China News Service, Beijing, April 20 (Li Jingze) According to some people in Japan, China and South Korea have lower standards for sewage treatment in nuclear power plants than Japan. Based on the scientific point of view, China and South Korea criticize Japan for no reason.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin refuted at a regular press conference on the 20th that the relevant statement was a secret exchange of concepts and a diversion of attention.
"The relevant Japanese statement is to change the concept and divert attention. It is really unscientific and extremely irresponsible." Wang Wenbin emphasized that the polluted water from the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan is essentially different from the normal operation of the nuclear power plant.
One is different sources.
The normal operation of the nuclear power plant shall comply with internationally accepted standards, and shall be discharged in an organized manner after treatment and testing up to the standards, not radioactive wastewater.
Many years of practice in nuclear power plants around the world have proven safe and controllable.
The Fukushima nuclear accident is the highest level of nuclear accident. The contaminated water comes from cooling water, groundwater and rainwater flowing through the melting and destroying the reactor core. It contains a large amount of radionuclides produced by nuclear fission. No, there is no precedent for emissions in the world, and the impact on the marine environment and public health cannot be ignored.
Second, the difficulty of treatment is different. The normal operation of nuclear power plants follows internationally accepted standards. After treatment and testing meet the standards, they are discharged in an organized manner, not radioactively contaminated water.
The polluted water from the Fukushima nuclear accident needs to be purified by the Multi-Nuclide Treatment System (ALPS) technology, but whether it can finally meet the discharge standards still needs to be verified.
On February 10, 2020, Japan’s "ALPS Subcommittee" responsible for the research on the treatment of polluted water from the Fukushima nuclear accident released a report that as of December 31, 2019, 73% of the polluted water after ALPS treatment still exceeded the Japanese discharge standard.
According to Wang Wenbin, according to the data released by Tokyo Electric Power Company, the activity and concentration of nuclides such as 129 iodine in the polluted water after filtration have been exceeded since the ALPS operation.
One of the world's authoritative academic journals, the American "Science" magazine, published an article on April 13 that also pointed out that in the purification process of ALPS, from time to time, ruthenium, cobalt, strontium, plutonium and other radioactive isotopes with longer radioactive life and more dangerous are missed.
"Can Japan guarantee the long-term and stable operation of the processing process? A big question mark must be drawn."
He said that Japan had proposed five options for nuclear-contaminated water disposal, including hydrogen release, formation injection, underground burial, steam release, and ocean discharge.
Japan has not reached a consensus with the international community and stakeholders, and has not exhausted safe disposal methods. For its own self-interest, Japan unilaterally chooses the ocean with the least economic cost on the grounds of limited storage tank space on site. The emission plan leaves the world with the greatest environmental, health and safety risks, and transfers the responsibility that should be borne by oneself to all mankind. This is an extremely irresponsible behavior.
Wang Wenbin emphasized that what the Japanese side should do now is not to confuse the public under the banner of pseudo-science, but to truly uphold a scientific attitude, face up to the doubts and oppositions of the international community, earnestly fulfill its international obligations, and rectify the disposal of polluted water from the Fukushima nuclear accident by way of drainage. Make a unilateral wrong decision and win the trust of neighboring countries and the international community with practical actions.
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