Discourse around Japan’s plans to release treated nuclear wastewater has attracted commentary from all walks of life, scientists included.
Even the science community is divided on whether this plan is feasible or not, with some voicing their support for it, and others dissenting.
The experts who are for the plan also outlined their reasons for supporting the discharge, mainly due to the amount of tritium the discharge would release into the ocean.
But expert Dr Nigel Marks admits this contentious issue has taken on a life of its own.
Dr Marks, an associate professor of physics at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, also worked at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in the reactor division in the ‘90s.
He says the core problem with the planned release is that it “sounds” bad though in reality it is completely harmless and won’t affect people, marine life or the environment in any way.
“One of the complexities is that most people don’t have familiarity with nuclear science, and hence the wrong impression is easily gained,” he told The Fiji Times.
“The other problem is that pressure groups (who might have political or social-activist motivations) deliberately inflame the public.”
Dr Marks said the release plan was assuredly scientific sound considering a number of factors.
Those are:
• The nature of the radioactivity in the water as tritium is very weak;
• The modest amount of radioactivity in the Fukushima water relative to existing natural radiation in the environment;
• About 70 years of similar practice from the nuclear energy industry, and the removal of radioactive elements of concern via the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) process; and
• A high degree of independent scientific oversight from the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and multiple international labs independent of the IAEA.
He said in hindsight, the plan might have been explained to the general public in a better manner.
“Today, there are excellent online videos which nicely convey the level of technological prowess at the Fukushima site. If these had been released a few years earlier, the public discourse might have been quite different.”
Similar sentiments were echoed by Tony Irwin, an honorary associate professor at the Australian National University’s Department of Nuclear Physics.
Mr Irwin is also the chair of Engineers Australia Sydney Division Nuclear Engineering Panel, and technical director of SMR Nuclear Technology Pty Ltd. He says there is an understandable perception that all radioactive materials are always dangerous.
However, he adds not all radioactive materials are dangerous. Additionally, Mr Irwin says, the Fukushima water discharge is not a unique event or without precedent as some claim.
“Nuclear power plants worldwide have routinely discharged water containing tritium for over 60 years without harm to people or the environment, most at far higher levels than is planned for Fukushima,” he said.
“Unfounded fears will damage the livelihood of Fukushima’s fishing community who are still recovering from reputational damage from the 2011 accident. The media has an important role in presenting the science.
“It is important that there is independent verification of the discharges. The IAEA will continue to provide advice to Japan and all the neighbouring countries and provide independent monitoring and verification of the discharges. The IAEA will maintain a presence on site.
“The planned discharge is ultra-conservative and will certainly not cause any harm to people or the environment. The tritium will not be detectable above normal background levels in the water around Fiji.”
Another perspective comes from Associate Professor Tony Hooker from Adelaide University.
He is also the director of the Centre for Radiation Research at the institute and one of the five members of an independent panel put together by the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) to advise leaders on this issue.
Dr Hooker says people themselves are radioactive, things we eat and drink are radioactive, and that we have background radiation.
“We start at a young age indoctrinating people about radiation mutation effects.
For example, Incredible Hulk, Spiderman, Fantastic Four, the Simpsons etcetera, which are simply not true,” he says.
He says while he supports the plan to dispose based on the current regulatory requirements, there is also an opportunity for nuclear facilities around the world to come together to investigate alternative methods of disposal. Dr Hooker says there are stressors on seas and waterways.
“We can’t keep using waterways for disposal.
“So, I agree, at some stage, there should be more investigation into alternative solutions. That said, there was a need to deal with the situation at Fukushima so that further decommissioning can take place.
“Also, to remove any danger of further contamination due to earthquakes. But it would be good to have a concerted effort into looking at alternative solutions whilst this is happening.” In addition, Dr Marks also wished to reassure people that scientists and engineers who deeply understand radioactivity and radiation had triple-checked that everything was perfectly safe.
“Almost everything in life is radioactive to some extent (food, our bodies, air, water, plants, animals, rocks) and the extra radiation from the tritium at Fukushima is utterly irrelevant. The water is harmless and people don’t need to worry.”
What is tritium?
Tritium is hydrogen with two extra neutrons in the nucleus. Like hydrogen, it combines with oxygen as water. Because water and tritiated water are chemically the same, it is difficult to separate them.
•Has the weakest radioactivity of any radionuclide, low level beta emission (average energy of 5.7 keV (kiloelectron volt);
• Tritium decays to non-radioactive helium; • Has a short half-life of 12 years, biological halflife in humans of 10 days (passes through your body), two days in fish; and
• Continuously created in the earth’s upper atmosphere and falls as rain.
