It's nuclear contaminated water! Chinese scholars debunk the lie of Japan's "nuclear wastewater"

On August 24, 2023, local time, the Japanese government officially launched the discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the sea amid opposition. TEPCO is scheduled to discharge about 460 tons of nuclear-contaminated water per day over the next 17 days, with a gradual increase thereafter. At present, about 1.34 million tons of contaminated water are stored at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

"Can meet the standard"? Or "detoxify into the sea"

In this statement, Japanese officials insisted that "the water discharged is treated clean water." From a scientific point of view, experts and environmental groups are skeptical about TEPCO's nuclear contaminated water treatment and other related data.

First of all, the "nuclear contaminated water" discharged by Japan this time is not equivalent to the "nuclear wastewater" discharged during the normal operation of the nuclear reactor, and the two are fundamentally different and have completely different impacts on the marine environment. Professor Mei Hong of the Law School of Ocean University of China pointed out in his article that what Japan intends to discharge into the ocean is not nuclear wastewater, that is, not the wastewater discharged during the normal operation of nuclear reactors, but nuclear sewage (nuclear polluted/contaminated/radioactive water), that is, highly harmful pollutants caused by direct contact between nuclear fuel and water due to nuclear accidents and other reasons.

The contaminated water discharged from Japan originated on March 11, 2011, when the Fukushima nuclear power plant was severely damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, and three cores were completely melted down. At that time, the treatment method was to manually pump seawater directly onto these high-temperature molten cores to force cooling, a process that produced more than 200 highly toxic radioactive isotopes to organisms. In contrast, nuclear waste water refers to one of the nuclear wastes generated during the normal operation of nuclear power plants. At present, humans have studied it a lot, and the technology is relatively mature, and it can be emitted after complying with strict standards. Expert research believes that the discharge standards of nuclear wastewater do not apply to nuclear wastewater discharge.

In Japan's official reports, it has been trying to confuse the concept of "nuclear sewage" and "nuclear wastewater", citing the relevant standards and requirements of nuclear wastewater, and its public policy report by listing that France and other countries have also implemented nuclear wastewater discharge into the sea, trying to prove that it has become an international practice and even an international custom to discharge nuclear sewage after the standard of nuclear sewage treatment is met. However, this claim does not hold up. First of all, nuclear wastewater from France and other countries is not the same concept as nuclear wastewater from Japan; Second, the discharge of waste is not in line with the basic principles of international environmental law; The discharge of diluted wastes, even if practiced in some countries, does not constitute international practice.

Second, the Multinuclide Treatment System (ALPS) is key to the Japanese government's plan to discharge contaminated water into the sea. The Japanese side insists that the nuclear contaminated water treated by ALPS is "treated water" and believes that the "treated water" has reached the standard and can be discharged. But this is not the case.

First, many radionuclides in nuclear-contaminated water do not yet have effective treatment technology.

Fukushima's contaminated water contains more than 60 radionuclides, such as tritium, carbon-14, iodine-129, etc., many of which have no effective treatment technology, while Japan has been misleading that "the problem is only tritium". In a 2020 survey report entitled "TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Contaminated Water Crisis", the international environmental organization pointed out that ALPS cannot remove radioactive tritium and carbon-14, nor can it completely remove other radioactive isotopes, such as strontium-90, iodine-129 and cobalt-60.

Second, radionuclides in nuclear-contaminated water affect human health.

Japan advocates that after dilution of seawater, the concentration of tritium in the water will reach less than one-fortieth of the Japanese regulatory standard. However, dilution does not reduce the total radioactive dose of the contaminated water. Gao Zhiguo, president of the China Society for the Law of the Sea and former judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, said that after these radionuclides enter the marine environment ecology, tritium may not be the most dangerous, and the most harmful to humans and marine organisms are carbon-14 and iodine-129, carbon-14 has a half-life of more than 5,000 years, and iodine-129 has a longer half-life. Carbon-14 accumulates in marine organisms, i.e. fish, and can be 50 times more abundant or concentrated than tritium.

Third, the scope of the impact of nuclear contaminated water is global.

