Ambient office = 153 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 79 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 82 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 107 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 72 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 62 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 3 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     Atmospheric nuclear weapons testing increased environmental tritium levels between 1945 and 1976. An estimated one point seven to the twentieth power of ten Bq of tritium was produced. This tritium would have precipitated from the atmosphere in a way similar to natural tritium and ended up in surface water. From there, it would migrate into organisms and ground water.
     At the Fukushima Daiichi site, about eight hundred and sixty to the fifteenth power of ten Bq are stored, diluted in many liters of water. The tritium itself is present in the form of tritiated water which is HTO, T2O or super-heavy water. Chemically, T2O is almost indistinguishable from H2O and D2O. It is not easy to separate from the other two. Canadian CANDU reactors (HWR) during normal operations releases about eight hundred and sixty to the fifteenth power of ten Bq during one year. A Westinghouse AP1000 reactor releases about twenty to the fifteenth power of ten Bq/yr and a BWR reactor releases about one to the fifteenth power of ten Bq/yr.
     The tritiated water at Fukushima Daiichi will be released gradually and heavily diluted with seawater over a period of years. It should be obvious that the amounts being released are insignificant when compared to the tritium being released by the roughly four hundred operating commercial nuclear power plants around the world. This suggests that people should not be overly concerned about the tritium from Fukushima Daiichi.
      About three quarters of the surface of the Earth are covered by water. This means that there is a lot of water which will dilute something like tritiated water. There is a lot of uranium in seawater. The Pacific Northwest Nuclear Laboratory reported recovering five grams of uranium from seawater in 2018. There are an estimated four billion tons of uranium in seawater, diluted to about three parts per billion.
      With respect to drinking water, it must be accepted that it will always contain some amount of heavy metal, minerals as well as radioactive isotopes such as uranium, radon and tritium. This is the reason that nations have set limits on what amount of toxic materials can be considered acceptable in drinking water. Nations vary over a wide range with respect to allowable tritiated water. Australia accepts over seventy-six Bq/L while Findland will accept one hundred Bq/L.
      It is worth noting that potassium-40 behaves just like its stable isotopic forms when considering its biological role. A human body that weights one hundred and fifty pounds will contain about five ounces of potassium. Potassium-40 is normally about one percent of the potassium in the body. This indicated that about one ten thousands of an ounce of P-40 should be found in the average human body. This represents about four thousand and three hundred Bq worth of beta decays per second.
      Both tritium and P- 40 emit beta radiation. However, since only potassium bioaccumulates in any significant quantity, that means that eating a banana would be riskier than drinking tritiated water. The World Health Organization recommends a level of ten thousand Bq/L which a study found had no noticeable physiological effect on tissue in mouse models.
Please read Part 3 next

Ambient office = 134 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Avocado from Central Market = 98 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 116 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 103 nanosieverts per hour