Pacific Ocean contains around 8400g of pure tritium Tritium is produced in the upper atmosphere via natural processes, generating between 140 and 200g of tritium every year.
This is incorporated into water vapour and falls as rain. Tritium and nuclear reactors According to Mr Irwin, the quantity of tritium discharged depends on the type of reactor.
He described the reactor types as follows:
• Fukushima (Japan) — Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) which produce relatively small amounts of tritium. When operational, the discharge limit was 22 TBq (terabecquerel) per year, the same limit for the planned discharges.
• Kori nuclear power plant (South Korea) — is a Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) which produces more tritium. The plant discharged 49 TBq of liquid tritium in 2021, and 91 TBq in 2019.
• Pickering CANDU reactor (Canada) — heavy water reactors which produce more discharges, over 400 TBq/year.
• La Hague Plant (France) — reprocessing nuclear fuel. Discharged 11,400 TBq in 2018 into the English Channel.
Mr Irwin stated he had also operated Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors in the United Kingdom, which produced much more tritium, and they regularly discharged over 300 TBq/year.
What happens during ALPS?
Since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, water has been needed continually to cool the melted fuel and fuel debris at Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant.
To do this, water needs to be pumped in.
In addition, groundwater from the surrounding environment at the site seeps in, and rainwater also falls into the damaged reactor and turbine buildings.
Before any discharge process, IAEA regulations require the contaminated water to be treated. Japan has carried this filtration through ALPS.
This is a pumping and filtration system, and uses a series of chemical reactions to remove 62 radionuclides from contaminated water.
However, ALPS is not able to remove tritium and carbon-14 from the contaminated water.
According to Dr Marks, since tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen, it is chemically bound into the water and is impossible to separate on an industrial scale.
However, all concerning elements are removed by ALPS.
Mr Irwin said the IAEA had established a task force consisting of IAEA staff members together with 11 internationally-recognised experts from different countries, including South Korea, and starting in February 2022, a series of missions had been carried out.
Samples from the first batch of ALPS treated water expected to be discharged into the sea were independently analysed by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEP- CO) and the IAEA. This was done at the IAEA labs in Monaco, Seibersdorf and Vienna in Austria.
Other studies were carried out in third party labs in France, South Korea, Switzerland and the USA.
The South Korea lab is the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS), and results showed a very high level of agreement between all the labs that no additional radionuclides were detected at significant levels.
The “backyard” argument
The popular argument of choice speaking out against this plan is “why don’t they dump it in their backyard”, so this question was posed to the scientists. Dr Marks says he is not a fan of the word “dumping”, as it conveys the wrong idea.
He says the tritium in the water has to go somewhere, and there are two practical options — either the ocean or the atmosphere.
“Regarding their ‘own backyard’, in a way this is exactly what the Japanese authorities are doing,” he said.
“It is going right into the area where fishing happens, and even there, absolutely nothing will happen.
“The levels of radiation are so low that the tiny addition from the Fukushima water is irrelevant compared to the natural environment. For this reason, the release – is not “dumping” in the usual sense of the word.”
Similar sentiments were echoed by Mr Irwin, who says Japan is discharging it into their own backyard.
“It (treated wastewater) is diluted and discharged directly from the Fukushima site,” he said.
Dr Hooker says that one can very well argue they are disposing into their sea.
“Just 1 kilometre offshore, so you could say that this is their backyard? It’s not like they are taking it to another location (for example, a country) to dispose of it. Taiwan, Korea and China also dispose of much more tritium into the seas around Japan.”
What next? Alternate methods of disposal have been suggested by the independent panel appointed by PIF, and one of these is to use the treated wastewater to make concrete. However, Dr Marks disagrees with this notion, and says these alternatives are not properly thought out.
“Some cases are fanciful,” Dr Marks says.
“An example of the latter is bioremediation, that is, using animals to clean the water, which was suggested in the initial report to the PIF. Such an idea is scientifically absurd and deserves no further consideration.
“A later suggestion from the panel was to use the water for making concrete. The problem is that the panel knows next-tonothing about concrete and is seemingly unaware that roughly half the water would be lost to the atmosphere.
“So, this basically becomes atmospheric evaporation by another route.”
Ultimately, he says the best long-term plan will be to educate people, and Dr Marks says the media has a special role to play in helping the population to understand what is worth worrying about.
“Certain things in life matter a lot, while other things are trivial and can be dismissed. The problem in modern life is that with some cunning words, a large fraction of the population can quickly get upset.
“Regarding future long-term technologies, perhaps something might be developed to capture the tritium into a solid, but you would have to ask yourself, what is the point?
“Tritium is such a tiny radiation dose compared to other natural sources of radiation that it’s basically not worth worrying about.”
