August 24th, a day to remember. On this day, in a very distinctive Japanese manner, actions were set in motion that would impact the global landscape
If there were a contest to select the most audacious nation in the world, Japan would likely take the top spot by a wide margin.
Today, on August 24, 2023, Japan is set to begin the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea, a move that has drawn global attention for its significant implications.
Since the revelation of Japan's intention to release nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean, nearly three years have passed. During this time, waves of protests from various nations have erupted sporadically, and proactive individuals have proposed alternative solutions to Japan's decision to discharge the nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean.
Proposed alternatives include methods such as electrolysis treatment, solidification for burial underground, and there have even been jests about creating a pile of capsules akin to the ones used in the "Dragon Ball" series to contain and store the nuclear-contaminated water. (Indeed, this is an innovative thought process.)
Of course, jokes aside, Japan's government seems to be treating this situation with a degree of nonchalance. They remain fixated on their chosen path, paying little attention to other solutions, and are resolute in releasing the million tons of nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean, seemingly asking the global population to deal with the aftermath.
As the scheduled release of nuclear-contaminated water by Japan draws closer, the cacophony of discussions online continues to grow louder. Given that this act by Japan significantly affects China and South Korea (though, in reality, the entire world will be impacted in a decade, including the United States behind the scenes), the social forums of these two countries have been ablaze with discussions about this issue for the past couple of days. Along with this, new questions and concerns have arisen.
Recently, after consulting with a few friends who specialize in nuclear physics, we have decided to delve into the topic of nuclear-contaminated water once more.
The source of the nuclear-contaminated water that Japan intends to release dates back to the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in March 2011—a catastrophe on par with the severity of the Chernobyl incident.
Just a while ago, following a meeting of relevant cabinet members, the Japanese government made an announcement:
At 1:00 PM on August 24th, they will officially commence the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea. The maximum daily discharge will be 500,000 liters, and it is estimated that it will take approximately 30 years to complete the entire process.
First and foremost, we need to clarify the distinction between nuclear waste water and nuclear-contaminated water.
Strictly speaking, nuclear waste water refers to the cooling water from nuclear reactors, which only passes through the reactor's outer shell and does not come into direct contact with the reaction materials inside.
On the other hand, nuclear-contaminated water refers to the situation where the protective casing of the nuclear reactor is breached, causing the materials inside to mix with the cooling water.
These two types of water are fundamentally different concepts. In some prior reports, many media outlets mistakenly used these terms interchangeably. If you believe that Japan's discharge this time involves nuclear waste water, then we have no further ground for discussion. Feel free to remove yourself from my subscription list immediately.
Some foreign media outlets even went so far as to draw comparisons between the regular nuclear plant's nuclear waste water and Japan's nuclear-contaminated water, suggesting that the tritium levels in the water Japan plans to release are lower than those found in properly treated nuclear waste water.
However, the radioactivity levels of these two are simply not in the same league.
This is because, in addition to tritium, the nuclear-contaminated water that Japan is preparing to discharge contains 64 different radioactive elements, among which carbon-14, iodine-129, and strontium-90 pose the greatest risks to human health.
Take strontium-90, for example. Direct exposure to it can cause DNA breakage, and its half-life spans a lengthy 29 years, allowing it to persist in the environment for an extended period. It can stealthily enter our food chain, thereby posing a sustained threat to human well-being.
Furthermore, a research team from Tsinghua University developed a model that simulated the dispersion path of tritium after the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water.
The results indicate that within 240 days, these nuclear-contaminated waters could spread to China's coastal areas, and after 1200 days, they could encompass the North Pacific region.
Subsequently, the pollutants would bifurcate. One stream would rapidly extend southward to the South Pacific along the American coast, while the other would traverse the northern Australian waters and transfer to the Indian Ocean.
Interestingly, by the 2400th day, the pollution concentration in the coastal waters of southeastern China would be relatively low (shown in pink), while the concentration in the waters off the west coast of North America would already reach a high level (indicated in red).
