Lead
"Safe, efficient, and transparent" are the three key words that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared at a press conference at the end of April 2021 that he would discharge nuclear wastewater into the sea, explaining why the Japanese government started discharging nuclear wastewater two years earlier.
A few months later, according to Japanese media, the Japanese government had even discharged the nuclear sewage into the sea at the end of 2020, but it was not made public.
The Japanese government not only concealed the timing of the discharge of the nuclear sewage from the people, but also deliberately acted on the nuclear wastewater, and the harm caused by it was also immeasurable.
In this regard, the Japanese government has long claimed that the "treated" nuclear sewage has reached the "drinking water standard", and called on the people to "trust the government".
However, as Japan's nuclear sewage is actually discharged into the sea in the form of water, the Japanese government's conclusion is becoming more and more untenable.
At a press conference in April 2021, the Japanese government also held a "test" in which Yasuhiro Harada, an official who attended the meeting, drank a glass of "treated nuclear wastewater", and those who witnessed the entire test carefully tested the glass of water from beginning to end, and indeed believed that the glass of water met the "drinking water standard".
However, this scene pulls our thoughts back to 13 years ago, when Japanese officials also drank a glass of nuclear sewage in front of the camera, and what role do these people play in Japanese politics today?
What happened to them?
1. Break through the previous commitments.
At the end of 2011, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda gave an exclusive interview to CNN reporters, talking about the Fukushima nuclear accident that had occurred for half a year and how the Japanese government would solve the problem of nuclear wastewater.
At that time, Yoshihiko Noda announced that the Japanese government would allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to fund their research and development of new types of nuclear sewage treatment equipment, so that these nuclear sewage treatment equipment would be more modern and less dangerous, and that the nuclear sewage would be treated more thoroughly to slow down the ecological damage caused by nuclear wastewater.
During this period, the Japanese government will not discharge a single drop of nuclear sewage into the sea.
Not only that, but the Japanese government also called the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami the "Fukushima nuclear accident", and at the end of that year, it declared eight towns in Fukushima Prefecture to be the hardest hit areas, and the nuclear sewage from these eight towns continued to be discharged into the sea.
Since then, the Japanese government has publicly approved the method of "treatment" of nuclear wastewater, which is to discharge nuclear sewage into the sea.
In May 2013, the Japanese government openly discharged 110,000 tons of nuclear wastewater into the sea for the first time, but the Japanese government has never released detailed data on the amount of radiation contained in the wastewater.
In 2015, the Japanese government claimed that more nuclear wastewater had been disposed of in accordance with "drinking water standards."
Since 2013, the Japanese government has claimed to have treated the nuclear wastewater, and the "treated" nuclear sewage meets the "drinking water standards", and there have been similar examples in other countries where the nuclear sewage has been treated and discharged into the sea.
However, in 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conducted an investigation and found that many of the equipment in the nuclear sewage treatment plant had quality and functional failures, so the "treated" nuclear sewage did not meet any "drinking water standards" at all, and it was impossible to treat the nuclear wastewater into "drinking water".
However, the Japanese government has already taken measures to protect itself from the issue of nuclear sewage discharge, that is, to "trust the government."
In 2019, an IAEA report also wrote about the quality and function failures of nuclear sewage treatment plants, and also said that these "quality and functional failures" will turn the "drinking water standard" of nuclear sewage discharge into "feed water standard", that is, the "treated" nuclear sewage can only be used for animals to drink, not for human consumption.
2. Officials demonstrate that nuclear sewage is not dangerous.
In 2011, the core of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan melted down, and nuclear sewage began to radiate to the surrounding area, and the source of all this was the tsunami caused by the Fukushima earthquake in 2011.
Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant is built on the seashore, but at the same time, Japan's Fukushima area is also a place where earthquakes are active, so to ensure the safety of the nuclear power plant, the Japanese government took into account the earthquake and tsunami factors in the construction of this nuclear power plant, and at the same time, the core of the nuclear power plant is also built at a place above sea level from the sea to ensure the safety of the nuclear power plant.
However, the 2011 Fukushima earthquake was an accident, and the Japanese government's tsunami prevention measures were not as good as expected, and when the tsunami came, it submerged the entire nuclear power plant and spread the "fuel melt" in the nuclear power plant core into the sea.
