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Gov't proposes Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant water release into sea or air

37 Comments
By MARI YAMAGUCHI

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37 Comments
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Dump it in the disputed islands.

2 ( +9 / -7 )

This is such travesty and I am sitting here utterly disgusted.

The three others included underground burial and an injection into offshore deep geological layers.

Think about the above sentence really really hard!

Yeah, lets just poison Mother right to her core.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

How nice? Let everyone share in your incompetence.

9 ( +13 / -4 )

This is the price of the Nuclear option. How and when will we pay?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Thanks for building a nuke right on the beach and then sharing the foreseeable negative externalities with the rest of the world, Japan.

2 ( +9 / -7 )

And who are these panel of experts? The British nuclear expert sir john blabbermouth in 2011 predicted there would be no meltdown , got that wrong, and haven't heard from him since.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

The proposal made Monday to a body of experts is the first time the ministry has narrowed down the options available to just releasing the water

I want to know who these ‘experts’ are and what criteria makes them ‘experts’. I fear they are just a bunch of handpicked J-gov cronies with little or no knowledge of dealing with nuclear waste or environmental impact studies. I’ll believe it is safe to release into the sea after an international team has tested the water and an international environmental impact study has been conducted. You can’t believe anything these cronies say. They have been proven to be liars many times already.

This should be in the crime section.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

Cheers for this Japan.

When the self-proclaimed 'most technologically advanced nation in the world,' can only resort to this you know the game is up.

Absolutely disgraceful.

5 ( +11 / -6 )

Make the top knobs of the govt and Tepco who were in charge all those corrupt years drink it .

I do not understand why they cannot just keep recycling the water through the reactors for cooling much like a cars radiator, why do they need to use fresh or uncontaminated water continously?

Anyone wanting to eat fish in the future should get in now before they poison the ocean completely.

8 ( +10 / -2 )

need an international referendum!!

4 ( +7 / -3 )

Anyone believing they haven't already secretly started dumping the water into the ocean is wearing blindfolds. 100% sure there are so many cover ups going on RIGHT now that will come to light in the future. I have absolutely 0% faith in the current government to handle this legitimately .

11 ( +14 / -3 )

I must keep repeating this since otherwise some wannabe-commentator-experts will cause further stultification: Releasing the tritium water into the ocean is what other countries do for many years already, sometimes with much more becquerel than planned here. The difference is just that Japan is open about this and the other governments or operators don't shout it out from the rooftops.

Here is a very scientific article from even nuclear sceptic Germany: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww1.wdr.de%2Fwissen%2Ftechnik%2Ffukushima-radioaktives-wasser-meer-100.html . Main point: "Dangerous especially for the image" and don't worry, Japan sceptics will try their best effort do fullfill this prevision.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Radioactive e-coli invested waters for Olympic athletes swimming in Tokyo Bay!

0 ( +3 / -3 )

For years, a government panel has been discussing ways to handle the crisis

How much outside advice have they invited / accepted?

It says later in the article that the IAEA have 'inspected the plant', but I'd be interested to know whether the government panel has been including outside experts throughout the process, or whether they've effectively shut off the outside world and tried to just gaman by themselves.

The scale of this crisis means it should absolutely be an ongoing meeting of world minds - but I very much doubt that's the way it has actually been handled.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

This situation has no good ending. The storage can only last for a few more years yet all options will take decades. At the end of the day, it sounds like the lands will still end up contaminated.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Thanks for building a nuke right on the beach and then sharing the foreseeable negative externalities with the rest of the world, Japan.

Thinking is not emphasized in the schools and government here. Obedience is way over-valued.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Bottle it and sell it as a souvenir for the 2020 Olympics!

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Radioactive elements are not man made. We can modify them and purify them but we can't create them. (Actually, we can create tiny quantities.) Essentially, all radioactive materials were collected by humans from nature. In nature they are dispersed and not dangerous. But, we refined them and they are dangerous.

If we dilute them back to the low levels they were originally found in it is safe to return them to nature. The best way to get rid of the dangerous radioactive materials from the Fukushima accident is to dilute them and return them to nature in the ocean. I find that people who disagree with this don't understand the subject.

You should understand that normally we may have low levels of radiation in our homes, we are exposed to higher levels all the time. Medical X-rays, CAT scans, airline flights, certain foods, air and waterborne radon, air and water filters in our homes, all expose us to higher than normal levels of radiation. Radiation levels in water returned to the ocean would be lower than any of the above. Plus, water is a great shielding media and radio active decay particles do not travel far in water.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Where in the Sea were they planning to dump the containers ? The Mariana Trench ?

