As the scale of the environmental and economic damage from #Dnipro dam destruction is not yet fully comprehended, I just wanted to make one note on social perception of risk.
For the last year everyone has been concerned about about the hypothetical threat of #nuclear power plant attacks in Zaporizhzhia NPP. It never happened thanks to mobilization of international community to execute pressure on Russian occupational forces that included numerous visits of IAEA, diplomats from the West and China etc and even installing a permanent IAEA monitoring mission in ZNPP.
At the same time, over one night #Russia has materialized actual threat of scale that may go well beyond any worst case scenario in ZNPP after it was shut down. Warnings about impact of a hydro dam failure were already voiced in 2022 after Russia has planted explosives on the dam in Novaya Khakovka and hinted it will be used as a weapon if necessary. But there were no Chinese diplomats coming to Moscow, no IEA monitoring mission on the dam and media forgot about it the next day.
Why? Because water seems to be a “natural” threat that everyone is familiar with. In case of #Fukushima it was the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that killed over 20’000 people but world’s attention is still focused on the nuclear plant disaster today where zero people were killed. Some environmental organisations intentionally distorted the tragedy by attributing all these deaths to the plant failure!
Is water any safer? Well, it’s not - if you’re killed by water, you’re dead in the same way as if you were hypothetically killed by gamma radiation. 1975 Banqiao dam disaster[^1] in #China killed 26,000 to 240,000 people, and rendered 12’000 km2 unusable for decades due to sediments and pollution. Since then, there’s a few dam failures[^2] globally almost each year - e.g. 2021 Rishiganga dam killed over 60 people. Last dam failures in USA were in 2020. Fujinuma dam failure in Japan in 2011 as result of the same Tōhoku earthquake killed 8 people, which is 8 more than Fukushima NPP disaster!
Yet hydro power is widely considered “clean and safe”, which is pretty much the same cognitive bias as legal qualification of gloves or boots used at a nuclear power plant as “nuclear waste”, while coal ash or natural gas mining tailings are not, even though they have much higher actual content of radioactive elements 🤷♂️ In terms of human deaths per amount of electricity, hydro power is 43x more deadly than nuclear,[^3] which is why it’s important to look at the actual data and science rather than yield to the socially accepted biases, where coal is “dirty but safe” and hydro power is “clean and safe”. You can’t talk over physics, which is why in countries that do this[^4] you can actually see more people being harmed,^5 and the fact they’re harmed by “natural” coal or water doesn’t make a slightest difference to them.
#Fukushima nuclear plant will start to ditch 1 million tons of tritium-polluted water out into the sea.
> The decision comes weeks after the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), approved the discharge, saying that the radiological impact on people and the environment would be “negligible”.
Yea, right #IAEA. This is just as trustworthy as #Shell concluding that the burning of #FossilFuels has negligible effects on the earth's atmosphere.
Nuclear plants on seismically active islands prone to tsunami and flooding (from #ClimateChange) is NOT logical! Especially when TIDAL and THERMAL energy is in abundance there! #RethinkNotRestart#NoNukes
«L’océan n’est pas une poubelle.» Le rejet des eaux de Fukushima inquiète
Cet été, le gouvernement japonais a annoncé le démarrage imminent du rejet des eaux de la centrale #nucléaire accidentée de #Fukushima dans le Pacifique après filtration. Un projet controversé puisqu’aucun expert n’est capable d’estimer les ravages sur la faune et la flore. Les autorités nippones accélèrent le calendrier, faisant fi des inquiétudes de l’industrie de la pêche.
To put #Fukushima into context, the concentration of tritium in your drinking water is way more than in the water they're discharging into the ocean. The issue has been so politicised it's ridiculous.
Conversely, the Japanese government has not really done any meaningful consultations with its citizens hence the angst. See more context in this thread🧵: https://fedibird.com/
Japan-Skepsis in China: Die diffuse Angst vor dem Fukushima-Kühlwasser
Als unkalkulierbares Gesundheitsrisiko stuft China das Einleiten des Kühlwassers aus der Atomruine im japanischen Fukushima ein. Internationale Experten widersprechen. Doch in China dominiert das antijapanische Narrativ. Von Ruth Kirchner.
South Korean opposition lawmakers have sharply criticized the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog for its approval of Japanese plans to release treated wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant
The ONLY appropriate "news coverage" about Fukushima right now should be headline something like: HOLY SHIT Japan is About to CONTAMINATE THE OCEAN With Nuclear Waste!!!
Any attempt to downplay that, or pretending that there is already data that shows that this is a good idea and not a bad idea, is just human insanity/stupidity.
What's going on with #NPR these days?!! Last week, they have someone on the air promoting nuking the atmosphere, today they interviewed two pro-nuke scientists justifying #TEPCO's dumping of #Fukushima water, and only had a recorded statement by WHOI's Ken Buesseler, while the "experts" pooh-pooh'ed his statements without him being able to defend himself! Then I heard some piece about digging for more oil and carbon credits, which sounded like #greenwashing BS to me. Way more quality news can be found in a half-hour of a #DemocracyNow broadcast. Ugh!
Japans Premier wirbt um Verständnis für Kühlwasser-Entsorgung von Fukushima
Wegen Platzmangels will Japan das Kühlwasser der Atomanlage Fukushima stark verdünnt im Meer entsorgen. Premier Kishida besichtigte nun die Ruine. Morgen will er die Fischerverbände treffen, die gegen das Vorhaben protestieren.
#汚染水の海洋放出に反対します
We oppose to release Fukushima's contaminated water into sea.
