this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Japan exported about $600 million worth of aquatic products to China in 2022, making it the biggest market for Japanese exports, with Hong Kong second. Sales to China and Hong Kong accounted for 42% of all Japanese aquatic exports in 2022, according to government data.

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They still can't come up with anything other than "it's not safe!" And "you're so irresponsible"?

Previous articles on this say the water is less contaminated than that which comes out of some of China's plants.

This article: IAEA says 10,000 becquerels per liter is the safe limit. Japan's output will be 63 per liter.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago

China are the ultimate projectionists with this stuff. No transparency for themselves, and very quick to scream blue bloody murder about everyone else.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And that's probably the figures China allows the international community to know. If the reports on that are anything like their emissions reports, it's not even worth the time it took to generate them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Anyone can measure it, you fill a bucket near the plant and you put a dosimeter in it through a plastic bag, if something is wrong you'll know

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago

According to Tepco test results released on Thursday, that water contained about up to 63 becquerels of tritium per litre, below the World Health Organization drinking water limit of 10,000 becquerels per litre. A becquerel is a unit of radioactivity.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

I live in Japan and am not at all worried about this. Maybe local seafood prices will drop. Great for us, but sucks for the fishermen and their families.

Now, if we could properly build things and not cheap out on the plans so that this doesn't happen again, that'd be great.... (also, more geothermal!)

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I specifically limit myself to less than 39 bananas per year.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That must be why gorillas at the zoo are so jacked.

[–] Loce 13 points 1 year ago

Now the chinese plastics in the water will get cancer... Smh

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


It maintains the water release is safe, noting that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has also concluded that the impact it would have on people and the environment was "negligible."

Japan has requested that China immediately lift its import ban on aquatic products and seeks a discussion on the impact of the water release based on science, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters.

"There are not going to be any health effects… There is no scientific reason to ban imports of Japanese food whatsoever," said Geraldine Thomas, former professor of molecular pathology at London's Imperial College.

South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said import bans on Fukushima fisheries and food products will stay in place until public concerns were eased.

North Korea's foreign ministry demanded that the water discharge be immediately halted, calling it a "crime against humanity", state media reported.

A few dozen protesters gathered in front of Tepco's headquarters in Tokyo holding signs reading "Don't throw contaminated water into the sea!"


The original article contains 788 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

anyone know a better radioactivity monitoring site than this one?

https://map.safecast.org/?y=37.527&x=140.969&z=10&l=0&m=2

Fukushima sure is lit up like a Christmas tree on this one.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Lit up like a Christmas tree" - yeah, at 4 µSv per hour. So you'd have to swim there for just about 4000 hours to get the equivalent of a full body CT scan.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] coherent_rambling 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yes, that's literally true (or was before the Russian army visited). The ambient radiation in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which is all you'd see on a map, is only slightly elevated. The main risk there is of disturbing the ground or abandoned debris and exposing much more dangerous material buried just below the surface.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

RIP the trench digging soldiers

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Sounds like eating stuff that lives there would be unadvised as well.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There were tourist trips into the exclusion zone around Pripyat (closest town to the plant) all the time until Covid. I'm guessing they haven't restarted because of the war now, but plenty of people visited with no ill effects.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Visiting, sure. Eating products grown/harvested there seems ill advised.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Because the color gradient is relative. A large enough banana would also light up. Also exposure time is another factor and this will dissipate very quickly. You can play it safe by abstain of seafood and swimming for a week.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Radiation levels have decreased since the accident in 2011:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Fukushima_radiation_dose_map_2011-04-29.png

Note that on Safecast, you can enable "Crosshair" in the hamburger menu to see the actual numbers.

The central blob area is currently around 5 μSv/hr, so if you live there for a year it's 44000 μSv, or 44 mSv. The xkcd chart says 100 mSv is the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to increased cancer risk.

[–] Luvs2Spuj 7 points 1 year ago

I know this is a political move by China, the water is (probably) fine. I also know the loss of export is not great for Japan.

But I hope this means there is a little less intensive fishing going on.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Good / meh, nothingburger.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Lol, isnt china already having food shortages as it is?

[–] TokenBoomer -3 points 1 year ago

Godzilla lives!