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

If it's really safe as the gov't claims, why don't they use it as a drinking water for the metro Tokyo? After all, processing drinking water costs money and it's already processed so why waste it? Besides, that will shut up all the detractors, especially the pesky Koreans.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

It’s a lot like the massive amount of decibels these idiots allow to be released into our space nightly.

Baka is their word. Perfect From the Bozuku (or whatever you call the bikes without mufflers) to the granny local politicians parked outside my door to the diesel trucks screaming their BUY ME tunes.

this country loves pollution of any available type

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Bottle it and sell it at the recovery Olympics!

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Drinking water for TEPCO management would be my suggestion. All those guys should be in jail

now but are not because they are protected by the LDP.

Nuclear power is such a huge mistake.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

The rara crowd is again unsurprisingly absent. This clearly amounts to a crime. Where's the UN environmental protection agencies? Where are the international watchdogs that are supposed to blow the whistle on this blatant murder attempt? And how do we know the ever so secretive government hasn't already dumped it in the air and water?

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

Let's allow our incompetence to make the problem so intractable that we have no choice but to make it your problem. We can do this in the Olympics too. Let's claim that it is 'regrettable'.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Releasing the entire amount of water over one year would only increase radiation levels to thousands of times less than the impact humans usually get from the natural environment.

What is that suppose to mean ?

Which natural environment ? How much is the increase ? How much does that amount by year ? How will that impact other life form ? How about the impact of the ingestion of it ? ...

And why are they talking about 1 year ? Moreover with the link with Three Mile Island where they get rid of more that 10 time less water in 2 times more time ? And that International Atomic Energy Agency said it would take decades ?

Why are they not talking abut re cleaning the water since they messed up their previous attempt ?

Why is Tepco claiming they need the room starting 2022 for other purpose even thought they are still producing waste water.

That smell worse and worse as time go by.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@Chip Star

Thanks for building a nuke right on the beach and then sharing the foreseeable negative externalities with the rest of the world, Japan.

Nuclear powerplants are normally build seaside to access cooling water.

What's unusual in Japan's case was its low resistance to meltdown; French and Korean nuclear reactors resist a meltdown for at least 3 days and even upto 7 days with a complete system down and power cut-off, buying enough time to restore power.

Fukushima reactors melted down in 11 hours after a power cut-off.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Spitfire

When the self-proclaimed 'most technologically advanced nation in the world,

That was 30 years ago. Japan of 2019 trails behind China and Korea in technology.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

roughneck: "Dump it in the disputed islands."

Great idea! I'll make sure to bring a tub of popcorn, to enjoy as I watch what the world does to Japan afterward.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

A DAY IN INFAMY !!!

This would pollute the entire ocean and those radio active isotpes would concentrate in sea life and edible fish right across to USA.

The small fish eats the radio active plankton, then is eaten by another small fish and so on till the poison gets higher concentration in Tuna, Whales and other food fishes much like Mercury from coal plants contaminate Tuna.

This will be a 1,000 reminder of what Japan did. Greta should be there to watch this in her future :) :)

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

How and why are they able to do this? Are all the shot callers in the international community scared of them or do those shot callers have kamidanas in their homes and bow and clap every morning? Seriously, how can they do that. Dumping that crap will destroy the oceans of neighboring countries. So much for omotenashi and think of others, huh? only when its convenient for them.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I have a good idea. Let's use the water at the Olympics. We could make giant misters for the crowd and all the athletes to cool them off, proving that the water is safe.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

re article: stably dilute and disperse, release of the water into the Pacific, allowing the water to evaporate

Take it to the Dead Sea, it' already dead anyway or just drop the containers into a volcano to cool it off, save the COSTLY correct way to handle this issue.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

OK, but only if instead of this guy in SF gear, it is the whole government in sweatpants that does the release themselves.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

So much for omotenashi and think of others, huh?

What does this have to do with "omotenashi" which the absence of ulterior motive, like the smile for free at MacDonalds ?

It is more linked with "amae" which go around the I am a princess belief then everyone should indulge in me and I have no responsabilities.

OK, but only if instead of this guy in SF gear, it is the whole government in sweatpants that does the release themselves.

They are too old to even be bothered by that. When you have around 20 years left to live and have money and power, how are you going to be bothered by playing with/drinking a few low radioactive stuff ? I am not saying it is not dangerus just that the risk is obviously lower than for people or non-people going to face the same exposure for year and\or have a higher risk of effect (growing).

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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