Experts in Japan’s strong push to discharge sewage into the sea: the concentration of radioactive substances in nuclear polluted water does not meet the discharge standard
CCTV news client news According to the plan announced by the Japanese government, Fukushima nuclear polluted water will begin to be discharged into the ocean in the spring and summer of this year. Part of the facilities currently used to drain the sea have been put into operation. The nuclear contaminated water has been in full contact with the molten nuclear reactor core and contains a variety of radioactive nuclear elements. There is no international precedent for discharging such nuclear-contaminated water into the sea. The Japanese government’s willful decision to discharge nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea has aroused widespread concern in the international community.
Naoaki Shibazaki, a professor at Fukushima University in Japan, is a member of the Fukushima Abandoned Furnace Safety Monitoring Agreement, and is responsible for the monitoring of geology and groundwater around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. In an interview with a reporter from the main station, he said that the concentration of radioactive substances contained in the Fukushima nuclear polluted water is extremely high at present, and it has not reached the standard for discharge into the ocean.
Naoaki Shibazaki, a professor at Fukushima University in Japan: Even treated water still contains radioactive substances exceeding the standard. Some only exceed the standard a little, and some may contain high concentrations of radioactive substances that exceed the standard by more than a hundred times. What I am concerned about is that the concentration of tritium in the nuclear-contaminated water that is continuously produced every day has risen since last year, which is very worrying. Previously it was 200,000 becquerels per liter, and last summer it surpassed 500,000 becquerels per liter, a figure that remains high today.
Professor Naoaki Shibazaki of Fukushima University in Japan: According to recent data, it is still 500,000 becquerels per liter, which is a very high tritium concentration. If this continues, even if it is really going to be discharged into the ocean, it will take a long time to treat the water.
Naoaki Shibazaki believes that the infiltration of groundwater into the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is an important reason for the continuous increase in nuclear-contaminated water. In this regard, the expert team proposed to Tokyo Electric Power Company to build “underground water shielding walls” or “shafts” to prevent groundwater from seeping into the nuclear power plant. But these suggestions were not heeded. Naoaki Shibazaki believes that technical means should be used to control the increase in the total amount of nuclear-contaminated water, rather than forcing “discharge of sewage into the sea”.