In May 2013, the Japanese government announced a plan to discharge nuclear sewage into the sea, and since then, the Japanese government has no intention of storing nuclear wastewater, but has only delayed the discharge of nuclear sewage for two years, and in these two years, the Japanese government has "treated" the nuclear wastewater, but the detailed data of the nuclear sewage has never been released to the public.
Until 2021, the Japanese government began to discharge the "treated" nuclear sewage into the sea, and at the same time, the Japanese government also announced a "shocking secret" of "treating nuclear wastewater".
It turns out that since 2013, the Japanese government has begun to discharge nuclear sewage into the sea, and the "treated" nuclear sewage has been filtered by cadmium, and the more radioactive elements in the nuclear sewage - uranium, plutonium, uranium, radon, etc., are compressed into small powders, and at the same time, the radioactive elements in the powder are re-processed delicately, and the radioactive elements in them are picked up and disposed of as garbage.
Finally, the "treated" nuclear wastewater is called "clean water" by the Japanese government, which claims that the "clean water" meets "drinking water standards".
In addition, the Japanese government also conducted a "test", in which Yasuhiro Harada, an official of the Japanese government, drank a glass of this "treated" "clean water" at the meeting site and in front of all the participants, and from beginning to end, there were people who witnessed it in person, and these people believed that this cup of "clean water" met the "drinking water standards".
Yasuhiro Harada, on the other hand, took this opportunity to run for the House of Representatives, winning 74,548 votes and entering the House of Representatives, where he was elected Vice Minister of the Environment of Japan.
However, in 2019, Yasuhiro Harada tried to be re-elected as a member of the House of Representatives again in this House of Representatives election, but in the end he only won 46,636 votes and lost the election, since then, Yasuhiro Harada withdrew from Japanese politics on July 27, 2019, and returned to his hometown, Fukui Prefecture, and since then, he has never participated in Japanese politics again.
And until 2023, the Japanese government once again set up a press conference related to nuclear sewage, as a theme, to clarify the death of Yasuhiro Harada, saying that Yasuhiro Harada died in Fukui Prefecture, Japan.
3. Deadly sounds of nuclear contamination.
On July 28, Japan once again announced a "good news" at this press conference related to nuclear wastewater, that is, the data called "treated nuclear wastewater" by the Japanese government was conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the equipment and data of the nuclear sewage treatment plant, and in this investigation, the IAEA also reaffirmed that the Japanese government is very transparent about the treatment of nuclear sewage and replaced the equipment of the nuclear sewage treatment plant with internationally advanced equipment.
After this investigation, the Japanese government announced again that the "treated" nuclear sewage can be discharged into the sea.
This time, Japan has once again set the amount of nuclear sewage discharged at 1.4 million tons, which is also the first time that the Japanese government has released data on the total amount of nuclear sewage discharged.
The IAEA does not approve of this way of "treating" nuclear wastewater, and the IAEA experts are obviously not surprised, because these seemingly powerful technical means are of no use at all for the treatment of nuclear wastewater.
Since the amount of radiation contained in the wastewater cannot be calculated, the so-called "treatment" of the wastewater, i.e. an empty shell, cannot do anything.
However, the Japanese government is still obsessed with discharging nuclear sewage into the ocean, and the risks and dangers of this move are immeasurable.
It is worth noting that Japan, as the only country in the world that has experienced a nuclear bomb attack, is very aware of the harm caused by nuclear wastewater, but they have never taken this experience to heart, but have used it as a capital to show off their military power and discharge nuclear sewage into the sea.
epilogue
The hypocrisy and irresponsibility of the Japanese government on the issue of nuclear sewage is shocking.
Yasuhiro Harada's "good show", apart from being a "self-expression", what could be more dangerous than this?
Fortunately, there are still some people in the Japanese government who still have a little conscience in their hearts, and they can barely hold their breath for the sake of the interests of the people and the safety of their lives.
However, we should not put our sense of security on the "conscience" of other countries, our country should strengthen the supervision of nuclear sewage as soon as possible, and formulate relevant countermeasures, and at the same time, neighboring countries should also monitor the scope of nuclear sewage at all times, so as to take relevant countermeasures at the first time to protect the ecological environment of their own countries and the safety of their people's lives.
When people face the problem of nuclear wastewater, on the one hand, they should not panic excessively, and on the other hand, they should always be vigilant against the harm of nuclear sewage and take timely countermeasures to minimize the harm caused by nuclear wastewater.