2023-08-23 11:48:57
On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that knocked out standby power in the central nuclear de Fukushima Daiichi, off Japan’s northeastern Pacific coast, causing meltdowns at three of its reactors.
Since then, they have accumulated 1.34 million tons of radioactive water at the site, according to the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). This includes the liquid used for cooling, as well as rain and groundwater that has leaked.
South Korea and China have banned imports of seafood from parts of Japan after Fukushima Daiichi suffered a triple meltdown in the March 2011 triple disaster along the country’s northeast coast. China remains strongly opposed, accusing Japan of treating the ocean as a “sewer.”
The South Korean government recently withdrew its objections to the dump, but opposition parties and many South Koreans are concerned about the impact the dump will have on food security.
The decision comes weeks after the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)approved the discharge, stating that the radiological impact on people and the environment would be “negligible”.
Some experts point out that nuclear plants around the world use a similar process to dispose of wastewater that contains low concentrations of tritium and other radionuclides.
Greenpeace, however, called the process flawed and warned that an “immense” amount of radioactive material will be dispersed into the sea in the coming decades.
Radioactive wastewater, which includes rain and groundwater, becomes contaminated when it is used to cool nuclear fuel rods damaged in 2011 when a powerful tsunami slammed into the plant, cutting off its backup power supply.
About 1.3 million tons of treated water – enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools– are stored in more than 1,000 steel tanks at the site, but Tepco has warned that storage space is running low.
According to the Tepco company itself, its advanced liquid processing system eliminates most of the radioactive elements except for tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is difficult to remove from water.
He water will be diluted up to a 40th part of the allowed concentration according to Japanese safety regulations before being pumped into the ocean over the next 30 to 40 years through an underwater tunnel 1 km offshore.
The Japanese government and Tepco also face opposition from local fishermen, who say pumping water into the Pacific Ocean will destroy their industry.
The government has set up funds worth 30 billion yen ($206 million) to compensate local fishermen for damage to their reputations, and 50 billion yen to address any financial impact on their businesses, according to the Kyodo news agency. .
The water will be poured at a maximum rate of 500,000 liters per day. A Japanese official said that the first results of tests carried out on the discharged seawater could be available early next month. Japan will also monitor the presence of radioactive isotopes in fish in the waters near the plant and will publish the results on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture.
It will not be released all at once, but in the next 30 or 40 years. The first discharge, due to start on Thursday (weather permitting), will reach 7,800 cubic meters in about 17 days, Tepco said. For those of you who aren’t good at visualizing volumes, that’s about three Olympic sized swimming pools.
According to Tepco, tritium levels will be 1/40 of the legal level for discharges, and it has promised to upload hourly data on water quality.
Some of Japan’s neighbors are very unhappy. Hong Kong – Japan’s second-biggest importer of food products after mainland China – said it will ban “aquatic products” in 10 Japanese prefectures. That includes the capital, Tokyo, as well as Fukushima itself.
Last month, the Chinese customs administration threatened a total ban on all food products from the same 10 zones.
All these countries have nuclear power plants that discharge water with tritium residues.
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