Japan’s decision to flush Fukushima wastewater into the ocean (GS Paper 3, Environment)
Why in news?
- Japan is expected to start flushing 1.25 million tonnes of wastewater from the embattled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean in 2023, as part of a $76-billion project to decommission the facility.
- The project received the Japanese cabinet’s approval in 2021 and could take three decades to complete.
Issues:
- The idea floated in 2016, has been controversial for its suspected impact on the water, marine life, fishers’ livelihoods and other countries in the area.
- It has also received flak within Japan for sidelining other options and stoked concerns about the government’s sincerity.
Why is the water a problem?
- In March 2011, after a magnitude 9 earthquake, a tsunami flooded the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma and damaged its diesel generators. The loss of power suspended coolant supply to reactors at the facility; the tsunami also disabled backup systems.
- Soon, radioactive materials leaked from reactor pressure vessels, exploded in the facility’s upper levels, and exposed themselves to the ambient air, water, soil, and local population.
- Winds also carried radioactive material thrown up into the air into the Pacific. Since then, the power plant and its surrounding land have been uninhabitable.
- The water that the Japanese government wants to flush from the plant was used to cool the reactors, plus rainwater and groundwater. It contains radioactive isotopes from the damaged reactors and is thus itself radioactive. Japan has said that it will release this water into the Pacific Ocean over the next 30 years.
Can’t the water be treated?
- The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which operates the Fukushima facility, has said it has treated the water to remove most radioactive isotopes; former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga added in 2021 that the water will be “far above safety standards”. His government required the water to have 1/40th as much tritium as the permitted limit.
- TEPCO is running out of room for the water-tanks and that nuclear plants around the world regularly release water containing trace amounts of radionuclides into large waterbodies.
- In 2018, it was reported there were other radionuclides in the water that TEPCO’s treatment procedure couldn’t entirely remove. These include isotopes of ruthenium and plutonium, which could persist for longer in the bodies of marine creatures and on the seafloor.
What are Japan’s other options?
- Some have asked why the Japanese government can’t store the water for longer and then discharge it. This is because tritium’s half-life, the time it takes for its quantity to be halved through radioactive decay is 12-13 years.
- The quantity of any other radioactive isotopes present in the water will also decrease in this time (each isotope has its own half-life). So at the time of discharge, the water could be less radioactive.
- The Japanese government has also declared land around the Fukushima facility to be uninhabitable. But in 2020, authorities determined that flushing the water would be the way forward, over storage and vapourisation.
- After visiting Fukushima in February 2020, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said the discharge would be “technically feasible and would allow the timeline objective to be achieved”.
Will the Pacific Ocean be affected?
- There are concerns about the waterbody as well as the region.
- China, South Korea and Taiwan have expressed concerns over Japan’s plan.
- A representative of the Pacific Islands Forum, the bloc of Oceania countries including Australia, has called it “simply inconceivable” based on their experience with “nuclear contamination”.
- Researchers have also called for more studies to understand the precise composition of each tank before it is flushed and for more details about TEPCO’s water-treatment process.
How will the rest of the world be affected?
- All nuclear accidents have global repercussions.
- The Fukushima Daiichi accident triggered an avalanche of public opposition to nuclear power worldwide, especially in Europe, diminishing its contribution to the clean-energy power generation mix.
- In Japan itself, the accident reduced nuclear power’s contribution to electricity generation from 30% before 2011 to 5% in 2022. But the incumbent government has articulated plans to upgrade and restart older reactors and build new ones in response to the increasing cost of fossil fuels.
Nuclear energy in India:
- However, both India and China doubled down on their domestic commitments. Then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called nuclear energy an “essential option” for India’s climate action and energy security. Pm Narendra Modi has clarified that India plans to expand its nuclear power programme with Russia’s help.
- Then again, the accident also revived concerns about some existing nuclear power plants – especially the Department of Atomic Energy’s Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) facility in Tamil Nadu.
- In October 2012, police arrested nearly 2,000 protestors after they attempted to march to the Secretariat in Chennai against KKNPP, in response to the Fukushima accident and what they said were parallels between the two sites.
