Fact-checking Fukushima Nuclear Wastewater Dumping Reports [민들레기사 영문]

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Fact-checking Fukushima Nuclear Wastewater Dumping Reports

 
Today marks the first anniversary of the Japanese government (TEPCO) dumping 54,734 tons of nuclear wastewater, known as ALPS-treated water, into the sea on seven separate occasions. They plan to continue this process for the next 30 years. Recently, some media outlets and politicians have been spreading "gossip" in a strange way. Let's fact-check.

1. [Why Fukushima ALPS-Treated Water is Dangerous] Fukushima's ALPS-reated water is completely different from the wastewater discharged from a normally operating nuclear power plant. The Fukushima incident involved a core meltdown accident where nuclear fuel melted, meaning that even after purification with the ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System), various radioactive materials remain in the wastewater. Twelve nuclides, including cesium-137, cesium-135, strontium-90, iodine-131, and iodine-129, were not removed.
Of the nuclides that ALPS cannot treat, 11 are not typically found in the wastewater of a normally operating reactor. Among the 64 nuclides, tritium and carbon-14 are structurally impossible to filter out, regardless of how much ALPS is used. The same is true for the highly dangerous plutonium used as fuel in Unit 3.

2. [Dangers of Nuclides Other Than Tritium] The Japanese government emphasizes tritium to downplay the risks associated with radioactively contaminated water. However, other radionuclides, such as carbon-14, strontium-90, cesium, plutonium, and iodine, are more dangerous.
Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years, meaning it remains in the environment for thousands of years. Because carbon is incorporated into all living things, long-term exposure can cause cellular DNA damage in humans. It is 32 times more harmful than tritium. Dr. Ken Buesseler, an ocean scientist at the WHO, points out that carbon-14 has a bioconcentration index 50,000 times higher than tritium, and cobalt-60 binds to sediment 300,000 times more effectively than tritium.

3. [The Dangers of Tritium] Even if we focus solely on tritium, which the Japanese government recognizes, there are numerous issues. It is claimed that Fukushima's contaminated water, with a tritium concentration of 730,000 Bq (becquerel), is treated with ALPS (a polynuclear species removal facility) and discharged at a reduced level of 1,500 Bq, which is 1/40th of Japan's discharge standard of 60,000 Bq. In terms of drinking water standards, the United States allows 740 Bq, Europe allows 100 Bq, and California allows 15 Bq.
Measurement results of the 'ALPS-treated water' showed that 34% of all samples were below the standard, and 66% were above the standard, with 31% at 1 to 5 times the standard, 17% at 5 to 10 times the standard, 13% at 10 to 100 times the standard, and 5% at 100 to 19,909 times the standard. Even if the food radiation threshold is 100 Bq (Becquerel)/kg, adults and children are affected differently. For infants and young children, it should not exceed 4-8 Bq.

4. [Unreliable TEPCO Data] TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc.) has only tested for 9 out of 64 radionuclides and has measured them in only a quarter of the storage tanks. “These nine radionuclides are  neither representative nor sufficient to demonstrate the safety of nuclear wastewater dumping,” says U.S. professor Ferenc Dalnoki-Veres.

5. [The Reality of Contaminated Fish] Diluting the water does not change the total amount of contaminants being dumped. Furthermore, the IAEA stipulates that no intentional dilution of substances should be done other than what occurs in normal operations. Dilution is merely a show by the Japanese government. There is only one ocean. Phytoplankton become contaminated with radioactivity, which is then passed up the food chain to larger fish and eventually to humans. Internal exposure poses a greater threat to humans than atmospheric exposure.  The younger you are, the more deadly it is.

For tritium alone, in the Bristol Channel, where the Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing plant is located, enrichment of 4,000 to 50,000 Bq/kg of halibut and 2,000 to 40,000 Bq/kg of mussels has been observed, compared to 5 to 50 Bq/L in natural seawater. The enrichment rates for these species were 3,000 and 2,300 times the average, respectively. In May of last year, 18,000 Bq of radioactive cesium was detected in rockfish caught within the  Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant harbor, 180 times the reference level. This demonstrates the difference between the damage caused by naturally occurring hydrogen tritium water (HTO) and internally exposed organically bound tritium (OBT).

6. [Alternatives to Dumping] Tritium has a half-ife of 12.3 years. After 100 years, its toxicity is reduced to 1 in 1,000. Dr. Ken Buesseler suggests that 80% of the tritium will disappear after 20 years of storage, either by expanding an existing 1,000-ton tank or building a new 100,000-ton tank. There is plenty of land, and experts also recommend mixing contaminated water with cement and using it to mortar construction sites.

7. [Public Opinion in Japan Also Opposes Dumping] In a November-December 2020 postal poll of Japanese voters conducted by the Asahi Shimbun, 55% opposed the discharge. The National Association of Marine Laboratories (NAML), a group of 100 oceanographic laboratories, and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization (1985), have also made clear their opposition to nuclear wastewater dumping.

8. [Japan's Self-Contradiction] The Japanese government was once so opposed to waste discharged from Russian nuclear submarines that it helped create the London Convention (1996). But now the Japanese government is doing the same.

9. [Why the Japanese Government is Pushing Ahead] The Japanese government's use of cost as an excuse to proceed with ocean dumping raises strong suspicions that there are other reasons. The Rokkasho-mura Nuclear Reprocessing Plant, scheduled to be operational after 2024, will process 800 tons of spent nuclear fuel per year. It will release about 9,700 trillion Bq of tritium into the ocean and about 1,000 trillion Bq of tritium into the atmosphere every year, as well as about 50 trillion Bq of carbon-14 and 50 billion Bq of iodine-129 each year, which is 10 times the amount of nuclear waste from Fukushima. If Rokkasho Village is not allowed to dump the polynuclide contaminated water into the ocean, it could mean the collapse of Japan's nuclear policy. The Japanese government's intention appears to be to set a precedent for future large-scale ocean dumping.

10. [Abuse of Power by the United States Federal Government] Last summer, the U.S. states of Massachusetts and New York were able to stop the dumping of much smaller amounts of nuclear waste. The states were right to do so. On the other hand, the U.S. federal government is allowing the Japanese government to dump nuclear wastewater under the guise of the IAEA. (There is evidence that an IAEA official received a bribe of 1 million euros from the Japanese government.) Intellectuals believe that this reveals the United States' intention to use Japan as a nuclear base state. This is a completely different direction from the traditional nuclear umbrella policy in the US-China standoff.
If Japan becomes nuclear-armed at any time, it would change the United States' long-standing nuclear umbrella policy. It is a serious issue that must be agreed upon by the American people and the United States Congress. The U.S. federal government’s one-sided decisions without public discussion deserve condemnation by people worldwide.

The South Korean government, which unconditionally agrees with this, is even more problematic. Such matters concerning the country's fortunes are unconstitutional without the consent of the National Assembly. This is  absurd compared to the People's Republic of China, which is enforcing a ban on the import of seafood from Japan while considering the health of its citizens.

This is a poison that should not be dumped. To act as though nothing wrong was done after committing such a  harmful act is outrageous. If such behavior is tolerated, there is no hope for us. Nuclear wastewater dumping must be stopped.
 

2024-08-24
Lee Won-young
(Steering Committee Member, Public Reporting Center for the Dangers of Nuclear Power Plants (PRCDN))

+82 10 4234 2134 leewysu@gmail.com
Homepage https://liferoad.org/