This article is from WeChat official account:NJU Verification Record (ID: njufactcheck),Reporters: Xue Jingwen, Wang Zhuo (Smith King College, University of London), Wu Ruowei, Yang Jingyi ( Chongqing University), Andy, graphics: Chen Junyi, Xue Jingwen, head image from: Visual China
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred in Japan, and the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant experienced a catastrophic nuclear leak. After hoarding nuclear waste water for 10 years, on April 13, 2021, the Japanese authorities held a cabinet meeting on “Waste Furnace, Polluted Water, and Water Treatment Measures” at the Prime Minister’s residence in Tokyo, and formally decided to hoard the nuclear waste at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Waste water is discharged into the sea.
On May 17, Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, once again stated at a regular press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Fukushima nuclear sewage is infinitely troubled after being discharged into the sea. Zhao Lijian said: “What Japan gets is only its own self-interest, and what it will leave to future generations will be endless troubles.”
What kind of national interest does the Japanese government discharge nuclear waste water for? What kind of international audits has the discharge of nuclear waste water gone through? What impact will nuclear wastewater have? Focusing on these doubts, the veritable record reporter verified the “Seven Facts about Japan’s Nuclear Wastewater”, and we summarized the results into the following figure. The following will also be expanded in detail.
Summary of Seven Facts about Fukushima Nuclear Wastewater in Japan
1. What is Fukushima Nuclear Wastewater? Why can’t I save it anymore?
Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear WastewaterThe composition includes (1) the original coolant of the damaged reactor; (2) the cooling water injected to cool the reactor after the accident; (3) the groundwater and rainwater that infiltrated the reactor due to the sea and low terrain.
According to an NHK report on April 13, the main reason for opposing the discharge of Fukushima nuclear waste water is that the treated Fukushima nuclear waste water still contains radioactive tritium. Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. As a radioactive substance, its decay cycle is very long, and its half-life is generally decades or even hundreds of thousands of years, so even if it flows into the ocean and is diluted, it will not easily disperse.
The Japanese government proposing to discharge nuclear waste water is actually facing tremendous pressure on nuclear waste water storage: Japan’s foreign affairs agency released the “Fukushima Water Treatment Plan Briefing” in April. The “Briefing Report” stated that about 170 tons of nuclear waste water are produced and stored in storage tanks every day. Due to the continuous influx of groundwater after the earthquake, nuclear waste water will increase by 50,000 to 60,000 tons per year.
Tokyo Electric Power Company stated in its official website document that in order to store nuclear sewage, they have prepared a total of 1061 storage tanks with a total capacity of approximately 1.37 million tons. As of April 15, 2021, nuclear waste water containers have stored more than 1.25 million tons of nuclear waste water. Tokyo Electric Power Company estimates that after the summer of 2022, nuclear wastewater will reach the planned capacity.
2. How do other countries discharge nuclear waste water?
Since the first nuclear power plant was built in the Soviet Union in 1954, many nuclear waste water accidents have occurred internationally.
In 1979, there was a nuclear leak at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States. In the process of cooling the nuclear reactor, the accident produced a lot of waste water. The operator Babcock Wilcox of the United States spent about two years after the sea removal plan was blocked, and it will cost about 24 trillion Baker (Baker That is, Bq, the international unit of measurement for radioactive materials) radioactive materials are discharged into the atmosphere.
In 1986, after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the Soviet government poured cement into a “sarcophagus” and hurriedly sealed the incident’s No. 4 reactor.
Since 2010, about 40 countries around the world have jointly funded the construction of a “new safety containment body ‘HN3’ ‘84’” to replace it, to bury nuclear reactors and inject them into the ground. The report on the long-term consequences of the Chernobyl disaster at the Seventy-fourth Session of the United Nations indicated thatThe new safety containment body has a lifespan of 100 years, which can prevent the environment from further radiation hazards.
On the one hand, nuclear waste water after a nuclear accident can be discharged into the atmosphere, sealed and sealed; On the other hand, various types of waste water are also generated during the normal operation of nuclear power plants, with their volume and radioactivity There is a big difference in concentration and salt content. In order to prevent cross-contamination between different wastewaters, nuclear power plants collect, store, and process wastewater by classification. Commonly used wastewater treatment technologies include storage decay, filtration, evaporation, ion exchange, and membrane separation.
According to the information published on the official website of the China Nuclear Energy Industry Association, the waste water produced by various reactor-type nuclear power plants has different radioactivity. At the same time, a certain reactor-type nuclear power plant may also produce nuclear waste water with different levels of radioactivity. There are different treatment methods for different types of wastewater.
