'Nothing wrong' with Fukushima water release says nuclear expert
"From a radiation protection perspective, there is nothing wrong with the Japanese plan" to release treated water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, says Tony Hooker, associate professor at the University of Adelaide's Centre for Radiation, Education and Innovation. On Sunday, Japanese premier Fumio Kishida said his government has not yet decided when to begin the process, known as ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System), which has sparked anger from critics both overseas and in Japan.
Transcript
00:00 From a radiation protection perspective, there is nothing wrong with the Japanese plan.
00:05 And I think that's why you'll find that most radiation protection agencies
00:10 have approved the Japanese plan. Outside of that is the politics of the release.
00:19 And so, you know, that's really one for the politicians to work through.
00:24 I do believe that there does need to be still ongoing monitoring to make sure that the ALCS
00:31 process is efficient. And no doubt there's going to be a lot of interest in monitoring,
00:38 you know, the environment of where the water is released.
00:43 If you tested the fish here in Australia, you will find radiation in those fish.
00:51 And that's because the sea is radioactive. You know, people don't understand that the sea
00:55 naturally contains tritium. It contains all, you know, it contains uranium and the
01:02 decay products from uranium. So the sea itself is naturally radioactive.
01:09 And so, and same as all our food, all our water, we're just exposed to it all the time.
01:18 We just don't get that message out enough to the general population.
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