It's been fun to watch it evolve over the years, and I still boot it up from time to time just to play around with the new shit.
If I'm not mistaken, the kind of water that gets exhausted into open air pools outside the plant is the same kind of water that winds up in steamstacks. It's secondary loop, or sometimes tertiary. It cools off the water that gets recondensed after flowing through turbines before being recycled. It never even touches something that touches something that was inside a reactor.
Turkey Point is a PWR so the radioactive water never leaves the reactor building. A secondary loop is used to run the turbines and the cooling water mentioned here is a tertiary loop used to cool that water. A lot would have to go wrong to get any meaningful radiation here.
The capper at the end of that is great. "What would happen if someone tried to go swimming in our spent nuclear pool? Huh, they'd probably die of gunshot wounds."
Another cool fact is NASA is considering using 1M of water inside the hulls of deep space craft to shield from solar radiation and cosmic rays. Very heavy but absolutely necessary if humans want to survive a trip to mars.
It’s one of the reasons the moon is so important to our next step into space. Easier to make the water there and lift it to a space craft waiting in orbit then trying to truck it all up from earth.
Got a hype video for Moon before Mars, Love that I live 3 hours from Kennedy and on a clear night you can see the rockets in the sky. We are going. And it’s going to be damn cool.
It's certainly an enormous difference in escape energy required between the Earth and the moon — something on the order of a 20x reduction — but there's a break-even point somewhere between "get a liter of water into orbit" and "launch 100 giant generation ships with meters of water shielding" where the cost of establishing and maintaining a lunar production facility gets outweighed by the economy of scale with repeated payment of that enormous launch cost.
I have no clue exactly what the establishment, maintenance, and incremental production costs of a lunar industrial facility would be, but my intuition tells me it places the break-even a long way past a single Martian expedition.
We launched almost 2 million kilograms into orbit from Earth in 2024. That's roughly 2000 cubic meters of water. I can't find a hard calculation of the external surface area of ISS habitation modules, but a couple of quick napkin math calculations place it at something between 800 and 900 square meters. That means, with no reduction or optimization, we could likely shield the entirely of something like the ISS for its humans with well under a year's worth of nominal launch capacity. That's still a massive undertaking (no pun intended), especially considering that mass requirement is already about double the entire mass of the ISS today, but it's still well within "humans can do this already" territory, especially spreading it out over years.
I have no clue where to even start on the efficiencies of mass water extraction or production on the lunar surface, but it was considered very exciting that a layer of regolith appeared to go as far as almost 12 parts per million:
Let's round that up to 20 and assume perfect extraction for the spherical cows: that's imply you need to process 250,000 kg of dream regolith for every kg of water extraction, or 400 million kilograms for even an optimistic half of that ISS shielding costs. I can't find any literature suggesting mass estimates for initial launch costs, parts, and other maintenance need to process even millions of kilograms of regolith, but I'm pretty confident that, unlike the raw water launch target, it's well outside our current practical capabilities.
If we reach a point where we're regularly producing million+ kg water shields for deeper manned space flight, it'll eventually be a no brainer to have water production outside of Earth — though the moon probably isn't the top of the list even then. But, as exciting as humans doing stuff on the moon is, I don't think that ends up approaching anything practical for orders of magnitude yet.
I swam in a triathlon last year in a lake used for nuclear cooling. Earliest tri of the season, barely warm enough for swimming thanks to the power plant.
Some power plant in Florida argued that they should be able to…nay, should be required to keep burning older more polluting fuels because their cooling ponds have become a haven for manatees.
Now that years have gone by. The old fuel isn’t as profitable as newer generators. They want to switch to newer sources but the EPA told them no they are required to keep those ponds warm lol
This reminds me of the power plant in Fairbanks Alaska. They dump hot water in the Chena River which provides a little microclimate for ducks to survive all winter without migrating.
People usually are concerned about the radioactive waste, not their cooling water.
But also warm water emissions meddle with the environnement, altering the conditions. In this case a single threatened species benefitted from it, in most cases it has negative impacts on aquatic ecosystems and needs also to be mitigated.
But also warm water emissions meddle with the environnement, altering the conditions.
Indeed. The water being used for cooling means it evaporates more than it would have if left undisturbed. That's also the way in which data centers "use up" water: cooling things implies evaporation, so less water flowing in the river. It's not completely harmless.