For example, the widely used pressurized water reactor nuclear power plants in my country usually produce three types of waste water: process waste water, equipment decontamination waste water, ground washing waste water, shower water and laundry room water. Among them, the process wastewater is treated by methods such as pre-filtration, ion exchange, and evaporation. Equipment decontamination wastewater has a high salt content, and evaporation is generally used for treatment. The level of radioactivity in floor washing wastewater, shower water and laundry room water is very low and can be filtered and discharged.
For nuclear waste water generated by the normal operation of nuclear facilities, countries around the world mainly use three methods of underground burial, marine discharge and steam release. In addition, all countries have set their own emission standards for nuclear power plants, and discharge nuclear waste water generated during normal operation into the ocean and the atmosphere accordingly.
3. Why did the Japanese government choose to discharge the ocean?
Marine discharge is not the only nuclear waste water disposal option. Theoretically speaking, in addition to marine discharge(discharge into the sea), nuclear waste water disposal also has steam release(vapor release), hydrogen release(hydrogen release), underground burying(underground burial) and (geosphere injection) into the lithosphere.
According to the New York Times Chinese website, the Japanese government claimed that it took more than six years to consider different wastewater treatment measures and finally decided to treat the nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and discharge it into the sea. Why did Japan abandon the other four options? What are the considerations for discharging into the sea?
Schematic diagrams of five disposal plans, screenshots from: Tritiated Water Task Force report of the Tritium-containing Wastewater Task Force
On December 4, 2013, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (the International Atomic Energy Agency) review mission to the Japan Polluted Water Treatment Countermeasures Committee(the Committee on Countermeasures for Contaminated Water Treatment) provided advice, suggesting that all nuclear wastewater treatment plans should be listed and evaluated.
In response to this opinion, Japan established a tritium-containing wastewater task force (Tritiated Water Task Force) from December 25, 2013 Begin to evaluate these five nuclear waste water disposal options, and examine the feasibility of each option, including duration, cost, scale, secondary waste, and radiation exposure to workers. The working group published on June 3, 2016Evaluation Report.
The report concluded that,after considering the two basic requirements of technical and regulatory feasibility, marine emissions and steam release are both feasible options. But further considering the potential constraints, especially in terms of time and economic costs, the advantages of ocean emissions are the most significant.
Basic requirements evaluation of the working group
Working Group’s Operational Restriction Evaluation
In terms of time, the discharge of nuclear waste water into the ocean may last for 91 months, which is the shortest time among the above five methods. The longest treatment method is vapor release, which takes 120 months.
In terms of economic costs, ocean emissions only require 3.4 billion yen, which is the least capital requirement among the five methods. The most capital investment is underground burial, which requires approximately 243.1 billion yen. “China Environmental News” believes that after the new crown pneumonia epidemic has brought down the “Olympic boom”, it is difficult for Japan to invest large sums of money for nuclear sewage.
The safety consideration is that the storage capacity of the Fukushima plant is close to its limit. As for why it did not expand the ground storage area of water storage tanks, TEPCO stated that “there is a problem with the pipeline design” of the Fukushima plant. In addition to the high cost, it is difficult to guarantee zero leakage when buried underground.
Therefore, compared to the other four methods, marine emissions have the shortest time consumption and the lowest economic cost, and the storage capacity of the Fukushima plant is close to the limit. In the end, Japan chose the marine emissions plan.
4. How to deal with nuclear waste?
The nuclear waste water is about to be discharged into the sea, so where does the nuclear waste go?
The reporter learned that nuclear waste (Nuclear Waste) can also be called radioactive waste(Radioactive Waste). [i] Broadly speaking, nuclear waste refers to nuclear fuel that is no longer needed during the production, processing and treatment process. Radioactive waste. According to this definition, nuclear waste can be refined to include tools and work clothes used for nuclear fuel. At the same time, nuclear waste can also refer specifically to high-level radioactive waste, that is, fuel that has been used in nuclear reactors, also known as spent fuel(Spent Fuel).
Although nuclear fuel itself generates very little waste, the used nuclear fuel has a high level of radioactivity, and the disposal of spent fuel is a top priority. According to data from the World Nuclear Association, spent fuel accounts for 3% of nuclear waste, but 95% of total radioactivity.
The World Nuclear Association sorted out the composition and hazards of nuclear waste
Currently, most countries in the world still dispose of spent fuel in a traditional way, Namely wet and dry storage. Dry storage is to place the used fuel in carbon canisters, store them in a repository in turn, and then seal them with rocks and clay. Wet storage is to store the used fuel that has just been taken out of the reactor in water, cool the fuel and store it in a pool, or transfer it to a drying device after a period of initial cooling.
