Who openly "washes the ground" for Japan's Fukushima nuclear contaminated water discharge into the sea?

(Source: website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, website of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, People's Daily, CCTV News, CCTV Network, etc.)

The issue of Japan's nuclear contaminated water discharge into the sea has become the hottest topic of the past two days, with Baidu and Weibo trending high. There are continuous voices opposing nuclear contaminated water discharge into the sea, and some netizens have referred to August 24th as World Environmental Disaster Day.

However, a recent article titled "Starting from Fukushima Nuclear Waste Water: Are We Talking about Science or Position?" has been published on multiple WeChat official accounts. The article confuses black and white, confuses right and wrong, and attempts to "wash the ground" for Japan's nuclear contaminated water discharge under the guise of science.

It cannot help but evoke this news: According to the Japan Broadcasting Association (NHK), the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has formulated a strengthened response and dissemination policy for so-called "false information" about the contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on social media and other platforms, with an estimated amount of about 70 billion yen.

According to the Nuclear Polluted Water Treatment Report released by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in February 2020, this "public relations budget" is almost 20 times the budget for nuclear polluted water discharge to the sea and twice the budget for steam discharge. The Japanese government would rather spend money on public relations than adopt less harmful nuclear polluted water treatment solutions.

Let's take a look at what is written in this "floor washing" manuscript together?

1、 Swapping concept: purified nuclear wastewater=nuclear wastewater?

The article states that in 2012, Toshiba Corporation of Japan developed an advanced liquid treatment system that can filter out all 62 radioactive elements in wastewater. East Electric Company has purchased three sets of such equipment, with a daily processing capacity of 250 tons.

The final purified nuclear wastewater becomes "nuclear wastewater", which is essentially the same in composition as the cooling water discharged from normal nuclear power plants - except for the severely excessive tritium content.

The article confuses nuclear contaminated water and nuclear wastewater, attempting to equate Japan's discharge of nuclear contaminated water into the sea with conventional discharge behavior of nuclear power plant wastewater. The title even directly uses the concept of "nuclear wastewater", confusing the public.

Even if there is a word difference between nuclear sewage and nuclear wastewater, their meanings vary greatly:

Nuclear wastewater refers to the wastewater generated by nuclear power plants in their normal daily activities, such as water used to cool critical parts of the plant. These water will not come into contact with radioactive substances in nuclear reactors, and after strict treatment, they can be discharged through pipelines.

Nuclear contaminated water refers to water that comes into direct contact with radioactive substances in the reactor during an accident and is highly radioactive due to contamination. This type of water needs to be strictly stored, processed through multiple processes, and evaluated by experts before being allowed to be discharged into the ocean, otherwise the ecological risks it brings will be immeasurable.

The article also brings out the so-called ALPS "Advanced Liquid Treatment System", which claims to "filter out all 62 radioactive elements in sewage".

The actual situation is not like this.

On the one hand, many radioactive nuclides in nuclear contaminated water do not yet have effective treatment technologies.

International environmental organizations have found that ALPS cannot remove radioactive tritium and carbon-14, nor can it completely remove other radioactive isotopes such as strontium 90, iodine 129, and cobalt 60.

On the other hand, radioactive nuclides in nuclear contaminated water can affect human health.

Gao Zhiguo, President of the Chinese Society of the Law of the Sea and former judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, stated that after these radioactive nuclides enter the marine environment and ecology, tritium may not be the most dangerous, and the carbon-14 and iodine-129 are the most harmful to humans and marine life. Carbon-14 accumulates in marine organisms, such as fish, and its abundance or concentration may be 50 times that of tritium.

2、 Gossip: Chinese experts from the IAEA working group have not expressed any objections?

Japan's nuclear contaminated water discharge plan has been submitted for review by the International Atomic Energy Agency since 2021. The IAEA has established a working group consisting of 11 scientists, one of whom is an expert representing the Chinese government.

One detail worth noting is that the article claims that the Chinese expert in the working group has never expressed opposition to Japan's nuclear contaminated water discharge plan. Not only him, but almost all authoritative nuclear and environmental scientists in China have not publicly voiced opposition.

The expert participating in the IAEA working group is Researcher Liu Linlin from the Chinese Academy of Atomic Energy Sciences. As early as the release of the report by the IAEA, Liu Senlin had been interviewed by CCTV. He said, "The IAEA conducted a review and evaluation at the request of Japan after the Japanese government unilaterally made a decision to discharge nuclear contaminated water into the sea. In the past two years of evaluation tasks, the technical working group has both consensus and differences among experts, and has not fully formed a consensus

How did the report come out without reaching a consensus?

Liu Linlin candidly stated that, This report was issued on behalf of Director General Grossy. Although the IAEA Secretariat had solicited expert opinions from the technical working group on the draft report before its release, the time window left for the experts was very limited, and the expert opinions were for reference only. Whether to adopt them or not was decided by the IAEA Secretariat. After receiving feedback, the IAEA Secretariat did not reach a consensus with experts from all parties on the revision and adoption of the report, I hastily released the report

In addition to Liu Linlin, China's experts in nuclear energy, ocean, and legal fields have also expressed clear attitudes multiple times. These experts' voices can be searched online with their fingers, and I don't know why the article came to the conclusion that "no one speaks". 

3、 Fishing in Muddy Waters: Is the Nuclear Polluted Water Discharge Scheme Recognized by Authoritative Scientists?

