al Jazeera:
Toxic tuna? Hong Kong may ban Japan seafood over Fukushima water
Tokyo insists its plans to discharge the treated water from the tsunami-wrecked nuclear plant are safe.
Japanese imports of seafood are seen in a supermarket in Hong Kong [Tyrone Siu/Reuters]
Published On 12 Jul 202312 Jul 2023
Japan has requested officials from Hong Kong not to tighten restrictions on food imports amid its plan to discharge treated radioactive water from its Fukushima nuclear plant later this year, the foreign ministry in Tokyo said.
In a Wednesday meeting with Hong Kong government officials, Japan explained its plans to discharge the treated water from the tsunami-wrecked plant and assured the safety of Japanese food, the ministry said.
More than 1.3 million tonnes of water – enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools – has built up at the plant since the March 2011 tsunami destroyed the power station’s electricity and cooling systems and triggered the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
The meeting was held a day after Hong Kong leader John Lee said the city, Japan’s second-largest market for agricultural and fisheries exports, would ban seafood products from a large number of Japanese prefectures if Tokyo goes ahead with its water release plan.
Hong Kong’s Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan reiterated Lee’s comments on Wednesday saying the city would ban seafood imports from 10 Japanese prefectures.
Tse told reporters that a ban would include imports of all live, frozen, refrigerated, dried or otherwise preserved aquatic products, sea salt, and unprocessed or processed seaweed.
Published On 12 Jul 202312 Jul 2023
Japan has requested officials from Hong Kong not to tighten restrictions on food imports amid its plan to discharge treated radioactive water from its Fukushima nuclear plant later this year, the foreign ministry in Tokyo said.
In a Wednesday meeting with Hong Kong government officials, Japan explained its plans to discharge the treated water from the tsunami-wrecked plant and assured the safety of Japanese food, the ministry said.
More than 1.3 million tonnes of water – enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools – has built up at the plant since the March 2011 tsunami destroyed the power station’s electricity and cooling systems and triggered the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
The meeting was held a day after Hong Kong leader John Lee said the city, Japan’s second-largest market for agricultural and fisheries exports, would ban seafood products from a large number of Japanese prefectures if Tokyo goes ahead with its water release plan.
Hong Kong’s Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan reiterated Lee’s comments on Wednesday saying the city would ban seafood imports from 10 Japanese prefectures.
Tse told reporters that a ban would include imports of all live, frozen, refrigerated, dried or otherwise preserved aquatic products, sea salt, and unprocessed or processed seaweed.
Protesters stage a rally against the Japanese government’s plan to release treated radioactive water from Fukushima nuclear plant, near the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea [File: Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo]
The ban would apply to imported aquatic products from Tokyo, Fukushima, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano and Saitama, Tse added.
China has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of the plan despite a review by the United Nations atomic agency IAEA of the controversial proposal, which found it safe.
The plan was “consistent with relevant international safety standards … [and] the controlled, gradual discharges of the treated water to the sea would have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said last week.
The state-run tabloid Global Times last Thursday quoted Senlin Liu, a Chinese expert on the agency’s technical working group, saying they were disappointed with the “hasty” report and that the expert input was limited. Grossi rejected those claims on Friday.
The ban would apply to imported aquatic products from Tokyo, Fukushima, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano and Saitama, Tse added.
China has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of the plan despite a review by the United Nations atomic agency IAEA of the controversial proposal, which found it safe.
The plan was “consistent with relevant international safety standards … [and] the controlled, gradual discharges of the treated water to the sea would have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said last week.
The state-run tabloid Global Times last Thursday quoted Senlin Liu, a Chinese expert on the agency’s technical working group, saying they were disappointed with the “hasty” report and that the expert input was limited. Grossi rejected those claims on Friday.
Ever wonder why uncle Sam is so so quiet about the discharge of the Fukushima nuclear contaminated water into the Pacific ocean?
ReplyDeleteBcoz, from time to time there r large amount of such nuclear contaminated waste water have been leaked into the US soil water & the river reservoirs surrounding their nuclear plants.