In less than a decade, the nuclear-contaminated water could potentially spread across oceans worldwide.
To the media outlets whitewashing and defending Japan's stance, here's hoping that your descendants will have the privilege of enjoying clean and hygienic "nuclear-contaminated water"!
From this perspective, it appears that we won't have to wait for 30 years until Japan completes the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water; the contamination could potentially encompass all global oceans before that time.
However, why is Japan so insistent on discharging this nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean? Is there truly no alternative, as they claim?
Earlier, CCTV News reported that as of 2019, the Fukushima nuclear power plant had accumulated around 1.12 million tons of nuclear-contaminated water, increasing at a rate of 50,000 to 80,000 tons per year. Now, this number has escalated to 1.3 million tons.
This is tied to Fukushima's geographical location—it's situated by the sea and at a low elevation, with groundwater continuously flowing into the reactor buildings.
According to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station's official website, approximately 100 to 200 tons of such "groundwater" flow into the reactor buildings each day.
The problem is that this flow can't be halted. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), famously known as the perpetrator of the Fukushima nuclear leak incident, has tried various methods, including drilling wells for pumping and constructing an expensive frozen soil wall, at a cost of 34.5 billion yen (about 2 billion RMB). However, the effectiveness of these efforts has been limited.
Ultimately, they have had to watch helplessly as this water flows in and becomes contaminated.
As a result, they are left with no option but to use giant "cans" to store the nuclear-contaminated water, and the number of these cans continues to grow...
Finally, when storage is becoming increasingly unsustainable, Japan is left with no choice but to tackle the issue of these massive "cans" head-on.
How to resolve it?
Building more "cans" to continue storing the nuclear-contaminated water? The Japanese government immediately dismissed this option.
The reason is the exorbitant maintenance cost of these water storage tanks. Regular inspections and upkeep of these tanks entail significant expenses, and the cans also pose health risks to inspection personnel.
At the time, Japan proposed a total of five solutions, including discharging the water into the sea, into the atmosphere, deep underground, utilizing electrolysis treatment, and solidification for burial.
After weighing the options, Japan settled on discharging into the sea.
Among these five solutions, discharging into the ocean presented the least risk to Japan itself and was the most cost-effective, estimated to cost around 1.7 to 3.4 billion yen (approximately 10 to 20 million RMB).
Of course, direct discharge into the sea would undoubtedly draw intense criticism. Therefore, the Fukushima nuclear power station took pains to emphasize that their ocean discharge involves water that has undergone harmless treatment and is essentially harmless.
They employed a device called the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), which primarily uses adsorption technology. They claim it can reduce the concentration of 62 out of the 63 radioactive elements, excluding tritium, to below the discharge limit.
Honestly speaking, Japan's utilization of the ALPS technology is a first-of-its-kind in the world, and it's difficult to assess the maturity of the solution and its stability.
If it's indeed true, as they claim, that the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water has undergone treatment, and the levels of radioactive substances are now within acceptable limits, then it could be argued that the ocean discharge might not have significant repercussions.
Currently, on the IAEA's official website, the status of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station is updated monthly, including various indicators related to the planned nuclear-contaminated water discharge, all recorded in daily reports.
I also took a look at the data within these reports. They provide results from two entities' measurements: one from TEPCO and another from a third-party organization.
However, what raises skepticism is that there is a considerable disparity between the results obtained by these two entities.
For instance, considering the total beta radioactivity levels on a recent day, one measurement is 1.8, while the other is 0.35, a difference of more than five times.
And the problem precisely lies here: can having the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) endorse Japan ensure that all indicators of nuclear-contaminated water are within acceptable limits?
Currently, almost all data originate from Japan itself and the IAEA, but the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water by Japan affects people across the globe. This naturally leads to doubts about the credibility of the data.
