This is a non issue. The ALPS water has been treated for every radio isotope except for tiritum, which is harmless. The release of this water will be a great case study for studying pacific ocean currents and that’s about it.
Could you source another article? Better to be backed with sources when disproving political claims on news websites.
So why is China so irked then?
Because that’s what they do. Find any reason to feel slighted by ‘the other countries’ so they can hold it against them.
Why bring China here? This has been contentious for years and across many groups, both locals (e.g. japanese fishermen) and foreign (I don’t see what gives China precedence over these concerns than any of these groups).
Though I’m no more of a nuclear waste expert than the next shitposter here, last I checked, the amount of radiation was well within safe levels (otherwise this option wouldn’t be on the table), water is damn good at shielding against the effects of radiation (hence why almost all the fissile fuel is stored in some form of pool or another), and the active radioisotopes had a very short half-life (meaning that whatever impact it might still have today, it will be marginal a decade from now).
If that holds up against fact checking and scientific evidence, then by all means!
I remember this being talked about and China opposing to it 2 years ago when Japan first announced the decision.
It should be noted as in the linked report, that Japan is adhering to UN regulations and diluting the waste water to levels lower than the IAEA standard before dumping it into the ocean. So before people rush to criticize, they maybe should also look into the regulations from IAEA and the dilution process before making an opinion. There was also concern for pollutants other than tritium which could be in the waste water that were not accounted for, but I haven’t seen any media reporting on that during these two years, so while I’d love to see a report, you can make of it what you will.
As for China, they really should take a good look at themselves in the mirror, bc as per their own official report from 2017, their own upper limit of acceptable tritium levels for nuclear waste water is 225 TBq per year, which is 10x more than Japan’s standard.
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Sounds like sound and fury signifying nothing. The levels are crazy low. At worst the local fishermen will be impacted and that will need to be accounted for. I could see seafood from the area being not wanted, which could lead to a marine preserve type rebound if it stops being pillaged.
Wasn’t saying other ones are good, just that this one is bad.
Not just China! That’s radioactive waste being poured into ocean water! What the shit! That’s so polluting!
If you read the article, you’d see that other nuclear reactors, including one based in China, release much more tritium into the ocean than Fukushima. So it’s a bit unfair to call out Japan here specifically.
That said, it absolutely is polluting and we should absolutely find better ways to handling this waste.
Tritium half life is 12 years and doesn’t pose health risk in low concentration. Qualifying it of pollution is fear mongering.
