Japan’s nuclear regulator last week approved the discharge into the Pacific Ocean of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. This decision had already been validated a year ago by the Japanese government and is supported by the IAEA. However, it is far from consensus.
On March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by an earthquake with a record magnitude of 9, which generated a violent tsunami on its northeast coast. Waves about ten meters high break over the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, leading to the entry into meltdown of three of the six reactors. Since this accident, the worst after Chernobyl in 1986, thousands of tons of water have been poured onto the reactors to cool them down. Only problem: in contact with them, the water becomes radioactive.
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Tepco, which operated the Fukushima nuclear power plant before the accident, has so far stored 1.3 million cubic meters of contaminated water – the equivalent of 520 Olympic swimming pools – in cisterns at the site of the power plant. But the on-site storage capacities coming to an end, a solution must quickly be found. The spill of…
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