Reacción a "Reactions to Japan's release of treated Fukushima water into the Pacific Ocean"

In a couple of days, Japan will start releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. The main problem with the release is that it sounds bad. But it actually isn’t. Similar releases have occurred around the world for six decades, and nothing bad has ever happened.

The radioactivity in the Fukushima water is almost entirely tritium, a type of hydrogen. For scale, the Pacific Ocean contains 8,400 grams of pure tritium, while Japan will release 0.06 grams of tritium every year. The minuscule amount of extra radiation won’t make the tiniest jot of difference. A lifetime's worth of seafood caught a few kilometres from the ocean outlet has the tritium radiation equivalent of one bite of a banana.

Opponents of the release have suggested unrealistic alternatives and mustered a range of counterarguments, but none of these withstand scientific scrutiny. In truth, almost everything is radioactive, including the Pacific Ocean, where tritium accounts for a modest 0.04% of total radioactivity. Despite the controversy, ocean release is the only practical option at Fukushima, and every conceivable step has been taken to choose the best decision that considers all factors.