Hence, I believe that at the very least, more countries and third-party organizations should be involved to make the data more convincing. This sentiment was echoed in the response of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
The IAEA did not review the legitimacy and legality of Japan's ocean discharge plan, did not assess the long-term effectiveness of Japan's purification equipment, and did not verify the true accuracy of Japan's nuclear-contaminated water data. Consequently, the conclusions drawn possess significant limitations and one-sidedness.
Furthermore, Director Leung Mei-yee of City University of Hong Kong pointed out that the academic community's understanding of the long-term and chronic environmental toxicity of low-radiation substances is limited.
Even if these nuclear-contaminated waters currently adhere to standards, it's unknown what impact they might have on the oceans and humanity decades down the line.
Moreover, Japan's authorities acknowledged in March of this year that their ALPS technology is still unable to effectively and promptly treat certain radioactive substances. Approximately 70% of the nuclear-contaminated water requires further processing.
As for when this 70% of nuclear-contaminated water awaiting additional treatment will be completely processed, they haven't provided any response.
There's no guarantee that Japan won't someday switch tactics and discharge incompletely treated nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean.
It's no wonder even the country's own citizens can't stand by idly and have taken to the streets to protest.
It's not surprising that people are skeptical; it's difficult to trust the Japanese government, considering the multitude of facts they've concealed in the realm of nuclear power plants.
For example, in August 2020, an article in Science magazine revealed that based on data provided by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) at the end of 2019, the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water still contained various radioactive components, necessitating a second round of treatment.
However, merely two months later, the Fukushima nuclear power station announced that it had carried out a second round of treatment on the nuclear-contaminated water and released data.
Indeed, some of the nuclides were reduced to levels within permissible limits. But considering the timeline, the pace of this correction is simply unbelievable.
After spending 4 to 5 years treating this nuclear-contaminated water and still requiring a second treatment, the situation escalated dramatically in just 1 year when the tanks were nearly full.
Furthermore, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power station, Tokyo Electric Power Company, has an infamous reputation.
In 2003, they were forced to shut down the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station due to discovered cover-ups and falsification of reports, leading to regulatory enforcement for correction.
Reports indicate that between 1987 and 1995, TEPCO discovered damage to reactor pipes and chose not to repair the equipment but instead "repaired" the reports. They only admitted the truth in 2002, acknowledging 29 separate incidents.
This was only after a two-year government investigation that forced their hand.
Not to mention the questionable actions by TEPCO since the Fukushima nuclear power station incident.
After the accident, TEPCO hesitated to use emergency seawater cooling, fearing it would render the reactors permanently unusable. They held on to the hope of using them in the future.
Even after the explosion of reactor Unit 1, TEPCO chose to withhold the information, which exacerbated the accident.
In short, they hide mistakes initially and bow deeply once the situation unravels.
This is quintessentially Japanese, and indeed, it's a shameless approach that has outraged both humans and deities alike.
With a company like that, if you were in my shoes, would you not feel a heightened sense of concern?
So, can we really expect the Japanese to uphold their supposed "civilized and rigorous" and "not causing trouble for others" culture when faced with this massive problem of over a million tons of nuclear-contaminated water??
The world's most hypocritical! The most shameless nation!!
Although Japan and the IAEA insist on the adequacy of their testing and the absence of impact, the responses of people worldwide provide a clear answer: "I'm sorry, I don't believe you."
Take South Korea, which is separated by a sea, for example; the protests in the streets are ongoing.
Hong Kong has also announced that it will implement controls on seafood products from ten prefectures, including Tokyo and Fukushima, starting from Thursday.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also spoken, affirming that they will take all necessary measures to protect the marine environment, food safety, and public health.
In short, the ocean is not the sole property of Japan.
If Japan continues to selfishly pass on the unknown harms to all of humanity, hoping that a bow will suffice to absolve them of responsibility, I can only say: The atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki back then were indeed too few.
As for another question that many are concerned about – whether seafood from waters where Japan is discharging nuclear-contaminated water can still be consumed – I have also sought the advice of experts, but as of now, I have not received a response.