Friendly reminder that water is one of the best attenuators of radiation out there. You can be within 1m of a nuclear reactor’s rods and as long as they are inside water, the dose of radiation you will receive is just barely more than you get via background radiation. No nuclear gators here.
Supposedly, there's "high" levels of tritium in the water. But, you can probably find tritium anywhere, and it's short lived anyway (what's the pathway into the water via the power plant, anyway?).
Next time you're at a store and see an exit sign, look closely for the radioactive symbol. A lot of them use tritium to glow in the dark. They have to be licensed and tracked, but that's basically how harmless the stuff is. Also, wristwatches and gunsights and all use it.
Otto Octavius looking at his watch: "The power of the sun..."
I get plenty of tritium by shooting asteroids with my lasers before going into boost to reach the planets a bit further out in a system.
NMS is basically Minecraft in space. It's been fun to watch it evolve over the years, and I still boot it up from time to time just to play around with the new shit.
(To spell it out: NMS, the game these folks are referring to, is No Man's Sky).
I wear a watch every day that he tritium illumination.
If I'm not mistaken, the kind of water that gets exhausted into open air pools outside the plant is the same kind of water that winds up in steamstacks. It's secondary loop, or sometimes tertiary. It cools off the water that gets recondensed after flowing through turbines before being recycled. It never even touches something that touches something that was inside a reactor.
Turkey Point is a PWR so the radioactive water never leaves the reactor building. A secondary loop is used to run the turbines and the cooling water mentioned here is a tertiary loop used to cool that water. A lot would have to go wrong to get any meaningful radiation here.
Relevant XKCD.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
The capper at the end of that is great. "What would happen if someone tried to go swimming in our spent nuclear pool? Huh, they'd probably die of gunshot wounds."
So reactor pools ARE dangerous
Apparently there’s a Goldilocks zone in the middle, but the surface and bottom sound quite treacherous.
Thanks for crossing another idea off my how to get super powers list.
No problem fellow meat bag.
Another cool fact is NASA is considering using 1M of water inside the hulls of deep space craft to shield from solar radiation and cosmic rays. Very heavy but absolutely necessary if humans want to survive a trip to mars.
It’s one of the reasons the moon is so important to our next step into space. Easier to make the water there and lift it to a space craft waiting in orbit then trying to truck it all up from earth.
Moon before mars 100%. Would love to see a Lunar base in my lifetime.
Got a hype video for Moon before Mars, Love that I live 3 hours from Kennedy and on a clear night you can see the rockets in the sky. We are going. And it’s going to be damn cool.
Is it really, though?
It's certainly an enormous difference in escape energy required between the Earth and the moon — something on the order of a 20x reduction — but there's a break-even point somewhere between "get a liter of water into orbit" and "launch 100 giant generation ships with meters of water shielding" where the cost of establishing and maintaining a lunar production facility gets outweighed by the economy of scale with repeated payment of that enormous launch cost.
I have no clue exactly what the establishment, maintenance, and incremental production costs of a lunar industrial facility would be, but my intuition tells me it places the break-even a long way past a single Martian expedition.
We launched almost 2 million kilograms into orbit from Earth in 2024. That's roughly 2000 cubic meters of water. I can't find a hard calculation of the external surface area of ISS habitation modules, but a couple of quick napkin math calculations place it at something between 800 and 900 square meters. That means, with no reduction or optimization, we could likely shield the entirely of something like the ISS for its humans with well under a year's worth of nominal launch capacity. That's still a massive undertaking (no pun intended), especially considering that mass requirement is already about double the entire mass of the ISS today, but it's still well within "humans can do this already" territory, especially spreading it out over years.
I have no clue where to even start on the efficiencies of mass water extraction or production on the lunar surface, but it was considered very exciting that a layer of regolith appeared to go as far as almost 12 parts per million:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2095927324003815
Let's round that up to 20 and assume perfect extraction for the spherical cows: that's imply you need to process 250,000 kg of dream regolith for every kg of water extraction, or 400 million kilograms for even an optimistic half of that ISS shielding costs. I can't find any literature suggesting mass estimates for initial launch costs, parts, and other maintenance need to process even millions of kilograms of regolith, but I'm pretty confident that, unlike the raw water launch target, it's well outside our current practical capabilities.