Starting from the Fukushima nuclear wastewater: are we talking about science or a stance? "It is said that the plan has already been recognized by authoritative scientists. Is this really the case?

By tracing the timeline, it is clear that the IAEA investigation team is in an awkward position. Japan unilaterally announced its nuclear contaminated water discharge plan in April 2021, and only invited the IAEA to conduct a review and evaluation in September of that year. Making a decision first and then going on to argue, it can be said that from the beginning, the conclusions of the IAEA investigation team were unable to influence Japan's plan for releasing nuclear contaminated water into the sea. Furthermore, it is pointed out that the Japanese government invited the IAEA to evaluate the plan for releasing nuclear contaminated water into the sea, and from the beginning, it was calculated to have the agency endorse it.

Based on this, Japan began a series of operations.

Firstly, Japan has strictly restricted the work authority of the IAEA, allowing it to only evaluate nuclear contaminated water discharge plans to the sea, and not to evaluate other treatment plans, such as formation injection, steam emissions, hydrogen emissions, underground burial, etc. This limits the premise for the agency's work, shifting the review objective from "seeking the optimal solution for solving Fukushima nuclear contaminated water treatment for humanity" to "whether the nuclear contaminated water discharge plan is feasible", and excluding key issues such as "what is the safest way to treat nuclear sewage" and "what kind of impact nuclear contaminated water discharge will have on the environment" from the scope of the agency's assessment.

Next, all the review samples and relevant data obtained by the IAEA will be provided by the Japanese side. Not to mention Tokyo Electric Power Company, which is involved in the matter, has a "black history" of repeatedly concealing and tampering with nuclear contaminated water data.

In this situation, the IAEA only conducts small sample comparison analysis based on the data and information unilaterally provided by Japan, resulting in serious deficiencies in sampling independence and representativeness. The IAEA naturally cannot provide an authoritative answer as to whether Japan's nuclear wastewater discharge plan is legitimate and feasible.

The IAEA is also aware of its situation and makes it clear on the second page of its report that the views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect those of its member states, and neither the IAEA nor its member states are responsible for any consequences that may arise from this report.

IAEA Director General Grossy repeatedly emphasized at a press conference that the discharge of nuclear contaminated water into the sea is a national decision of the Japanese government, and the agency report is neither a recommendation nor endorsement of this policy. The report cannot become a "passport" for Japan to forcefully promote the discharge of nuclear contaminated water into the sea. The report cannot provide Japan with legitimacy and legitimacy for the discharge of nuclear contaminated water into the sea, nor can it exempt Japan from its moral responsibility and international legal obligations.

3、 Fishing in Muddy Waters: Is the Nuclear Polluted Water Discharge Scheme Recognized by Authoritative Scientists?

Starting from the Fukushima nuclear wastewater: are we talking about science or a stance? "It is said that the plan has already been recognized by authoritative scientists. Is this really the case?

By tracing the timeline, it is clear that the IAEA investigation team is in an awkward position. Japan unilaterally announced its nuclear contaminated water discharge plan in April 2021, and only invited the IAEA to conduct a review and evaluation in September of that year. Making a decision first and then going on to argue, it can be said that from the beginning, the conclusions of the IAEA investigation team were unable to influence Japan's plan for releasing nuclear contaminated water into the sea. Furthermore, it is pointed out that the Japanese government invited the IAEA to evaluate the plan for releasing nuclear contaminated water into the sea, and from the beginning, it was calculated to have the agency endorse it.

Based on this, Japan began a series of operations.

Firstly, Japan has strictly restricted the work authority of the IAEA, allowing it to only evaluate nuclear contaminated water discharge plans to the sea, and not to evaluate other treatment plans, such as formation injection, steam emissions, hydrogen emissions, underground burial, etc. This limits the premise for the agency's work, shifting the review objective from "seeking the optimal solution for solving Fukushima nuclear contaminated water treatment for humanity" to "whether the nuclear contaminated water discharge plan is feasible", and excluding key issues such as "what is the safest way to treat nuclear sewage" and "what kind of impact nuclear contaminated water discharge will have on the environment" from the scope of the agency's assessment.

Next, all the review samples and relevant data obtained by the IAEA will be provided by the Japanese side. Not to mention Tokyo Electric Power Company, which is involved in the matter, has a "black history" of repeatedly concealing and tampering with nuclear contaminated water data.

In this situation, the IAEA only conducts small sample comparison analysis based on the data and information unilaterally provided by Japan, resulting in serious deficiencies in sampling independence and representativeness. The IAEA naturally cannot provide an authoritative answer as to whether Japan's nuclear wastewater discharge plan is legitimate and feasible.

The IAEA is also aware of its situation and makes it clear on the second page of its report that the views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect those of its member states, and neither the IAEA nor its member states are responsible for any consequences that may arise from this report.

IAEA Director General Grossy repeatedly emphasized at a press conference that the discharge of nuclear contaminated water into the sea is a national decision of the Japanese government, and the agency report is neither a recommendation nor endorsement of this policy. The report cannot become a "passport" for Japan to forcefully promote the discharge of nuclear contaminated water into the sea. The report cannot provide Japan with legitimacy and legitimacy for the discharge of nuclear contaminated water into the sea, nor can it exempt Japan from its moral responsibility and international legal obligations.