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Image source,Reuters
The nuclear wastewater storage tanks at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan will be exhausted in 2022. How to dispose of more than 1 million tons of wastewater has become a matter of great concern both inside and outside of Japan.
The latest report issued by the environmental protection organization Greenpeace noted that nuclear-contaminated wastewater from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant contains radioactive substances, which will damage human DNA once discharged into the sea.
This is a warning issued by environmental protection organizations after Japanese media reports that the Japanese government plans to discharge wastewater from nuclear power plants into the ocean.
Regarding the sewage discharge plan for Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, many scientists said the risk is very low, but opposition from environmentalists is not lacking.
The Japanese government has yet to respond to the Greenpeace report.
In 2011, the Fukushima nuclear power plant was severely damaged by the tsunami, the core of the nuclear power plant melted and was destroyed, and continuous cooling of the core resulted in more than 1 million tons of wastewater. The debate on how to dispose of this wastewater has never stopped.
Storage space for such a large amount of wastewater will be exhausted in 2022. The Japanese government said it has used sophisticated filtering procedures to remove most of the radioactive isotopes in wastewater, but there is still one type of tritium left that it cannot be removed.
Last week, Japanese media reported that the Japanese government has decided to discharge this wastewater into the ocean starting in 2022.
Image source,EPA
The South Korean people protested the Fukushima nuclear power plant’s wastewater plan in front of the Japanese embassy in South Korea.
The Greenpeace report “Stopping the 2020 Tide: The Reality of the Fukushima Radioactive Water Crisis” (Fukushima Radioactive Water Crisis) published on October 23 alleges that a radioactive substance “may damage human DNA.”
Greenpeace accused the Japanese government of saying that the sewage has been “treated”, creating the impression that the sewage “contains only tritium”.
Although the Japanese government stated that it has not yet decided to discharge the wastewater, observers have noted that the decision could be announced before the end of this month.
Japanese outlet Kyodo News quoted several relevant Japanese government officials on the 23rd as saying: “The government has decided to abandon the completion of the water treatment policy after the purification of nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
Environmentalists have always opposed the discharge of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean. Fishing groups also voiced their opposition, saying that consumers would refuse to buy fish products from the wastewater area.
However, some scientists believe that this wastewater will soon be diluted in the vast Pacific Ocean and that tritium poses a low risk to human and animal health.
Image source,Geoeye
A satellite photo of the Fukushima nuclear power plant on March 12, 2011, a day after a magnitude 9 earthquake and large tsunami.
Fukushima nuclear power plant accident and its follow-up
On March 11, 2011, a strong earthquake struck the Northeast Sea of Japan and triggered a tsunami, causing a large amount of radioactive material to leak out of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The Unit 1 and Unit 3 reactor cooling systems at the nuclear power plant were damaged and the nuclear fuel melted. To control the temperature of the reactor, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which manages the nuclear power plant, injected a large amount of cooling water, which produced nuclear wastewater containing radioactive materials.
Japan’s nuclear wastewater treatment plans include discharge to the sea, discharge to the atmosphere after evaporation, burying it underground, and building a new storage tank at a nuclear power plant.
In June 2020, United Nations human rights experts also publicly called on the Japanese government not to ignore its human rights obligations in the field of nuclear waste disposal. Japan is expected to wait until the end of the new corona epidemic crisis and carry out appropriate international consultations before deciding whether to use the nuclear reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Sewage is discharged into the sea.
Human rights experts said the way nuclear waste is managed “will have a profound impact on humans and the planet for generations,” and is related to “the livelihoods of local fishermen in Japan and the rights humans from people of other ethnic groups outside of Japan. “
