Nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, and destruction of the Earth
Introduced in the last issue, ‘Where is The U.S. headed now?’ There is a news article by citizen media Mindle that covered the main contents of the seminar. This is an article written by Comrade Young-Hoon Jeong, who also participated in the march in Japan. I recommend reading it as it summarizes the critical awareness of nuclear contaminated water held by intellectuals of the time.
And among the presenters, Professor Emeritus Seo Kyun-ryeol of Seoul National University (nuclear engineering) was invited again and listened to a detailed explanation of the relationship between nuclear testing and nuclear contamination. The content of the presentation was published in the citizen media Mindle in early December.
[Seo Kyun-ryeol] The fundamental problem of Japan’s nuclear wastewater discharge
A review of important passages from Professor Seo’s writing as follows:
“The latest nuclear weapons require nuclear testing. Nuclear testing causes enormous nuclear pollution. Plutonium is mixed with uranium to produce a fuel known as mixed oxide (MOX), which is expected to be used to supply nuclear power plants across Japan. It is expected that this will help reduce the amount of spent nuclear fuel occupying the storage space of existing nuclear power plants. If the fuel is not reprocessed, these nuclear power plants will have no choice but to cease operation as they reach their storage limit. It is A continuation of precarious subjunctive law. Using their hopes as collateral, they are committing a priori ocean dumping of Fukushima nuclear wastewater.
~In light of the U.S. Hanford nuclear contamination case, nuclear contamination in Russia will be as serious as the number of nuclear warheads. China, which plans to increase nuclear warheads, will also follow the same path. However, while in Russia and China nuclear pollution stays in certain inland areas, in the United States, although there is a desert, nuclear wastewater flows into the Pacific Ocean through the Columbia River. Japan has only the sea. Japan already possesses 46 tons of plutonium, which is estimated to be enough to fuel more than 10,000 atomic bombs. Rokkasho will have the capacity to produce an additional eight tons of plutonium per year.
~Seafood around the Sellafield reprocessing facility in the UK showed that contamination was proportional to total cumulative emissions rather than annual emissions. This means that the situation gets worse over time, and even worse for long-lived pollutants. The existence of Rokkasho highlighted Japan’s nuclear waste double whammy. Even if some of the fuel from Japanese reactors is reused or sold overseas, there is still no place to dispose of all this nuclear waste. Japan has no real plans to dispose of all its nuclear waste, as there are no specific locations for building deep underground repositories.
In summary, the construction of the Rokkasho plant was delayed several times, and the completion date was postponed several times. These delays, combined with the closure of Monju’s failed fast breeder reactor, have drastically reduced the need for reprocessing. History often repeats itself. Nevertheless, Rokkasho should never replicate Hanford in the United States, a fatal legacy that defies practical solutions. Plutonium pluralism must end. “The world, as well as Korea, will never allow Japan to become a nuclear base in Northeast Asia at the cost of irreparably polluting the Pacific and East Seas.”
Professor Seo harshly criticized the Japanese government’s recklessness regarding nuclear weapons. He also fundamentally questions whether the U.S. nuclear umbrella policy will continue. The U.S. has been acting strange these days. The self-righteous logic of willing to risk serious radioactive contamination in order to maintain overwhelming hegemony is endangering the Earth. From Abe to Kishida, Japan’s vested interests are taking advantage of America’s changing behavior and are trying to drive their country’s marine environment and the global ocean into a state of destruction.
If this is left as is, the Earth will be in danger. Special measures are needed to stop the unilateral nuclear development process. In that respect, the right to claim compensation for Korean atomic bomb victims and their descendants who inherited the damage is important. In this regard, I introduce the author’s discussion manuscript from a seminar held in Hapcheon, Korea in the summer of 2021.
To quote an important passage:
“According to the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the Supreme Court of Japan also ruled in April 2007 that the claim rights of individual war victims were not extinguished in substantive law by the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Korean atomic bomb victims under colonial rule who were not responsible for the war and their 2nd and to the 3rd generation, the United States must compensate for the damage even now. We must push for compensation. If this compensation is made, it will be another mark in human history. Korean hibakusha and the second and third generations must receive compensation from the United States. When compensation is received, it will be possible in principle for Japanese civilian victims to also receive compensation. In such a process, the risks and burdens of nuclear use on the part of those in power, which are imprinted on them, can set a milestone on the way to abolition of nuclear power.
At the same time, we need to create institutions and organizations that control nuclear threats to humanity on a global scale. The recent misjudgment of the Japanese government regarding the discharge of contaminated water from Fukushima, and the fact that the U.S. government and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) have shown a behavior of tolerating this, is an extension of this atrocity. The IAEA is not under the control of the UN and is not a representative of humanity around the world. This is a force that promotes nuclear energy. ‘A monk can’t cut his own hair.’ The organization of a force with a control function separate from the IAEA as the pillar must be established. Humankind is still a low-dimensional being in terms of its evolutionary stage. In their pursuit of power, they are unhesitatingly committing acts of self-destruction. This is a real crisis.