Some developed countries are also promoting the recycling and reuse technology of spent fuel. This technology can extract uranium from used nuclear fuel(Uranium), plutonium(Plutonium) and Thorium(Thorium) and other elements are reused in the reactor, and can also be combined with The new fuel is mixed to make a new fuel rod.
Since 1994, Japan has mainly shipped domestic spent fuel to Europe for disposal by the British Nuclear Fuel Company and French Gogema Company. After 1999, Japan stopped sending spent fuel to Europe and established a closed-loop processing system for spent fuel. Extract the reusable elements in the spent fuel for reuse, and recycle and store the waste that cannot be reused.
5. What is the possible impact of discharging nuclear waste water into the sea?
It has become a fact that Japan discharges nuclear waste water into the sea. What impact will this have on mankind? The reporter compiled the data summary table as follows:
Some scholars emphasize the pollution of nuclear waste water. Both Zhang Wei et al.’s “Dose Estimation of Low-Level Tritium Water Internal Irradiation” and Cui Fengmei et al.’s “Internal Radiation Damage Experimental Study of Tritium Water” both show that after tritium water is injected into mice, it will continue to decay according to its decay law. Release rays.
According to this study, as the dose accumulates, the damage of bone marrow polychromatic red blood cells and peripheral blood white blood cells will increase, and it will lead to an increase in primary malignant tumors in mice. Therefore, Although tritium is less harmful to the organism, it can still cause harm to the human body under continuous ingestion.
In addition to tritium, other radiation in the water will also affect the ocean. The article “Opening the floodgates at Fukushima” published in 2020 by Ken Buesseler, a radiochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in the United States, shows that tritium in nuclear waste water is not the most dangerous radiation. The article believes that radioactive substances such as ruthenium-106 and cobalt-60 are more likely to enter marine organisms or seabed sediments. Radioactive materials incorporated into marine organisms will eventually pass to humans through the food chain.
The “Life Times” sorted out the harm of radioactive substances in Japan’s nuclear waste water, stating that: Tritium may cause cell death, DNA genetic damage, and may affect the reproduction of the next generation; Iodine-129 may cause thyroid cancer; Strontium-90 may cause leukemia ; Isotope carbon-14 may damage human genes, and can exist for thousands of years.
Some organizations also believe that the impact of nuclear wastewater is not obvious.
The Health Physics Society(Health Physics Society) stated that tritium is very common in the human body. Tritium only undergoes low-energy beta decay and does not cause external exposure to humans. It mainly affects humans through ingestion and inhalation. Moreover, tritium stays in the human body for a short time, and it will be excreted from the body with the water circulation in the human body. Therefore, the intake of a certain amount of tritium will not cause significant effects on the human body.
Discharging nuclear waste water into the ocean is a common practice in nuclear power plants. The International Atomic Energy Agency stated that it is a common practice to discharge a certain amount of wastewater into the ocean in compliance with safety and environmental standards.
Views of Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
In 2012, the “Radiation Environment 2011” report issued by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China showed that after the “3.11” Fukushima nuclear power plant leaked, the activity concentration of radioactive materials in my country’s seawater and soil met the management standards. As a neighboring country of Japan, the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan did not have an impact on China’s environment and citizens’ health.
6. What standards does the discharge of nuclear waste water meet?
The IAEA review team stated that Japan’s current “proposed target for nuclear wastewater treatment is in line with current international good practices.” It also pointed out that “controlled discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea is technically mature and feasible, and this is in Japan. Or there are feasible precedents that have been implemented internationally.” This method is “more likely to bring a successful result than other methods.”
But the report also pointed out: “As of December 2019, of the total amount of ALPS treated water stored in tanks, except for the nuclide “tritium”, about 28% meet the regulatory standards for discharge into the environment. ALPS It is necessary to further purify the water in order to meet the emission control standards.”
In general, to ensure safety, nuclear waste water can be discharged into the sea in compliance with regulations after it is diluted to a certain level. But at the end of 2019, about 72% of Japan’s nuclear wastewater did not meet discharge standards. And this result is obtained without “tritium”. If “tritium” is taken into consideration, this result will be more complicated.
On April 13, 2021, the document “ALPS(Alps Electric Co., Ltd.) Basic Methods of Treating Nuclear Wastewater.” The document pointed out that for water containing multiple nuclides, the legal discharge standard is: the sum of the concentration ratio of each radionuclide in the water should be less than “1”.
The document shows that after secondary purification of the discharged nuclear wastewater, the higher concentration of water will contain radionuclides(except for tritium) the sum of the concentration ratios is 0.35; water with lower concentration has radionuclides(except for tritium) The sum of the concentration ratios is 0.22. All are less than 1.
