https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...r-pacific-ocean

Japan has announced it will release more than 1m tonnes of contaminated water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea, a decision that has angered neighbouring countries, including China, and local fishers.

Official confirmation of the move, which came more than a decade after the nuclear disaster, will deal a further blow to the fishing industry in Fukushima, which has opposed the measure for years.

The prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, told a meeting of ministers on Tuesday that the government had decided that releasing the water into the Pacific Ocean was the “most realistic” option, and “unavoidable in order to achieve Fukushima’s recovery”.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], and government officials say tritium, a radioactive material that is not harmful in small amounts, cannot be removed from the water, but other radionuclides can be reduced to levels allowed for release.

“The Japanese government has compiled basic policies to release the processed water into the ocean, after ensuring the safety levels of the water … and while the government takes measures to prevent reputational damage,” Suga told reporters.


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Work to release the diluted water will begin in about two years, the government said, with the entire process expected to take decades.

“On the premise of strict compliance with regulatory standards that have been established, we select oceanic release,” it said in a statement.

China denounced the plan as “extremely irresponsible”, and accused Japan of reaching the decision “without regard for domestic and foreign doubts and opposition”.

“This approach is extremely irresponsible and will seriously damage international public health and safety and the vital interests of the people of neighbouring countries,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.

This sounds like a wonderful idea. Some questions I'd like to see answered:



Is the recovery of one city is worth polluting the Pacific Ocean with nuclear waste?



Allowed by whom?



Established by whom? And who will monitor this compliance?

What could possibly go wrong!?.... Go Go Godzilla. Look at us humans. 2 1/2 generations to trash the earth and the 3rd generation to take it beyond the breaking point.

Yea, let’s make the situation worse by dumping all the toxic into the same body of water we rely on for our diet consisting of seafood.

Wow, that's stupid. You know it's bad when you have China sitting there going "Hey, let's not be environmentally irresponsible here!"

No kidding. Fish populations are already being stressed to the point that rebound can be questioned...at least any time soon.

That said, Japan said the only realistic option, and in that regard, that may be the only realistic option.

What other options are there? Realistic options, not make it a nuclear wastewater aquarium.

Well, I think they put in a caveat for the only realistic option to bring about the recovery of Fukushima. This is all speculation on my part. It seems like the other realistic option is to basically move on from Fukushima's recovery, at least near-term.

So I'm assuming Japan did a balancing act between letting Fukushima recover quicker and preserving the ocean, and is choosing the former. The rest of the world seems to prefer the latter.

context, 264 million gallons....

https://e360.yale.edu/features/radioactivity_in_the_ocean_diluted_but_far_from_harmless

Radioactivity in the Ocean: Diluted, But Far from Harmless
With contaminated water from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear complex continuing to pour into the Pacific, scientists are concerned about how that radioactivity might affect marine life. Although the ocean’s capacity to dilute radiation is huge, signs are that nuclear isotopes are already moving up the local food chain.
BY ELIZABETH GROSSMAN • APRIL 7, 2011

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Over the past half-century, the world has seen its share of incidents in which radioactive material has been dumped or discharged into the oceans. A British nuclear fuels plant has repeatedly released radioactive waste into the Irish Sea, a French nuclear reprocessing plant has discharged similar waste into the English Channel, and for decades the Soviets dumped large quantities of radioactive material into the Arctic Ocean, Kara Sea, and Barents Sea. That radioactive material included reactors from at least 16 Soviet nuclear-powered submarines and icebreakers, and large amounts of liquid and solid nuclear waste from USSR military bases and weapons plants.

Still, the world has never quite seen an event like the one unfolding now off the coast of eastern Japan, in which thousands of tons of radioactively contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are pouring directly into the ocean. And though the vastness of the ocean has the capacity to dilute nuclear contamination, signs of spreading radioactive material are being found off Japan, including the discovery of elevated concentrations of radioactive cesium and iodine in small fish several dozen miles south of Fukushima, and high levels of radioactivity in seawater 25 miles offshore.

I hate that people don't respect the oceans. It will bite us before too long.

Godzilla... forthcoming...

People are no damn good.

I don't know about that, but we can be short sighted.

I am not the biggest global warming freak or environmentalist, but we are screwing up the oceans and we best reverse that trend.

I'm not arguing for it, but you can't have a meaningful conversation unless there's a legit 2nd option. Do we even know if there is one? Would they just have to store it until it decays on its own? How long would that take?

j/c...

Between this and FL pumping 30M gallons per day of phosphate filled wastewater into the Tampa Bay from the Piney Point wastewater holding ponds that had a breach in the liner in the last week or so, I’d say it’s been a pretty tough time for the environment.

Good questions.

Japan says this is the only option to get the plant back on line. That is their goal first and foremost. That’s where the argument should begin.

Now the salty sea water can absorb Nuclear waste fairly well and has been processing it from countries dumping in the seas like Russia, China and Japan for years. In the ocean the half life of nuclear waste isotopes is about 12 years. Some of the more harmful parts of the nuclear waste are filtered from the contaminated water and stored with other Nuclear waste forever in mass containment facilities. The mass dumping that Japan has done and will do, has and will increase the half life substantially due to concentration and most of our ocean food chain will be contaminated completely in the next 30 years if this continues. Already in China and other south Asian countries fish caught in Japan waters are totally avoided by their markets and even have signs up saying their fish are not harvested or purchased in Japan.

In the OP, it was worded somewhat suspiciously ("most realistic"). That tells me that there are, in fact, other options.

I am sure there are other options, but again, realistic options.

I mean you can't carry it out bucket by bucket. Yes, I know that is extreme, but you get the point. No way around it, the oceans are the earths largest filters....at least on the surface of the planet.

The seaweed is always greener, in somebody elses lake.
You dream about going up there, but that is a big mistake.
Just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor.
So many wonderful things around you, what more are you looking for?
Under the Sea. Under the Sea.

Darling it's better down where it's wetter, take if from Me.
Up on the shore they work all day, out in the sun they slave away.
While we be boating full time you floating under the sea.

Down here all the fish are happy as after the waves they roll.

We have no troubles, life is the bubbles, under the sea.

additional context....the Pacific Ocean is 187 QUINTILLION GALLONS......187,000,000,000,000,000,0000. so the discharge represents 0.00000000014% of the Pacific's volume.....it is not popular to say but it is true....Dilution is the solution to pollution

There is what 600-700 thousand gallons in an Olympic pool? So a reservoir the size of 300 Olympic pools doesn't seem impossible. Then they could use it as a test to see if there are things we can create to neutralize the harmful elements.

Maybe they should "test it" in a lab before they release in the ocean.

Why dont they just set it out in the sun to evaporate. Then bury the leftover material.

Bleach and Sunlight. The cure-all.

That's how my hair looks so fresh.

Radioactivity?