【 "Micronesia condemns Japan plan to release contaminated #Fukushima water into ocean President warns of 'unimaginable pollution threat' across Pacific in speech at UN General Assembly." 】
So, some of you may be wondering where my handle comes from. "Doomsday" is my nickname from high school -- because I was aware even in the early 1980s that humans were trashing the planet, and would pay the price if they didn't stop (and nuclear weapons are the ultimate in pollution, and yes, nuclear plants and weapons go hand-in-hand). As for the "CW"? It didn't stand for "Content Warning" (though that's approrpriate). The "CW" stood for "Conspiracy Watch," and my original FB page was originally about calling out some of the more ridiculous conspiracy theories floating around at the time (2010). And then the #Fukushima meltdown happened, and I realized that those who were whistleblowers, were being censored and branded as conspiracy theorists. That's when my investigative journalist antennae started buzzing, and what was meant to be satire was turning into reality. I mean, I was aware that big corporations did bad things to cover up stuff (Silkwood), but the Fukushima coverup went all the way to the top (Obama and Hillary Clinton knew how bad things were, but only told their close friends. And yes, I FOIA'ed the emails, and have copies). I also discovered that #TEPCO was rejecting potential technologies to deal with #FukushimaWater rather than dumping it in the ocean, but hey, they thought they were "too expensive" (at what cost a living ocean?). I moved DoomsdaysCW to the BirdSite in 2014, and came over to Mastodon in November 2022. I just wanted to let folks know where the moniker comes from -- and why I'm sometimes snarky with a dark sense of humor. And as for the topics I post about? I've been posting about them even before FB and birdsite, and started the first online 'zine back in 1994 with my friends (where I wrote about a lot of the same issues I write about now). And regarding the current state of the planet? I honestly can't believe we let things go this far -- and yet, I can believe it. The merger of corporations and government made sure everything was greenwashed and covered up, and now we're all paying the price. #Activism#IsItLikeToday#Coverups#Greenwashing#Oligarchy#Capitalism
Nearly three times more marine lives died in tritium water to be discharged
"Since October of 2022, #Tepco has been implementing the breeding experiment of marine life in normal seawater and the water contaminated with tritium, which is planned to be discharged to the Pacific. Currently, flounder and abalone are monitored.
According to Tepco’s record, 2.6 times more abalone died in the tank with the tritium water."
"The plan has also drawn criticism both domestically as well as internationally, from neighboring countries such as #SouthKorea, the #Philippines and #China. Their argument is that this is a transboundary issue — that waste water released by Japan is not going to just stay in and around Japan." #Fukushima#NuclearPlant
China has banned seafood imports from Japan after the tsunami-wrecked #Fukushima nuclear plant began releasing treated radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Japanese fisher groups had opposed the plan fearing damage to their livelihoods
As you watch The Days on Netflix and see the technological hubris, remember that this area of Japan is filled with "Tsunami Stones" which warn future generations how close to the sea to build to keep communities safe.
Tesco knocked down a hill to put the four reactors submerged by the tsunami right at sea level. They thought they could master nature, in more ways than one.
"As of 8 June 2023, there were 1,335,381 cubic meters of radioactive wastewater stored in tanks, but due to the failure of the #ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) processing technology, approximately 70% of this water will have to be processed again. Scientists have warned that the #radiological risks from the discharges have not been fully assessed, and the biological impacts of #tritium, #carbon14, #strontium90, and #iodine129, which will be released in the discharges, have been ignored.
"The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) endorsed Japan’s plans for discharge. However, the IAEA has failed to investigate the operation of the ALPS, has completely ignored the highly radioactive fuel debris that melted down which continues every day to contaminate ground water – nearly 1000 cubic meters every ten days. Furthermore, the discharge plan has failed to conduct a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment, as required by its international legal obligations, given that there is a risk of significant transboundary harm to neighboring countries. The IAEA is not tasked with protecting the global marine environment but it should not encourage a state to violate it."
"#Greenpeace Japan, meanwhile, warned the release 'disregards scientific evidence, violates the #HumanRights…is non-compliant with international #MaritimeLaw…ignores its people’s concerns, including fishermen.' They added that the Japanese government and Tepco’s decommissioning plan for Fukushima was severely flawed and noted that there was still 'sufficient water storage space' at the site."
"TEPCO began dumping contaminated water at 1pm Thursday (Japan time). International opposition and outcry have not been resolved. We document that along with the scope of the contamination here. While TEPCO has insisted the water only contains Tritium that is untrue. The long list of other contaminants can be found here [link in comments]."
"The press have repeated a statement initially peddled by #TEPCO, that this contaminated water only includes #tritium. This is untrue, and tritium is not without its own risks. The water being discussed has been through the various filtration systems on site used to remove #radioactive#isotopes. Each system removes some of the radioactive elements in the water. ALPS is the last of these systems. It can remove much of the remaining contamination but not all of it, some radioactive contamination remains in this water.
"We [SimplyInfo] documented back in 2018 that this water contains other problematic radioactive elements including:
"As of 2018 the stored post ALPS water contained 200 billion becquerels of iodine 129, #ruthenium 106, and technetium 99. As stored water increases, so does the total volume of contamination within that water.
"TEPCO and the Japanese government have tried to ease concerns by claiming the water will be diluted before it is dumped into the Pacific ocean. This is a meaningless step. The total amount of radioactive contamination is still dumped into the ocean, you just dumped some additional water beside it at the same time."
South Korean lawmakers berate IAEA chief over Japanese plans to release treated Fukushima wastewater (abcnews.go.com)
South Korean opposition lawmakers have sharply criticized the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog for its approval of Japanese plans to release treated wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant