The Fukushima atomic power station began dumping more than a billion liters of stored water into the Pacific Ocean yesterday, used to cool its damaged reactors since the catastrophic 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Tepco, manager of the facilities, received the go-ahead from the Japanese government more than two years ago, when it promised to make an educational effort to overcome the misgivings of the most affected communities. Although this has not been the case and more voices have been raised against the plan in other Pacific rim countries, it has run its course. Of course, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Organization.
Over the past few years, Tepco claims to have developed scrubbing technology that renders all radioactive isotopes harmless, with the exception of tritium, which would be prohibitively expensive to dispose of. Even so, the tritium spilled since yesterday one kilometer from the Japanese coast, through an underwater pipeline, would be within the safety limits, according to Tokyo.
This statement has been disputed by the environmental organization Greenpeace, which speaks of “little transparency” and stresses that there is no evidence that the level of radioactivity of the discharged tritium has to be harmless in the long term.
The patience of Hong Kong, the second international market for Japanese seafood, ran out last Tuesday, along with that of Macao, by banning the import of seafood from ten Japanese prefectures.
The central government of China, its first market (550 million euros per year) has gone further, extending the ban to all marine products in the archipelago. Fear of the unknown has led to hoarding in recent days in some Chinese supermarkets to buy sea salt before the spills began, which could last for more than three decades. In Hong Kong, many have brought their visits to sushi places earlier, out of the same fear.
As some experts remember, the risk transcends borders and generations, something in which 18 Pacific micro-states agree, which today protest against the spill, as they did yesterday against the French nuclear tests.
In any case, the image damage for Japan is real and is already translating into tangible economic damage for the fishing and canning sector. Knowingly, the energy company has assured that it will compensate those affected with the equivalent of 550 million euros, to which 190 million from the Government itself are added.
But a hundred of fishermen and shellfish gatherers in the area denounced “hiding of data” and ayer announced that they will present a demand.
Twelve years later, Fukushima continues to fuel the debate on the real cost of nuclear energy, at a time when Russia’s war, as much or more than global warming, has led to its accelerated rehabilitation in Europe even by its staunchest enemies. Like the German Greens.
That political alignment is not alien to public health decisions is also evidenced by the reaction according to the different actors on the Asian coast. Thus, there has been no objection to the spill from the governments of the Philippines, Taiwan or South Korea. Although in the latter country, a part of society has rebelled against the acquiescence of the head of government, Yoon Suk Yeol, who last week shook hands with the Japanese prime minister, Fukio Mishida, at Camp David.
Yesterday, 16 Korean protesters were arrested when they tried to break into the Japanese embassy in Seoul at the time of the spill.
Although China has already bought more fish and shellfish from Ecuador, Russia and India than from Japan until now, Beijing criticizes the Japanese decision as “selfish and irresponsible” and as an attack “against food security”.
Western experts also question the precedent set by Japan, ignoring the misgivings of its neighbors with whom it shares water. The radiological study of the company itself, in fact, is much later than the political decision. In addition, there is a margin of error: 70% of the water contained in a thousand Fukushima tanks, close to saturation, will have to be filtered again.
