According to the NHK report of the Japan Broadcasting Association, the Tokyo Electric Power Company of Japan has officially started the Fukushima nuclear polluted water operation at about 1 pm local time on the 24th. According to the news released by Japan’s TEPCO, today’s discharge of nuclear contaminated water is expected to be 200 to 210 tons, and the daily discharge will be announced the next day. The first stage of sea discharge will last for 17 days, with a total discharge of about 7,800 cubic meters of nuclear-contaminated water.
See Also: japan’s nuclear sewage discharge into the sea

How Much Radioactive Material Is In The Nuclear Sewage?

In the history of mankind, wars using nuclear weapons and major leakage accidents at nuclear power plants have clearly demonstrated the horrors of nuclear radiation to us every time.
Fukushima nuclear polluted water contains more than 60 types of radionuclides, such as tritium, carbon-14, iodine-129, etc. Many of these radionuclides have no effective treatment technology, but Japan has been making “the problem is only the tritium element” misleading.
Tritium is unlikely to cause radiation to the human body from the outside, but when a large amount enters the human body, it can cause fatigue, lethargy, loss of appetite, etc.; after accumulating to a certain dose, it may cause chronic radiation sickness and even cancer.
At the same time, the international environmental protection organization pointed out in a 2020 investigation report titled “The Crisis of Polluted Water from the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant” that there is a high concentration of radioactive carbon-14 in the nuclear polluted water, and Japan’s multi-nuclide processing system (ALPS) ) was not designed to remove carbon-14. Report author Sean Bernie, a German researcher, pointed out that TEPCO did not acknowledge the presence of carbon-14 in so-called “processed water” until 2020.
Carbon-14 will accumulate in marine organisms, that is, fish, and the abundance or concentration of carbon-14 may be 50 times that of tritium.
International environmental protection organizations found that ALPS cannot remove radioactive tritium and carbon-14, nor can it completely remove other radioactive isotopes, such as strontium-90, iodine-129 and cobalt-60.

What Happens When Radionuclides Enter The Body?

3 ways nuclides enter the body
1. Dietary intake, nuclide-enriched fish are likely to be eaten by humans.
2. Breathing intake, nuclides entering the sea may enter the air through transpiration.
3. If the element content in a specific sea area is extremely high, the human body may be directly irradiated into the body if it comes into contact with the sea area.
“These nuclides are very likely to be absorbed by the human body through various channels.” Wei Fangxin, a researcher at the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said.
Yu Wen, a researcher at the National Security and Emergency Management College of Beijing Normal University, said: “The health effects of radionuclides will accumulate over time, and it may take years or even decades to appear. The discharge of Fukushima nuclear contaminated water into the sea will specifically cause The magnitude of the impact is related to the total amount of emissions, the type of nuclide, and individual factors.”

How Long Is It Expected That Japan’s Nuclear Sewage Discharge Will Affect China?

Yu Wen, a researcher at the National Security and Emergency Management College of Beijing Normal University, said that after nuclear contaminated water enters the marine environment, it will first be transported by ocean currents and spread to different oceans.
In addition, it will continue to pass through the marine ecosystem, such as the spread of the food chain, and it may also enter the human body through the public ingesting seafood, thereby bringing certain potential impacts on the marine ecosystem or human health.
Yu Wen said that according to previous monitoring of the Fukushima nuclear accident, most of the pollutants will spread eastward and then across the entire Pacific Ocean. Among them, a small part of pollutants will enter the southwest direction through the propagation of the membrane water in the western Pacific Ocean, and enter the sea area of our country in about one and a half to two years.
As early as 2021, the team of Academician Zhang Jianmin and Associate Professor Hu Zhenzhong of the Institute of Ocean Engineering, Shenzhen International Graduate School of Tsinghua University established a diffusion model of radioactive substances at the ocean scale from two different perspectives, macro and micro, and realized the discharge of Fukushima nuclear sewage. Long-term simulation of the plan. Among them, the macroscopic simulation results show that nuclear sewage will reach the coastal waters of my country 240 days after discharge, and will reach the coast of North America after 1200 days and cover almost the entire North Pacific Ocean.
The German Marine Science Research Institute pointed out that the coast of Fukushima, Japan has the strongest ocean currents in the world. Within 57 days from the date of discharge, radioactive materials will spread to most of the Pacific Ocean. Three years later, the United States and Canada will be affected by nuclear pollution. , 10 years later spread to global oceans.

