Japan started releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, a polarising move that prompted China to announce an immediate blanket ban on all aquatic products from Japan.

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.

    • @xkforce@lemmy.world
      37•10 months ago

      Japan isnt dumping water so radioactive that it glows in the dark. It is TREATED water. The only isotope that cant be easily removed is Tritium (an isotope of Hydrogen) which is highly diluted and has a relatively short half life meaning that it isnt as persistent as most other radioactive isotopes are.

      TLDR: people are being stupid about this

        • @deegeese@sopuli.xyz
          14•10 months ago

          Japan is releasing radioactive water into the atmosphere!!!

          The water was already cleaned, but Japan’s historical enemies are pouncing on the chance to throw a fit.

        • @xkforce@lemmy.world
          10•10 months ago

          Tritium is chemically identical to the non-radioactive isotopes of Hydrogen in water. It does differ slightly in its rate of chemical reactions, rate of diffusion and boiling point (i.e T2O, THO etc. Have slightly higher boiling points) but these differences are small and difficult to leverage at the concentrations involved (parts per trillion and lower) and no matter what process you use, the concentration of Tritium wont be zero. And it doesnt need to be. It just needs to be low enough that the radiation exposure is arbitrarily low enough i.e within normal background level deviation. Which given enough dilution by sea water, it is