 Part 1 of 3 Parts

     Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen that is very similar to the other two hydrogen isotopes. Protium is another name for the most familiar and most common hydrogen isotope which contains one proton in its nucleus. Deuterium is the isotope which contains a neutron as well as a proton in its nucleus. Tritium has two neutrons in its nucleus and is an unstable radioactive isotope which decays into helium-3 with a half-life of about twelve years. Most of the naturally occurring tritium on Earth is generated by interactions between fast neutrons from space and atmospheric nitrogen.
     Tritium has been in the news recently because the Japanese government has announced that it going to release treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant which melted down in 2011. Many people are raising the question of how much tritium is ‘too much’ and what is likely to be seen when this tritium contaminated ground water is released into the Pacific Ocean.
     With respect to the risk of exposure to radioactivity, the Linear-Non-Threshold (LNT) is the most common and respected model. The model claims that there is a linear match between exposure to radiation and the probability that the patient may develop cancer or other negative side-effects that could be caused by such exposure.
     Multiple recent studies suggest that reality is not as simple as the LNT model. There are varying effects from different types of radiation on different parts of the body and the ability of an exposed body’s ability to repair damage to cells. The actual impact of radiation on mouse models shows no cytotoxicity or genotoxicity in the spleen after exposure to beta radiation from tritium exposure. The studies also showed no upregulation of the immune system after exposure to low-dose radiation (LDR). The current evidence in the literature indicates that LDR may exert a positive influence on the immune system of a human body. If this proves to be true, it could have important effects on our understanding of cancer treatments.
     These studies also provide some indication of just how fearful we should be of radiation our environment. For instance, levels of cesium-137, potassium-40 and hydrogen-3 have been used to track the age of wine. This can be used in fraud cases where a younger wine is substituted for an older wine in order to increase the price. They found that a Bulgarian wine from 2001 had cesium levels of less than fifteen percent of a single Bq/L. (Bq stands for one nuclear decay event per second and L stands for Liter so Bq/L stands for one nuclear decay per second per liter.) For comparison, the same vintage from 1968, the year of the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, contained over forty-four Bq/L.
      Tritium levels fluctuated between seven and sixty-three Bq/L and potassium-40 levels varies between fifteen and twenty Bq/L during the same time span. Tritium levels in rainwater average about half a Bq/L and in surface water it varies between about a third of a Bq/L and eleven tenths of a Bq/L.
Please read Part 2 next

Ambient office = 90 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Jalapeno pepper from Central Market = 123 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 146 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 130 nanosieverts per hour

      Hydrogen is being promoted as an alternative vehicle fuel to gasoline and diesel. Hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis which splits water into oxygen and hydrogen. Any source of electricity can be used to generate hydrogen. Hydrogen that is produced by electricity that is generated without the emission of carbon dioxide is called clean hydrogen.
     The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) is granting the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona twenty million dollars for a project to demonstrate the production of clean hydrogen energy from nuclear power. This project is part of a DoE program to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen to one dollar per kilogram. The announcement was made as DoE marks Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day.
     The Palo Verde project is being let by PNW Hydrogen LLC. It will be part of the DoE’s H2@Scale multi-sector clean hydrogen initiative and will assist DoE to reach it Hydrogen Shot goal to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by eighty percent to one dollar per kilogram within a decade, according to a statement by the DoE. Hydrogen Shot is the first of the DoE’s Energy Earthshots initiatives which was launched in June of this year.
     David Turk is the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy. He said, “Developing and deploying clean hydrogen can be a crucial part of the path to achieving a net-zero carbon future and combatting climate change. Using nuclear power to create hydrogen energy is an illustration of DOE’s commitment to funding a full range of innovative pathways to create affordable, clean hydrogen, to meet DOE’s Hydrogen Shot goal, and to advance our transition to a carbon-free future.”
     PNW Hydrogen will be the primary recipient of the twenty million dollar award. The award is made up of twelve million dollars from the DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) and eight million dollars from the Office of Nuclear Energy (ONE). The project’s goal is to produce hydrogen at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant. Six tons of this hydrogen will be stored and used to produce about two hundred megawatts of electricity during periods of high demand. It may also be utilized to make useful chemicals and other fuels. This will supply insights into integrating nuclear energy with hydrogen production technologies and will inform future clean hydrogen deployments at scale according to the DoE.
     PNW Hydrogen will collaborate with multiple stakeholders in research, academia, industry and state-level government. Collaborators include the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), National Energy Technology Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, OxEon, Electric Power Research Institute, Arizona State University, University of California Irvine, Siemens, Xcel Energy, Energy Harbor and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
     Palo Verde is host to three pressurized water reactors and is operated by the Arizona Public Service. It is located near Phoenix. The plant was selected in 2019 to collaborate with the INL in a project to investigate the potential use of hydrogen generated by the nuclear power plant to store energy.
     According to the HFTO, October eight is Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day. It “marks a symbolic opportunity every year to celebrate hydrogen and to talk about the role it can play as we transition to a cleaner and more equitable energy future.” The HFTO coordinates hydrogen activities across the DoE. These activities include the Hydrogen Shot.

Ambient office = 93 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 92 nanosieverts per hour

Green bell pepper from Central Market = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 122 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 100 nanosieverts per hour