This article is from WeChat official account:Zhuan (ID: xingshu100), author: creating, editing & layout: Tian Xiaonuo, the original title: “Japan formally decided to Fukushima nuclear waste into the sea, the radioactive material will spread to the world 10 years after the waters”, from the head of FIG. : Visual China
On the morning of April 13, at a cabinet meeting held by the Japanese government, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga officially announced that Japan has decided to discharge the nuclear waste water contained in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the sea. It plans to discharge it in 2041 from two years later. Until the nuclear power plant was dismantled in 2051.
Japan’s nuclear waste water discharged into the ocean, Japan claimed to be treated water, “strictly abides by established regulatory standards.” Some Japanese officials even opposed the media describing the water as “contaminated” or “radioactive.”
After the Japanese government announced its decision, the U.S. State Department immediately released a statement on the official website:
The Japanese government has worked closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency to take measures to deal with the consequences of the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011, including radiation monitoring, restoration, waste management and decommissioning. The Japanese government has announced the decision on the basic policy of ALPS(multi-nuclides removal equipment) to treat water and discharge the treated nuclear sewage into the sea.
The United States is aware that the Japanese government has studied several options related to the management of treated water stored on-site at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. In this unique and challenging situation, Japan weighed various options and influences, and remained transparent about its decisions. It seems that (appears to) adopted an approach that complies with globally recognized nuclear safety standards. We look forward to the Japanese government’s continued coordination and communication to monitor the effectiveness of this method.
Except for the United States, this decision by Japan is a wave of opposition even in Japan.
Polar polls show that about 50% of the people oppose the government’s decision, and the people of Fukushima spontaneously hold a rally to ask the Japanese government not to make unilateral forced decisions.
Internationally, Japan’s decision has also been controversial.
The spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of our country called the decision “extremely irresponsible” and urged Japan to “re-examine the issue of nuclear waste water disposal at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and not until it has fully negotiated and reached an agreement with the various interested countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Unauthorized initiation of sea discharge”.
South Korea convened an emergency meeting of relevant departments on the 13th, stating that “it will take all necessary measures for the safety of its citizens.”
The reason why there is such a strong opposition is that the impact of this decision by Japan is not limited to one country and one place, but will affect the whole world and all mankind.
The German Marine Science Research Institute pointed out that the coast of Fukushima has the strongest ocean currents in the world. Radioactive materials will spread to most of the Pacific Ocean within 57 days from the date of discharge, and spread to the global seas in 10 years.
The environmental organization Greenpeace (Greenpeace) warned that the nuclear wastewater stored in Japan contains not only the radioactive isotope tritium, but also The radioactive isotope carbon-14 may affect human DNA.
Why does Japan discharge wastewater into the sea?
This is not the first time Japan has said that nuclear waste water will be discharged into the sea.
In August 2018, the Japanese government held two hearings on nuclear wastewater treatment in Fukushima and Tokyo. After humbly listening to the objections of most people, the Japanese government finally decided to discharge the waste water into the sea.
On September 10, 2019, Japanese Minister of the Environment Yoshiaki Harada made it clear at a press conference in Tokyo that discharge into the sea should be the only solution.
In October 2020, according to Japanese media reports, the Japanese government may make a formal decision on the “discharge of polluted water from the Fukushima nuclear accident into the sea” after October.
Fortunately, the Japanese government’s previous plan for nuclear waste water to enter the sea was forced to postpone due to the overwhelming opposition at home and abroad.
We have repeatedly defeated and fought, and now Japan has made a double offer, in large part because this is really the most economical and easiest way they can find.
According to the “New York Times” report, so far, Japan has stored 1.37 million tons of nuclear waste water, and it is increasing at a rate of 170 tons per day.
The People’s Daily stated that Tepco has prepared a total of about 1,000 water storage tanks, 90% of which are currently full. By October 2022, all available water storage tanks will be full.
The water storage tank is exhausted, but new nuclear waste water is still being produced. Japan must come up with a solution before then.