The document demonstrates that the purified nuclear wastewater meets the standards except for tritium
On December 24, 2020, Tokyo Electric Power Company released a progress report on nuclear wastewater treatment. The test results show that, after ALPS secondary processing and internal analysis, the legal concentration (except tritium) has fallen to less than 1. However, the results of this evaluation avoided the problem of tritium purification.
7. International response to Japan’s nuclear wastewater discharge
As soon as the news of Japan’s announcement that nuclear waste water was discharged into the Pacific Ocean was issued, it immediately caused an uproar in international public opinion. What is the reaction of major countries along the Pacific Ocean? What is the attitude of relevant international organizations? The reporter began to sort out.
1. United States: Support Japan
On April 12, 2021, Eastern Time, the US State Department issued a statement: “Japan’s nuclear wastewater problem is very unique and difficult to deal with. Japan has weighed various options, maintained transparency and openness, and adopted a globally recognized nuclear wastewater discharge. Standard.”
2. Russia: Request Japan to be responsible and open
On April 13, 2021, Moscow time, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement: “We express serious concerns about Japan’s nuclear wastewater… If necessary, Japan needs to allow us to monitor the radiation situation in the discharge area. We hope that Japan will do all its responsibilities. , To minimize the adverse impact on the marine environment.”
3. South Korea: twists and turns
After Japan announced that it would discharge Fukushima nuclear waste water into the ocean, South Korea’s response was tense at first, then gradually slackened, and even at the end it no longer clearly opposed it. The change in attitude can be described as twists and turns.
On April 14, 2021, Seoul time, the South Korean government stated: “If Japan discharges nuclear waste water without full consultation, it will be very difficult for the South Korean government to accept.”[i]. According to South Korean MBC News, the South Korean President stated that he is actively considering filing a complaint with the International Maritime Court. “
Five days later, South Korea’s attitude gradually relaxed. According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jeong Yi-yong, stated that if the Japanese side follows the standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), there is no need for South Korea. Persist in opposition.
4. China: Resolutely opposed
On April 15, 2021, Beijing time, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Wu Jianghao summoned the Japanese Ambassador to China Toruhide, and lodged solemn representations on the Japanese government’s decision to dispose of the wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident by means of marine discharge.
On April 21, 2021, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin stated, “The Japanese side is ignoring the doubts and opposition of the international community and violating its own international responsibilities, trying to drain nuclear sewage and putting environmental health and safety risks. Spreading to the world, this kind of behavior is opaque, unscientific, illegal, irresponsible, and unethical. It is a risk to the world.”
5. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: Not acceptable
On March 11, 2021, Geneva time, experts from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that the nuclear sewage from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan is still harmful to the environment and humans.Rights constitute a danger, and any solution that discharges nuclear waste water into the Pacific Ocean is unacceptable.
6. Greenpeace: Clearly opposed
Amsterdam time April 13, 2021, Greenpeace Greenpeace issued a statement on the Japanese government’s decision to discharge nuclear waste water to the sea: This completely ignores the human rights and interests of the people of Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, and ignores human rights and international maritime laws.
7. The International Atomic Energy Agency: assistance, supervision
On April 13, 2021, Vienna time, Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said: “Welcome Japan to Fukushima For nuclear wastewater treatment decisions, IAEA will also provide Japan with supervisory technical support and participate in the review of the safety and transparency of the nuclear wastewater discharge plan.”
In general, many Pacific Rim countries expressed opposition. Even if the opposition is not completely firm, it has appealed to the Japanese government. International organizations as a whole also oppose Japan’s actions, and relevant international organizations will intervene in monitoring and assisting in emissions.
Summary
The discharge of nuclear waste water into the Pacific Ocean is not only an act of Japan, but also affects the future of Pacific countries and the world. How will Japan discharge? Does Japan and the world have a monitoring mechanism? How can international organizations and stakeholder countries get involved? In the face of these unresolved problems, our desire for open information and multi-party assessment is for the safe survival of mankind, and for the earth’s homeland that mankind depends on for survival.
The mountains and rivers are different, the wind and the moon are in the same sky. We sincerely hope that the discharge of nuclear waste water into the sea will not become a “man-made disaster” serving the interests of a few people.
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This article is from WeChat official account:NJU Verification Record (ID: njufactcheck), reporters: Xue Jingwen, Wang Zhuo, Wu Ruowei, Yang Jingyi, Andy (readers Xia Yinsui and She Chengyu also contributed to this article), graphics: Chen Junyi, Xue Jingwen