Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant will be open to public registration for visits... During the controversy over pollution discharge, public registration for visits will be accepted | Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

According to Kyodo News Agency on the 25th, Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant "tour" is expected to start accepting public registration from July. The public opinion believes that as the countdown to the discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea enters, the international community's questioning and opposition continue. TEPCO hopes to expand the scope of visitors, gain public understanding of nuclear contaminated water treatment work, and lay the foundation for the subsequent discharge of nuclear wastewater.

Laying the groundwork for the discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea

According to reports, it is expected that starting from July, ordinary Japanese people will be able to register with travel agencies that have obtained the Fukushima Prefecture "Hope Tour" certification to participate in the "visit tour" of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Previously, the project was only aimed at relevant individuals, local residents, and training groups.

According to TEPCO, the standard route for the "visit tour" is to take a bus inside the nuclear power plant, observe the "multi nuclide treatment system" and storage tank group for purifying wastewater, and get off the car to view the reactor buildings of Units 1-4 that experienced core melting and hydrogen explosions from a high platform about 100 meters away. At the same time, staff will use nuclear contaminated water bottles to provide samples for tourists to explain.

The report states that during this approximately two-and-a-half-hour journey, visitors are expected to experience a radiation dose of 0.03 millisieverts. Therefore, they will be required to wear long sleeves, pants, and show identification. Pregnant women and individuals below junior high school are not allowed to participate.

According to TEPCO, many people have visited the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant before, with approximately 19000 people visiting in 2018.

The Fukushima Prefecture "Journey of Hope" project has also been in operation since 2016. This project allows people from all over Japan to visit disaster stricken areas and reconstruction projects in person, and to meet with local residents to listen to their stories.

The public opinion believes that TEPCO is expanding the scope of its visitors at this time in order to gain more people's understanding of nuclear contaminated water treatment work, enhance its "safety", and lay the foundation for the subsequent discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea.

In February of this year, the Japanese government set the discharge time for Fukushima nuclear wastewater as "this spring and summer". According to TEPCO's previous statement, Japan's nuclear wastewater discharge into the sea has entered the countdown.

According to a previous report by the Japan Broadcasting Association, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Grossy, plans to visit Japan in early July. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will make a final decision on the timing of the discharge of nuclear contaminated water into the sea after holding talks with Grossy.

Continuous opposition

Since the Japanese government decided to filter and dilute millions of tons of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant before discharging it into the sea, it has not only aroused strong opposition in Japan, but also sparked controversy in the international community.

Japanese fishing industry practitioners strongly oppose this. On the 22nd, Yasuhisa Sakamoto, President of the National Fisheries Association Federation of Japan, held talks with Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasumi Nishimura and submitted a petition stating that the Federation's attitude against emissions has not changed at all. He said that for fisheries practitioners, the discharge of nuclear contaminated water is a matter of life and death, and opposes the authorities discharging it without the full consent of fisheries practitioners.

Representative director of the Japan China Common Market Promotion Association, Yoshitaka Uchiyama, recently stated that the potential harm of nuclear contaminated water containing radioactive substances has not been verified in the future, and it is too early to make a judgment in this situation. Before determining whether nuclear contaminated water can be discharged into the sea, it is necessary to consider 500 or 1000 years later.

In South Korea, there is also constant opposition to Japan's plan to discharge pollutants into the sea.

A recent poll conducted by the Korean Daily and Yomiuri Shimbun in Japan showed that over 83% of South Korean citizens oppose Japan's Fukushima nuclear contaminated water discharge plan into the sea. Among them, the proportion of people aged 30 to 39 who hold opposing views exceeds 94%.

South Korean citizens continue to hold rallies to protest against the nuclear sewage discharge plan into the sea. On June 12th, thousands of fishermen from various parts of South Korea held a large-scale rally near the Seoul National Assembly Hall, urging the South Korean government to actively protect the rights and interests of South Korean fishermen. The organizer stated that if nuclear contaminated water is released into the sea, the livelihoods of approximately 100000 fishermen in South Korea will be severely impacted.

On June 24th, a South Korean citizen group called "National Action to Stop Japan's Radioactive Water Discharge into the Sea" held its third large-scale rally near the Seoul City Government since May this year, opposing Japan's discharge of Fukushima nuclear contaminated water into the sea and urging the Japanese government to build more facilities on land to store nuclear contaminated water.

At the 53rd session of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Directors in June and the United Nations Human Rights Council, Chinese representatives have repeatedly urged Japan to take responsibility, face the legitimate concerns of the international community with a scientific attitude, and not let the Fukushima nuclear contaminated water pose a long-term threat to the international marine environment and human health.

Academic questioning

Why is there constant opposition from the outside world? The public opinion points out that although the Japanese side insists on referring to the nuclear contaminated water treated by ALPS as "treated water" and believes that the "treated water" has reached the standard for discharge, the international community and academia have always had doubts about the safety, effectiveness, and sustainability of nuclear wastewater treatment plants.

On the 22nd, the website of Nature magazine stated that the Fukushima nuclear contaminated water was contaminated with 64 radioactive nuclides, with the most concerning being those that may pose a threat to human health, including carbon-14, iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90, cobalt-60, and hydrogen-3. Some of these radioactive nuclides have relatively short half-lives, while others require longer time to decay, such as carbon-14, which has a half-life of over 5000 years. In addition, ALPS cannot remove carbon-14 and tritium.

Scientists are concerned that nuclear wastewater may have unexplored long-term impacts on the marine environment.

Last December, the National Oceanic Laboratory Association of the United States issued a statement opposing the discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea, stating that there was a lack of sufficient and accurate scientific data to support Japan's safety claims.

Robert Richmond, a professor and marine biologist at the University of Hawaii, Mano, has repeatedly expressed concerns and doubts, believing that those who promote the discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea have not proven that it is safe for marine and human health. He said that marine organisms may weaken the dilution effect. Radionuclides will be carried by marine organisms, and as larger organisms consume smaller ones, they may be concentrated in the food chain.

Richmond is a member of a third-party expert group hired by the Pacific Island Forum. The expert group previously stated in a research report that TEPCO did not provide an assessment of the "long-term impact" of the conversion of radioactive tritium into organically bound tritium in the ocean on marine ecology.

The expert group pointed out that discharging nuclear contaminated water into the sea is technologically outdated and unethical in terms of ecological ethics. The discharge of nuclear contaminated water into the sea is not a one-time matter for a country, and it must be considered before action.