[Levin]

Japan's data statistics and monitoring on the source terms are disappointingly full of loopholes.

Firstly, the types of radionuclides that TEPCO monitors are relatively few, making it far from being able to reflect the correct radionuclide dispersion in the contaminated wastewater.

The Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater, coming from the wastewater which was directly in contact with the core of the melted reactor, theoretically contains all the hundreds of types of radionuclides in the melted reactor, such as fission nuclides, a uranium isotope, and transuranic nuclide.

But TEPCO at first only listed 64 types of radionuclides including H-3 and C-14 as a (data) foundation for the works including monitoring and analysis, emission control, and environmental impact assessment. These 64 radionuclides did not include the uranium isotope and certain other α-nuclides, which have long half-lives while some are highly toxic.

TEPCO's exclusion of the radionuclides mentioned above has greatly compromised the effectiveness of its monitoring work, as well as the credibility of its environmental impact assessment result

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As for sampling and monitoring, TEPCO initially only sampled and monitored nine nuclides in the nuclear-contaminated water except tritium, including Cs-134, Cs-137, Sr-90, C-60, Sb-125, Ru-106, I-129, Tc-99, and C-14 (as well as gross α and gross β).

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during the review process of the IAEA Task Force in 2022, TEPCO changed the number of radionuclide types it was monitoring and analyzing to 30, and then decreased it to 29 this year. This is far from enough to provide a complete assessment of the extremely complex nuclides in the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater.

Secondly, there are missing activity concentration values for multiple radionuclides in TEPCO's monitoring scheme.

TEPCO's public report on the 64 radionuclides only provides activity concentration values for 12 radioactive nuclides other than tritium, while over 50 other nuclides do not have specific activity concentration values. The report, while only offering gross α and gross β values, doesn't disclose the respective concentration levels of many highly toxic radionuclides in the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater, such as Pu-239, Pu-240 and Am-241.

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In the process of treating the nuclear-contaminated wastewater, the slight particle shedding of chemical precipitants and inorganic adsorbents in the ALPS may cause some radionuclides to exist in a colloidal state

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Therefore, TEPCO's assumption that all nuclides in nuclear-contaminated wastewater in the ALPS are water-soluble is obviously invalid

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Japan's existing ocean discharge plan and evaluation are based on the assumption that the nuclear-contaminated wastewater can meet discharge standards after treatment. But unfortunately, the data released by TEPCO showed that as of September 30, 2021, some 70 percent of the then 1.243 million cubic meters of ALPS-treated nuclear-contaminated wastewater still failed to meet the criteria, 18 percent of which even exceeded the standards 10 to 20,000 times over.

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Would the situation then improve if the undertreated water undergoes a second round of ALPS treatment? "The answer is still unknown," said the insider. He added that the discharge plan provided by TEPCO neither explained how to ensure the nuclear-contaminated wastewater would meet discharge standards after treatment, nor did it include an impact analysis of the substandard water discharge.

"So far, TEPCO has only dealt with 0.25 percent of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater with a second round of treatment. It hasn't disclosed a timeline for the second round of treatment [for all the undertreated wastewater], nor has it ever publicized a plan on it," he told the Global Times. "TEPCO's passive attitude has chilled the heart of all the parties in and out of Japan who are concern about the discharge."

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Firstly, Japan should fully disclose the source item information of nuclear-contaminated wastewater to the international community, especially its neighboring countries.

Japan should conduct more comprehensive monitoring and scientific analysis, to fully know the compositions and activity levels of the nuclides in each storage tank, as well as the characteristic information that has an important impact on the safety after discharging the wastewater into the sea. These are some efforts Japan must make to truly know how many radioactive materials will be actually dumped into the sea.

Secondly, Japan should improve its discharge plan. It should monitor all the required nuclides, conduct further research on the defects and the shortage of reliability of the ALPS, and design a detailed plan for the second round of nuclear-contaminated wastewater treatment. The discharging work should not be carried out until these issues are resolved.

Thirdly, Japan should fully evaluate the long-term and uncertain hazards of nuclear-contaminated wastewater when deciding the plans of dealing with the contaminated wastewater.


Extracted from: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202306/1291969.shtml