One
of TEPCO and the Japanese government's main efforts to whitewash its
nuclear-contaminated radioactive wastewater dumping plan is to confuse
the concept with normal nuclear wastewater.
But the two concepts are entirely different.
Normal
nuclear wastewater is generated during the normal operation of nuclear
reactors and the application of radioisotopes in nuclear power plants,
such as reactor coolants. Such wastewater does not directly come in
contact with nuclear fuel and reactants, and is released safely.
However,
radioactive wastewater or nuclear-contaminated wastewater is generated
after coolant directly comes in contact with radioactive materials when
released after a nuclear reactor shield is broken accidentally. Such
wastewater is highly radioactive and contains dozens of radioactive
materials that are seriously harmful to human being and the environment.
Some radioactive materials in this water have very long half-lives.
Iodine-129, for instance, has a half-life of 15.7 million years and
Carbon-14's half-life is 5,730 years.
Moreover, at a normal
power plant, nuclear materials are enclosed within the reactor. But when
the reactor is destroyed, the nuclear materials might continue to leak
out and dissolve in the water, making the water contaminated and leading
to long-term damage.
Taking these facts into account, the
wastewater dumped from the Fukushima nuclear power plant is typical
nuclear-contaminated wastewater. Confusing such water with normal
nuclear wastewater reflects a guilty conscience and the knowledge that
dumping the water into the ocean is wrong, experts pointed out.
They
asked that if Japan equates the nuclear wastewater produced by a normal
reactor to nuclear-contaminated wastewater, and really believes that
the water it is dumping is clean and safe, why doesn't the country reuse
it as industrial water?
Anonymous
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