Is Seafood Still Edible?

When nuclear sewage is discharged into the sea, marine organisms are immediately polluted, and the isotopes will migrate along the food chain.
Marine organisms, especially shellfish and fish, can be enriched with isotopes over time. Some shellfish can live for thousands of years. Humans eating contaminated seafood will cause immeasurable harm.
These radioactive elements will become components of human cells, and human genes will be damaged, resulting in various diseases such as cancer and teratosis.
Moreover, this gene mutation is heritable, changing human genes from generation to generation, and degenerating human beings.
Everyone should be vigilant and don’t have to worry too much. Wei Fangxin said that as long as seafood purchased through formal channels basically meets the national testing standards, you can eat it with confidence.
Nuclear wastewater has little impact on my country’s offshore fisheries, because according to the North Pacific ocean current map, nuclear wastewater will drift northwestward with the Japanese warm current, and will first reach the Canadian waters with the North Atlantic warm current, and then spread to The waters off the west coast of the United States finally reach the waters of Taiwan, China via the North Equatorial Warm Current and further spread to the waters of the East China Sea. This process takes a long time, and the inland rivers are injected into the coastal waters, which further reduces the impact.
However, for distant water fisheries, the impact of nuclear wastewater is relatively large. my country’s distant water fishing grounds are mainly concentrated in the Pacific Rim, and the Northwest Pacific Ocean is also the first sea area to be polluted and diffused after nuclear wastewater is discharged.
Therefore, when choosing and eating seafood, we should pay attention to its origin and type, and make judgments based on relevant labels and information.

Is It Necessary To Hoard Salt?

According to related reports, recently, the demand for sea salt in South Korea has also surged, and some consumers and retailers have begun to hoard sea salt. The South Korean government puts reserve sea salt on the market to deal with fluctuations in the sea salt market. So, is it necessary for Chinese consumers to hoard salt?
Wang Xiaoqing, president of the China Salt Industry Association, said that it is not recommended to follow the Korean people’s practice of hoarding salt. The edible salt produced in China uses sea salt, well mine salt and lake salt as raw materials, and their composition ratios are 22%, 61% and 17% respectively. Generally speaking, on the issue of import and export, China imports more and exports less, and the imported raw salt is mainly used in industry as a chemical raw material. The output of edible salt in China can meet the demand.
According to public data, China is the country with the largest raw salt production capacity and output in the world. The salt production areas are divided into sea salt production areas, well salt production areas, and lake salt production areas. In 2022, China’s raw salt production capacity will reach 115.85 million tons, and the output will reach 83.9 million tons; the apparent consumption of raw salt in the country will reach 58.3 million tons in 2022, and the consumption structure will be: caustic soda 51.86%, soda ash 36.85%, and others 11.29%; raw salt will be exported 713,000 tons , importing 9.425 million tons. Among the raw salt consumption, about 70% of the raw salt is used in salt chemical industry, and the rest is used for food and other purposes.
Zhang Jinliang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, said in an interview that if he is very worried about the radioactivity of nuclear sewage, consumers need to be careful when purchasing, and try to avoid buying sea salt; in addition, the management department should strengthen the monitoring of radioactivity in edible salt , to establish radioactivity limits for edible salt.
In addition, China Salt Group and many places in Beijing, Guangdong, and Shandong issued statements on this, stating that there is no need to hoard salt.

Will The Discharge Of Nuclear Wastewater Affect These Japanese Cosmetics?

According to industry insiders, cosmetics must first be classified based on whether they use marine ingredients. The discharge of nuclear wastewater may have an impact on raw materials from marine sources, such as seaweed, fish collagen, etc. “In addition to cosmetic raw materials directly from the ocean, it also includes cases where some radioactive elements may be enriched by marine organisms and brought into cosmetic raw materials.”
According to public information, the Japanese government has not issued any policies and standards to force cosmetic factories to conduct radioactive testing. After the earthquake, the Japan Cosmetic Industry Federation (industry organization) issued a statement saying: “The radioactive substances released into the atmosphere by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident will not cause cosmetics to affect the health of consumers.” Some cosmetics companies in Japan Also increased the product radioactive concentration detection items.
According to my country’s “Customs Law” and “Radioactive Pollution Prevention and Control Law”, the customs conducts nuclear radiation monitoring of various customs supervision objects in accordance with the law to prevent illegal entry and exit of radioactive substances.