What's happening?
Japan is planning to release more than one million tons of radioactive water from its nuclear power plant into the sea.
What NPP are we talking about?
O Fukushima-1, where a radiation accident occurred on March 11, 2011 as a result of an earthquake and tsunami.
The center of this environmental catastrophe was locatedat 70 km. east of the island of Honshu. After a terrible earthquake of 9.1 magnitude, a tsunami followed, which raised ocean waters 40 meters high.
People, against the backdrop of this tragedy, even in the distantIn Germany they bought dosimeters, gauze bandages and tried to “protect themselves” from the radiation consequences of the Fukushima accident. People were in a state of panic, and not only in Japan. The company that owns the Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant suffered enormous losses.
Tsunami, earthquake and human factor are a combination of reasons why the accident occurred. This disaster was eventually recognized as the second largest in human history.
Was the accident liquidated but not completely?
Immediately after the disaster, about 200 peoplevolunteer liquidators began work to minimize damage. The main and most dangerous function was performed by 50 of them, they were nicknamed "atomic samurai". The workers tried to somehow cope with or reduce the scale of the disaster: they tried to cool three cores by pumping boric acid and seawater into them.
However, attempts to eliminate the problem did not lead toexpected result. Radiation levels have increased. The authorities decided to begin more active pumping of water. This helped, the radiation began to come out of the cracks more slowly, and the irradiated water, which was needed to cool the radiators, began to be pumped into storage for proper processing.
During the liquidation of the accident, there were no casualties. However, the authorities were afraid of the radiation exposure of the inhabitants and therefore created a zone without flights - the area of 30 kilometers was 20,000 km2. around the station.
The radiation level exceeded the norm by 5 times, evenafter several months it remained high in the evacuation zone. The area of the disaster was declared uninhabitable for decades. The Fukushima nuclear power plant was officially closed in 2013, and work to eliminate the consequences of the accident is still underway.
What exactly happened to the water?
The fact is that during the tsunami theelectricity, the cooling mechanism failed, the reactor core melted and radioactive substances leaked. To cool the reactor, water, including sea water, was pumped into the core. Every day the volume of stored radioactive water is increasing by 170 tons, and, as of the end of July, its total volume was 1 million 150 thousand tons. All waste water is stored in 977 sealed tanks, which is associated with huge costs and complexity of the process of disposal of contaminated water.
It was stated that by the fall of 2020 all storage facilitieshad to be filled out. In August 2019, Sean Burney, a senior specialist at Green Peace in Berlin, announced that Japan was considering dumping radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. According to him, the current will spread this water around the world, and a number of countries will suffer.
In an interview with the Korea Times, Bernie explained Japan's desire for greed.
They don't want to pay all the storage costs andprocessing of contaminated water, including removal of radioactive tritium. Back in 2016, the Ministry of Economy's task force on water resources rejected the tritium removal technology options proposed by various companies. This is important because Japanese government officials say tritium is the only element that pollutes water but is relatively harmless. Although, according to experts, it can cause cancer and fetal deformities.
Sean Burney, senior specialist at Green Peace
According to a Greenpeace report published inIn early 2019, the Japanese government allegedly considered five options to deal with the accumulating radioactive waste, and dumping it into the Pacific Ocean was considered the most reasonable since it would cost only 37.7 billion yen, based on calculations by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2016 . There is no confirmation of this information.
Do you know when they want to drain the water?
Drainage of contaminated water will begin in about a year. Before that, it will be thoroughly cleaned: as a result, tritium, which does not lend itself to filtration, will remain there, which is dangerous to people only in large doses. The International Atomic Energy Agency believes that well-filtered water can be discharged into the ocean without harming the environment.
The work to discharge the water, which is stored in more than 1000 reservoirs, will not begin until 2022 and will take decades to complete.
A formal decision can be made towards the endOctober 2020, Kyodo news agency previously reported, ending years of debate about what to do with the water with other options, including evaporating or building additional storage tanks at other sites.
How can international law control this?
There are mechanisms in international lawpreventing possible discharge of polluted water into the sea. This is, for example, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which requires its members to take measures to prevent, reduce and control marine pollution. The London Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Materials is also in force. The IAEA is fighting for safe nuclear energy and must be notified of such actions.
However, each country independently determinespermissible level of pollution: if in the Republic of Kazakhstan it is 40 thousand becquerels per liter of water, then in Japan it is 60 thousand. The indicator at the Fukushima-1 NPP is 120 thousand becquerels.
Further, there is a general principle against contaminatingsea, but no specific rules. For example, Japan can argue that the discharge of water will not harm other countries. Also in Tokyo, they can justify their actions by force majeure, given the huge volumes of radioactive water, and therefore it is difficult to prove the illegality of the actions and their consequences.
Besides fishermen and environmental groups alsoopposed the move, while neighboring South Korea, which still bans seafood imports from the region, has repeatedly expressed concern, arguing that the discharge of water poses a "serious threat" to the marine environment.
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