Water storage tank with nuclear waste water
Japan has also proposed five “feasible plans”:
Discharge into the sea after treatment
Combustion, evaporate and discharge into the atmosphere
Send 2500 meters underground
Electrolyzed into hydrogen and oxygen, and then discharged into the atmosphere
Mixed with cement to make a concrete block and then deeply buried
Five kinds of programs, the harm to the environment is from high to low, but the cost is from low to high.
Generally speaking, because of the high energy density of nuclear fuel, a nuclear power plant needs to process relatively little nuclear waste. The nuclear waste generated by a nuclear reactor to meet a person’s electricity needs for a year is only the size of a brick. Only 5 grams of it is high-level radioactive waste, which is about the weight of a piece of paper.
Nuclear power plants that meet the electricity demand of 1 million people, if recycled, would only produce three cubic meters of high-level nuclear waste each year.
Although there are not many high-level nuclear wastes, the processing process is very complicated.
First, used nuclear waste is stored in a pool for 5-10 years to absorb residual heat and reduce radiation. Then, useful uranium and other materials in the waste are recycled. The unrecyclable waste is solidified into a glass body, stored for a period of time, and then sent to a depth of 500 to 1,000 meters for burial.
An underground cave used to bury nuclear waste in Finland
And the countless nuclear waste caused by the Fukushima nuclear accident, the money, difficulty, and danger to deal with are far beyond our imagination.
So Fukushima can only store millions of tons of nuclear waste water in cans, and the contaminated soil is packed in black bags and stacked there.
Japan once proposed to use these “nuclear contaminated soil” to pave the road, but was strongly opposed by the public.
After many weighings, it is no surprise that the Japanese government prefers the first option of “how fast and saves money”-discharging into the sea after processing.
How terrible is the nuclear leak?
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake occurred in Japan. The earthquake triggered a tsunami, which eventually led to the Fukushima nuclear accident that shocked the world.
At the time of the disaster, TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was operating as usual. When the earthquake is approaching, all equipment is automatically shut down, but there is still a lot of residual heat in the nuclear reactor, and further cooling and pressure reduction are needed to achieve a cold shutdown.
Injecting water into Unit 3 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Unfortunately, the 10 diesel generators used for heat dissipation in the nuclear power plant were all submerged by the tsunami and could not work normally. The waste heat could not be discharged and the core melted. Finally, it caused three explosions between the 12th and the 15th. A lot of radioactive materials enter the air, soil and ocean.
Later, in order to free up more piggy banks, Tepco discharged more than 10,000 tons of nuclear waste water into the ocean, which further aggravated the nuclear radiation in the ocean.
In March 2013, Tepco’s sample survey of fishes along the coast of Fukushima showed that the radioactive cesium content of coastal fishes was higher than that of any other place, containing 430,000 becquerel cesium per kilogram, which is the Japanese food standard. Value (100 becquerels per kilogram) 4300 times.
After the nuclear leak, the United States took the lead in banning the import of food from Japan’s nuclear radiation zone. Countries and regions such as China, South Korea, and the European Union also followed suit and issued import bans one after another.
Data released by Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture showed that after the nuclear leak, Fukushima Prefecture’s agricultural exports fell sharply. In 2010, the export volume was about 153 tons, and in 2012 it was only 2 tons.
On December 2, 2014, in order to prove the safety of Fukushima food, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Somaharagama Fishing Port in Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture Had the local grilled fish
In addition, the people who were evacuated in Fukushima and surrounding areas were greatly affected both physically and mentally in this accident.
According to a survey released by the WHO in 2013, the risk of cancer in the affected population in Fukushima Prefecture has increased significantly:
The risk of female infants getting cancer increased by 4%;
Women’s risk of breast cancer increases by 6%;
The risk of leukemia in male infants increases by 7%;
The risk of thyroid cancer in female babies increases by 70%
(Under normal circumstances, the expected risk of thyroid cancer for women is 0.75%, while the expected risk for female babies in Fukushima Prefecture is 0.50%)
After the nuclear leak, the Japanese government ordered an evacuation. The scope of refuge was expanded from the initial nuclear power plant radius of 3 kilometers to 10 kilometers, and finally to 30 kilometers. 150,000 people were forced to leave their homes.