According to the German Marine Science Research Agency, the Fukushima coast has the strongest ocean current in the world, and radioactive materials will spread to most of the Pacific Ocean within 57 days from the date of discharge, and in 3 years the United States and Canada on the other side of the Pacific will be affected by nuclear pollution, and 10 years later it will spread to the global seas.

Comparison of satellite imagery of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011 and 2023. It is clear from the comparison that after the earthquake of March 11, 2011, the nuclear power plant built a dense circle of nuclear contaminated water storage tanks on the plant grounds.

An international responsibility that cannot be escaped

Professor Mei Hong of the Law School of Ocean University of China mentioned in a relevant paper that Japan's discharge of nuclear sewage constitutes a marine environmental risk, and the uncontrolled development of marine environmental risks is a trend that causes damage to the marine ecological environment. In this sense, opposing Japan's discharge of nuclear wastewater is a global environmental issue.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea requires States to take all necessary measures to ensure that activities under their jurisdiction or control do not cause pollution to other States and their environment and do not cause harm beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. However, in the past two years, the Japanese government's claim that nuclear sewage will not cause environmental pollution after treatment into the sea lacks scientific basis and is therefore not credible. Based on the available facts and the conclusions of relevant studies, it should be presumed that millions of tons of contaminated water entering the sea will cause serious damaging consequences.

Although such damaging consequences have not yet occurred, due to the long-term, serious and irreversible nature of the damage to the marine ecological environment, the international community cannot wait for the implementation of the act and the occurrence of harmful consequences before restricting it, but should stop the dumping of nuclear sewage into the sea in a timely manner, and strengthen consultation and cooperation to jointly discuss safer and more reasonable nuclear sewage treatment plans.

Japan ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on 20 June 1996 and should therefore comply with its obligations to prevent risks to the marine environment stipulated in the Convention in accordance with the law. The consequences of discharging nuclear sewage into the sea in violation of their obligations under international law must be liability for transboundary environmental damage, and the legal responsibility of the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Company to eliminate the continuous damage caused by nuclear sewage to the marine environment is unbearable.

The future of marine environmental risk prevention

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment (National Nuclear Safety Administration) said on the 24th that the Japanese government forcibly launched the discharge of Fukushima nuclear contaminated water into the sea, putting its own selfish interests above the long-term well-being of all mankind, which is extremely selfish and irresponsible. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment will attach great importance to the discharge of nuclear contaminated water from Fukushima, Japan, and will currently organize and carry out the monitoring of marine radiation environment in the waters under mainland jurisdiction in 2023 in accordance with the idea of monitoring key areas, covering the sea area under its jurisdiction, and mastering key channels. In the future, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will continue to strengthen relevant monitoring work, timely track and judge the possible impact of Fukushima's nuclear contaminated water discharge into the sea on China's marine radiation environment, and effectively safeguard the interests of mainland countries and people's health.

The person in charge of the Import and Export Food Safety Bureau of the General Administration of Customs said that China Customs is highly concerned about the risk of radioactive contamination brought by Japan's move to food and agricultural products exported to China. In accordance with the relevant provisions of mainland laws and regulations, as well as the relevant provisions of the Agreement on the Implementation of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of the World Trade Organization, the General Administration of Customs has decided to take emergency measures against aquatic products originating in Japan, and completely suspend the import of aquatic products (including edible aquatic animals) originating in Japan from August 24, 2023 (inclusive). At the same time, Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Shu Hengting responded at a regular press conference held on the same day that the Japanese government's unilateral forced launch of the discharge of Fukushima nuclear contaminated water into the sea is an extremely selfish and irresponsible act that ignores the international public interest, and China firmly opposes and strongly condemns it.

Japan's discharge of nuclear effluent is a global environmental issue that cannot be ignored in the world's risk society. Environmental issues are not limited to the interests of a specific region or country, but are aimed at maintaining the stability and health of the entire earth's ecosystem. We should promote concerted action by the international community to ensure that human behaviour does not cause irreversible harm to the ecological balance and sustainable development of the planet.

(Special thanks for this article: Professor Mei Hong of Ocean University of China, part of the text is selected from "Legal Issues Related to Fukushima Nuclear Sewage", originally published in Journal of Ocean University of China (Social Science Edition) 2023-06-30)

Source: The Paper