Just as a country has an executive branch and a parliament, there must be complementary checks to make balanced decisions. But the global village is in a crippled state right now. The UN has no parliamentary function and merely acts as the executive branch of one powerful country, the United States. However, organizations such as the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), which promotes nuclear energy, are not even under the control of the UN. Meanwhile, it is operating as an axis of financial capital forces within the United States. What they have pursued so far is that their own interests take precedence over the safety of the global community. Humanity is still in crisis. Even if we overcome the climate crisis, we cannot be free from the fearful names of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. “There must be an international organization with the function of a ‘parliament’ where the will of the people around the world operates.”
Mount Fuji is clearly visible. It is said that since sometime in the summer there has been no snow at the top of the mountain. They say it is the effect of climate change. But I have doubts. I wonder if the geothermal heat has become hot.
The voices warning of the dangers of Mt. Fuji contain traces of past history. There is hot lava stirring inside the Earth that we are not aware of.
Naturally occurring disasters alone are scary, but humanity has been tormenting the Earth in the name of nuclear testing for the past 80 years. A huge impact hit the stratum not once or twice, but thousands of times, so in places where the stratum was thin, the hole would have been large by now. I suspect the following: Isn’t that heat coming straight up through that hole? Isn’t toxic underground gas erupting through those holes, causing frequent mass extinctions of sea creatures?
Humanity has been ruining the Earth for too long. This is especially true for powerful countries. Some point out that the current climate crisis is due to the fact that geothermal heat, rather than carbon dioxide, is increasingly directly heating seawater. It is pointed out that the water temperature did not increase due to an increase in carbon, but rather that the water temperature first rose and then the water vapor increased, resulting in an increase in carbon dioxide. Likewise, heating the air in a sealed kettle will not increase the water temperature. To boil water, you need to heat the bottom of the kettle.
[Nam Jun-ki] The most powerful greenhouse gas on Earth is ‘water vapor’
An article introducing the world nuclear testing map video
Adding to the heat pollution is heated wastewater from nuclear power plants. Each nuclear power plant emits close to 100 tons of hot water per second for 24 hours. In the process of cooling the nuclear reactor, the cooling water is warmed by as much as 7 degrees Celsius compared to existing sea water and then drained. The heated water does not mix with the sea water and quickly spreads across the sea surface. It not only prevents atmospheric carbon from being stored in seawater, but also promotes carbon generation by suppressing the cyclical action of the underwater ecosystem. Even though this clear discharge of hot wastewater is being committed, we are still unable to properly understand the actual situation.
There was one important event before I took this photo. It was when children from lower grades of elementary school came for a field trip in the fall evening. The procession happened to meet me. I didn’t want to miss this moment, so I held up the red vertical placard saying ‘Don’t throw away radioactive contamination’ so that they could clearly see it. Then, one by one, they started looking up at the placard. As if this scene and the words were fascinating, some children started taking pictures of me with pads and smartphones that happened to be hanging around their necks. It’s an amazing era.
One by one, the number of children taking pictures increased. Then the teachers leading began to panic and began to stop the children and instruct them to form a line and walk in the original moving procession. As I watched them leave, I waved to the children, and the children also waved back as they walked. I took this picture after the children had passed and they were far away.
The children who took pictures of me would ask their mothers about the situation in the pictures. In the end, they will know what it means and what the truth is.
Recently, while marching, I was able to feel the atmosphere that had changed. The expressions on the faces of the citizens I met had darkened for about 10 days since the discharge of contaminated water on August 24th. As Jeongyoon Lee pointed out, the Japanese government must pay the price for violating international law. The United States is not the only country in the world. Biden is not the only person in the United States. The Japanese people must order the government to stop this as soon as possible before the costs become too high.
In hindsight, I find the silence of the average Japanese intellectual very strange. Their media is the problem? In this day and age where SNS and one-person media have developed, that is nothing more than an excuse. Intellectuals and religious figures who should be distressed by the destruction of life have remained silent, so the public is also just looking at each other in bewilderment.
So what on earth do children watch and learn? Won’t they grow up knowing that the lies and deception of the older generation are the laws of the world? Children are at risk not only because of their bodies, which are surrounded by radiation hazards. Their mental aspect is also at risk. In a society like this, there is no hope for its future. Japanese citizens must stop it themselves.
Students we met in Kanakawa Prefecture. They showed great curiosity, so I explained it in detail and took a commemorative selfie. After all, students are different from adults. These students will ultimately discover the lies of the Japanese government.
There is a famous saying from someone. ‘It is possible to deceive one person forever. It is possible to fool many people temporarily. But it is impossible to fool everyone all the time.’ These students, who realize that they have been deceived, will one day become angry at the Japanese government and vested interests that deceived them. And they will also be angry at the silent intellectuals and the older generation. Are you confident enough to handle that rage?
Edited by: Wonyoung Lee, Guest Editor
(The author, Lee Won-young, is a former professor at the University of Suwon, who led a Korean-Japan citizen walking march to stop the discharge of radioactive contaminated water for about three months from June to September 2023. This article and photos are a record of that story.)
Wonyoung Lee, Guest Editor leewysu@gmail.com
Translation by yoonhwa Cha
Categories: Korean-Japanese citizen walking march
New Silk Road for Life and No-Nukes 
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