In 2015, a report issued by the WHO showed that the incidence of PTSD among evacuees was higher than that of the general population in Japan due to improper measures during government evacuation and emergency evacuation.
The mortality rate of the elderly placed in temporary housing has risen sharply, and many children have psychological problems, such as hyperactivity, emotional symptoms, and conduct disorders. Although no effect of nuclear radiation on the birth rate has been found, women in the affected areas are more likely to suffer from postpartum depression.
After the Fukushima accident, not only Japan was affected, but Fukushima pollutants were detected on the west coast of the United States, Australia, and the Bering Strait near the Arctic Circle.
Is the treated nuclear waste water really safe?
The Japanese side claimed that the nuclear waste water they stored has been processed to remove most of the radioactive materials. Due to current technical limitations, the tritium in the water cannot be removed, but tritium is only harmful when the dose is very large. The dose diluted by the sea is very small and will not harm the environment.
And the radioactivity of the treated nuclear waste water has been reduced after many years of storage. The Japanese Ministry of Environmental Protection even claimed that the discharged nuclear waste water has reached “environmental protection standards.”
Bottle containing treated nuclear waste water
The International Atomic Energy Agency also believes that properly treated nuclear waste water is discharged into the ocean, and then diluted by seawater, it will not cause huge damage to the environment.
But this is obviously only a Japanese term. The Japanese claim that “the treated nuclear wastewater contains only tritium” has been questioned by many.
Documents issued by the government committee in 2018 show that among the 890,000 tons of nuclear waste water processed in Fukushima, the concentration of 750,000 tons of radioactive materials exceeds the legal limit, and the 650,000 tons of radioactive materials are government safe More than 100 times the level.
In addition to tritium, some deadly radioactive elements such as cesium, cobalt 60, and strontium 90 were also detected in some water storage tanks. Strontium 90, a radioactive element that can accumulate in bones, contains 600,000 becquerels per liter of nuclear waste water, which is 20,000 times the legal limit.
The degradation time of these radioactive elements is longer, it is easy to enter marine sediments, and it is also easy to be absorbed by marine life. In fact, it’s hard not to make some associations with the strange marine fish that appeared frequently after the Fukushima nuclear accident.
Several UN human rights experts have been urging Japan to abandon its nuclear waste water into the sea. They are worried about nuclear waste.Radioactive elements in the water will enter the food chain and eventually converge in the human body.
In addition, the environmental organization Greenpeace stated that the nuclear waste water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant also contains the radioactive isotope carbon 14 and other dangerous radioactive elements. If these waters are discharged into the Pacific Ocean, will cause “serious damage to the surrounding environment”. Long-term consequences” and “possibly causing genetic damage.”
Science fiction writer Zhang Ran once thought about the issue of “how the earth was destroyed”. He said:
“What is the future we are most worried about? It is not the climate change, the global warming caused by the ozone layer hole, the earthquake or the tsunami, the sun is too flashing, it is not the wandering earth, it is not a natural disaster, it is a man-made disaster.”
“The most dangerous moments in the future we can foresee may be caused by people.”
But he also said: “Although we can foresee many dangers, we believe that there is no need to panic. Humans will always find a way out, because we are humans.”
Reference:
1. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-the-legacy-of-the-fukushima-nuclear-disaster
2. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/10/fukushima-japan-will-have-to-dump-radioactive-water-into -pacific-minister-says
3. https://theconversation.com/japan-plans-to-dump-a-million-tonnes-of-radioactive-water-into-the-pacific-but -australia-has-nuclear-waste-problems-too-148337
4. https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_9710851
5. https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_9710851
6. http://nuclearfuel.cn/?p=239
This article is from WeChat official account:Zhuan (ID: xingshu100), of: creating