原発は海を温める！？_その１ Nuclear power warms the sea !?_No. 1 2020-07 #1

　１年以上ブログの更新をさぼって来たが、下記の記事をきっかけに海の温暖化の話から再開し、地球温暖化の問題について８月下旬まで集中して書いていきたいと思います。

　記事は６月30日付の福井新聞の記事で、原発稼働中周辺の海水温が２℃高くなっていた、と書いてある。一番下に原発周辺の地図を載せた。この調査が若狭湾内のどの辺りで実施されたかは分からないが、かなり広い水域で２℃海水温が上昇するのは大変な事である。

　文中に石炭火力発電所の近くでは原発近くのような変化は見られなかったとあるが、原発では排熱（元の熱量の２／３）が全て海に放出されるのに比べ、石炭火力の場合煙突からの熱の放出もかなりの量になり、海への影響が小さいためであると考えられる。

　I have been skipping blog posts for more than a year, but the following article has inspired me to resume writing about oceanic warming and to concentrate on the issue of global warming until late August.

　The article is from the Fukui Shimbun dated 30th June and it says that the sea water temperature around the plant was 2°C higher during the operation. At the bottom of the page is a map of the area around the plant. We don't know where in Wakasa Bay this survey was carried out, but it's amazing that the sea water temperature rose 2°C in a fairly large area of water.

   The text states that no change was observed near coal power plants as compared to near nuclear power plants. This is thought to be because, compared to nuclear power plants where all the waste heat (2/3 of the original heat) is released into the sea, coal-fired power plants also release a significant amount of heat from their stacks, which has a smaller impact on the sea.

English translation of above article is following.

Tropical fish have settled in the Sea of Japan due to the effluent of nuclear power plants

The area around the Takahama nuclear power plant, the fish disappeared after shutdown of the plant

 　Tropical fish had become established in the vicinity as the sea was warmed by effluent from the Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture, Prof. Reiji Masuda of Kyoto University's Maizuru Fisheries Laboratory published the results of his research in the online scientific journal PLOS ONE by June 29. Juvenile fish brought in from the south by ocean currents are thought to have successfully overwintered, but they disappeared when the plant was shut down after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

 　During the operation of the nuclear power plant, the seawater temperature around the plant was 2°C higher, which is equivalent to conditions around 2050 when global warming has advanced. Mr. Masuda said, "It's not a good thing that the habitat has expanded. If a lot of nuclear power plants operate in the narrow Sea of Japan, the environment will change drastically, including a decrease in fish and seaweed that originally existed," he said. He called attention to the effects of localised global warming caused by the thermal discharge of nuclear power plants.

 　From 2004 to 2005, Mr. Masuda conducted a diving survey in the sea near the Takahama Nuclear Power Plant in Wakasa Bay during the winter. During the operation of the plant, the discharge of water at the site was seven degrees Celsius warmer than normal, which increased the number and variety of fish, and tropical fish, such as the Atlantic wrasse and the thunderhead wrasse, which normally cannot overwinter, were also found in the water.

　When the Takahama nuclear power plant was shut down in 2012, the water temperature dropped and returned to normal, and tropical fish died out or were no longer seen.

　For comparison, the same bay was also examined near a coal-fired power plant and in waters without waste heat facilities, but no such change was found near the plant.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Some small errors after translation with DeepL were corrected by the author.

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