The contaminated water tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are almost full.Philip Fong/AFP putem Getty Imagesa Hide title
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Philip Fong/AFP putem Getty Imagesa
The contaminated water tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are almost full.
Philip Fong/AFP putem Getty Imagesa
Workers in Japan have begun releasing purified radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. The factory was destroyed in an earthquake and a large tsunami in 2011, and water has been accumulating ever since.
On Thursday, the Chinese government announced that it had immediately suspended imports of aquatic products such as seafood from Japan.
Author's reviewUN nuclear watchdogsays the landfill will have negligible radiological impact on people and the environment, but some nations remain concerned. Find out what the Japanese government is doing and why.
Why is there water in the Fukushima power plant?
After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, several reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant melted down. To prevent further destruction, workers flooded the reactors with water, which soon became heavily contaminated. The power plant is now shut down and the reactors are not working, but they still need to be cooled to prevent waste water from accumulating. In the years following the accident, groundwater also seeped into the site and was also partially contaminated.
Dealing with all this radioactive water was a major technical challenge for the Japanese government. According to Japanese authorities, about 350 million gallons are currently stored in more than 1,000 tanks on site. According to the government, the reservoirs are almost exhausted and the place can no longer hold water, so some of the water needs to be drained.
Japan has set up a complex system to filter radioactive contaminants from water. However, some forms of radiation cannot be filtered.Philip Fong/AFP putem Getty Imagesa Hide title
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Japan has set up a complex system to filter radioactive contaminants from water. However, some forms of radiation cannot be filtered.
Philip Fong/AFP putem Getty Imagesa
Can't you just filter the radioactive particles out of the water?
The government is working on a complex filtration system that will remove most of the radioactive isotopes from the water. Known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS for short), it can remove many different radioactive contaminants from water.
Authorities have used ALPS and other systems to remove some of the more dangerous isotopes like cesium-137 and strontium-90.
But there's one radioactive isotope they can't filter out: tritium. Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen, and hydrogen is part of water itself (H20). Therefore, it is impossible to design a filter that can remove tritium.
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How does the Japanese government intend to safely release this water?
The plan consists of several parts. First, the water is diluted with seawater, so there is much less tritium in each drop. The government says it will reduce tritium levels far below any safe limits and below the level emitted by some operating nuclear power plants. Second, they take that diluted water and direct it through a tunnel under the sea floor to a point near the coast of Fukushima in the Pacific Ocean. That will dilute it even more.
Eventually they will slowly do so. It will take decades to empty all those reservoirs.
Members of South Korea's main opposition party, the Democratic Party, hold electric candles and a sign reading "No to Fukushima's nuclear contaminated water!" during a rally against the Japanese plan on Wednesday. Other Pacific nations are also concerned about the release.Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images Hide title
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Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images
Members of South Korea's main opposition party, the Democratic Party, hold electric candles and a sign reading "No to Fukushima's nuclear contaminated water!" during a rally against the Japanese plan on Wednesday. Other Pacific nations are also concerned about the release.
Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images
Do others think this procedure is safe?
The Japanese government claims that the tritium isn't that bad, especially compared to some of the other radioactive materials at the site. Its radioactive decay is relatively weak, and since it is part of water, it actually moves through biological organisms quite quickly. And its half-life is 12 years, so it doesn't stay that long in the environment, unlike elements like uranium-235, which has a half-life of 700 million years.
Considering all of the above, the Government is convinced that this is the safest possible option.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency has reviewed this plan and believes it meets international safety standards. The IAEA also plans to conduct independent monitoring to ensure disposal is safe.
"The risk is really, really small. And I wouldn't call it a risk at all," says Jim Smith, one of themProfessor of environmental scienceat the University of Portsmouth. He has spent the past few decades studying radioactivity in waterways following nuclear accidents, including Chernobyl.
"We have to put the radiation and the release from the facility into perspective -- if it's done right -- then the doses that people receive and the doses that go into the ecosystem just won't be significant, I think," Smith says.
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Edwin Lyman is the oneDirector of Nuclear Safetyat the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. He says that of the limited options Japan has for this sewer, none are good, but "Unfortunately, in my opinion, their current plan is probably the least bad of many bad options," he says.
"The idea of deliberately dumping hazardous substances into the environment, into the ocean, is repulsive," says Lyman. "Unfortunately, from a technical point of view, it is difficult to say that the effects of this discharge would be worse than those occurring in nuclear power plants operating around the world."
But not everyone agrees that draining the water is the best solution. ken buesseler,senior scientistThe Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution believes it would be better to keep contaminated water on land "where it's much easier to track." Options could include mixing it into concrete to immobilize it.
Büssler does not believe that the water in the Pacific is dangerous. "We don't anticipate any immediate large-scale health impacts, either for humans or marine life," he says. However, he argues that non-ALPS non-tritium contaminants could accumulate near the coast over time.
"The nearshore in Japan could be affected in the long term due to the build-up of non-tritium radioactivity," he says. This could ultimately harm fisheries in the region.
And Bussler worries about the message being sent to other nations that might be willing to dump nuclear waste at sea.
How are other nations reacting to Japan's decision?
Other nations have expressed concern over Japan's plan. There has been a growing public outcry against the decision in South Korea.
Buesseler advises FrPacific Islands Forum, a coalition of nations including the Marshall Islands and Tahiti, was also concerned about Japan's decision. He points out that many of these countries were exposed to high levels of radioactive emissions as a result of atmospheric nuclear testing during the Cold War. "There are islands that I cannot return to because of hereditary contamination," says Büsseler.
In addition, "in many ways they are suffering more from climate change and sea level rise than the rest of the world," he says. From their point of view, letting Japan into the Pacific was "just an insult, also to the environment."