If we reach a point where we're regularly producing million+ kg water shields for deeper manned space flight, it'll eventually be a no brainer to have water production outside of Earth — though the moon probably isn't the top of the list even then. But, as exciting as humans doing stuff on the moon is, I don't think that ends up approaching anything practical for orders of magnitude yet.
You're right, but there simply isn't anything radioactive in this water. It's just part of the cooling loop.
You mean fuel rods. There are different types of rods in a reactor :)
Depends on the type of reactor. Unnecessary correction
Y'all's thread made me lol
I don't know anything about any of this but I think it's pretty cool so I'm gonna just nod and pretend I agree.
How dare you crush my hopes and dreams!
Why you gotta ruin my dreams of teenage mutant ninja gators?
That’s just what a nuclear gator would say…
That's what they want you to think. Mwahahaha!
“We love water folks, don’t we?”
That's what Goodzilla would say
That won’t stop me from writing a screenplay
That’s exactly what a nuclear gator would say.
This is why I stopped swimming in the cooling pools at nuclear power plants. There's not enough radiation to kill the gators anymore.
I swam in a triathlon last year in a lake used for nuclear cooling. Earliest tri of the season, barely warm enough for swimming thanks to the power plant.
💯 very smart
Nature will take any buff it can get
R/brandnewsentence
Don't forget the Manatee as well.
Kaiju manatee sounds like the Mothra to Kaiju crocodile’s Godzilla.
For anyone who doesn’t know,
Some power plant in Florida argued that they should be able to…nay, should be required to keep burning older more polluting fuels because their cooling ponds have become a haven for manatees.
Now that years have gone by. The old fuel isn’t as profitable as newer generators. They want to switch to newer sources but the EPA told them no they are required to keep those ponds warm lol
ManaCrock vs. Octo Shark.
Coming straight to amazon prime soon - next to the Velocopastor - a priest who transforms intot a dinosaur when angry.
If I had never heard of a manatee before you could totally convince me it's an irradiated crocodile
It's crazy how many congregate at the power plant in the winter. There was a manatee museum by one in Lauderdale.
Thats how you get Kaiju
Florida really said ‘yeah let’s roll the dice’
That just explains Florida in general.
Or deathclaws!
Yeah this seems like a comically bad thing to have occurred.
Why?
The cooling water isn’t radioactive
I know there’s an Archer meme to insert here…
Phrasing
Manatees hang in the warm water cooling pools all around Florida.
I didn’t know there were crocs in FL
Only place in the world where crocodiles and alligators naturally coexist
This reminds me of the power plant in Fairbanks Alaska. They dump hot water in the Chena River which provides a little microclimate for ducks to survive all winter without migrating.
This sounds like the plot for some horror movie, like sharknado but for crocodiles.
Just when you thought the Sharknado was behind you, now here comes the -- CROCAGEDDON!
Instead of attacking Toyko, the nuclear infused lizard attacks Miami.
The premise would have you rooting for the lizard though
This is not reactor water. This is condensation see from the steam generators
Been reading about this! Those pools basically became croc condos lol, and it really helped their numbers bounce back.
Now that’s a moat!
Scientists can not get accurate population data because the Miami Nuclear Power Plant is a restricted area.
Who said nuclear wasn't green.
omg how ironic is it that nuclear plants are literally helping endangered species thrive when we're always told they're dangerous for the environment.
People usually are concerned about the radioactive waste, not their cooling water.
But also warm water emissions meddle with the environnement, altering the conditions. In this case a single threatened species benefitted from it, in most cases it has negative impacts on aquatic ecosystems and needs also to be mitigated.
That's why at turkey point it's a closed loop. The alternative would be dumping into Biscayne national Park which would be a disaster
Indeed. The water being used for cooling means it evaporates more than it would have if left undisturbed. That's also the way in which data centers "use up" water: cooling things implies evaporation, so less water flowing in the river. It's not completely harmless.
Who is saying nuclear is bad for the environment? I thought folks are just worried about radioactive waste.
Yep I saw that twitter post too lol
"Don't make the crocodiles angry. You wouldn't like them when they're angry!”
Y'all want deathclaws Florida? Because that's how you probably get them.
Homestead, FL isn’t Miami.
Its pretty damn close and is the same county.
Miami Dade County
It’s MEEAMI