The most current case is a leak of hundreds of thousands of gallons of nuclear contaminated water been leaked into the Mississippi River.
It was discovered at Xcel Energy's Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant at around Nov 22, 2022.
The entire Hong Kong Administration, from John Lee onwards , are just subordinates taking orders from Beijing.
ReplyDeleteAll pretence of Hong Kong autonomy making its own decisions is now Kerbau.
& wakakaka…
DeleteWho r those subordinates of uncle Sam around the known world?
Ooop… kerbau to u in yr wet dream!
The science of the Fukushima treated water is - the same Reverse Osmosis process that Singapore uses for Newater , to render the filthiest sewage water into drinkable water is used.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of Fukushima, all suspended and dissolved matter other than H2O is removed, regardless radioactive or non-radioactive.
The only limitation is the small amount of Tritium Oxide, basically H2O with radioactive Tritium , which is Hydrogen with extra two neutrons, which makes it unstable. Since this is chemically still H2O, it is impossible to remove from normal water.
It is not safe to drink as such, but IAEA concurs it is safe to dilute into seawater.
Mfer, here is that real science of reverse osmosis filtration u so gung-ho-lly ignored.
DeleteReverse Osmosis water filtration process is accomplished by water pressure pushing waste water through a semi-permeable membrane to remove contaminants from water. This is a process in which dissolved inorganic solids are removed from a solution.
Catch phrase - remove solid contaminants through semi-permeable membrane.
Constraints - sizes of contaminants vis-a-vis the designed permeability of the membrane .
Thus the process DOESN'T remove any radioactivity of the particles permeate through through the membrane. Especially water & or other nucleotides with diameters of the same or smaller than water particle!
In the case of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, the contaminated water comes into direct contact with the melted reactor core, and thus nuclear wastewater contains many active radionuclides.
An advanced liquid processing system (ALPS), not just simple reverse osmosis, adopted by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) can remove radionuclides other than tritium (International Atomic Energy Agency, 2015; 2020). However, ALPS is not entirely reliable. In August 2018, it was revealed that water processing in three ALPS systems at the Fukushima Daiichi site failed to reduce radioactivity to the stipulated levels (The Japan Times, 2018) - meaning there r other radioactive nucleoids getting through through the filtration process.
TEPCO reported that 780,000 tons of water or 72% of total water in storage tanks would undergo secondary processing (TEPCO, 2020). However the hazards from carbon-14 and tritium present in the secondary treated water are ignored.
Tritium is naturally produced in very small quantities via cosmic radiation interactions with air particles in the upper atmosphere. The natural steady-state global inventory is about 7.3 kg! Natural tritium concentrations in surface waters are of the order of 10^{ - 18} tritium atoms per hydrogen atom.
However, as of April 2021, total amount of tritium stored in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is about 860 Terabecquerels (TBq). The Fukushima Daiichi site is planning to release about 1 Petabecquerel (PBq – 1 with 15 zeros after it) of tritium at a rate of 0.022 PBq per year. Yet, there r NO concrete & trustable plan on how this will be carried out over a period of decades!
Besides, the Japanese authorities have NOT ensure that there are NO significant amounts of "organically bound tritium" in the released water. This is where a tritium atom replaces ordinary hydrogen in an organic molecule. The organic molecules containing tritium can then be absorbed in to sediments and ingested by marine organisms.
In the mid-1990s, organic molecules containing tritium were released from the Nycomed-Amersham pharmaceuticals plant in Cardiff Bay, Wales. The release led to bioaccumulation factors as high as 10,000.
Thus, dilution of the Fukushima contaminated waste water before releasing it into the sea water is factually misleading!
The same kind of f*cked argument in no increasing in radionuclides with the refine of the Lynas rare earth soil into its ore for processing into the respective pure elements. Thus with minimum & negligible radiological impacts to people and the environment.
Besides, there r multiple safety standard for tritium. For comparison, Japan’s regulatory limit allows a maximum of 60,000 becquerels per liter. The World Health Organization allows 10,000, while the US has a more conservative limit of 740 becquerel per liter.
Evil or know-nothing?
Acknowledges it, mfer!