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| ▲A TV screen in Tokyo, Japan, shows a breaking news window announcing the start of the release of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Thursday. TOKYO/AP |
According to Bloomberg, TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima plant, said that the concentration of tritium in the treated water diluted with seawater was within safety standards, and the contaminated water, which had been stored in large tanks, was discharged into the sea offshore of the plant through a 1-kilometer-long undersea tunnel.
This comes two years and four months after then-Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga decided in April 2021 to discharge the contaminated water into the ocean as a way to treat it, and about 12 and a half years after the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster, contaminating the water with highly radioactive substances. Japan has been storing the coolant and contaminated groundwater in about 1,000 steel tanks, but in 2019 it said it would run out of storage space and decided to discharge it into the ocean.
The method involves diluting the tritium in seawater that cannot be removed by the ALPS and releasing it. The company has set a limit of less than 1,500 becquerels per liter, which is one-fortieth of the regulatory limit for tritium discharge to the sea set by the Japanese government. The contaminated water diluted with seawater was transferred to a tank to measure the concentration of tritium, and if it matched the calculated concentration, it could be released into the sea.
The amount of contaminated water released that day was 1 ton. When diluted with 1200 tons of seawater, the measured tritium concentration ranged from 43 to 63 becquerels. TEPCO plans to release 7800 tons of contaminated water into the ocean in the first phase over the next 17 days, following its "cautiously small doses" policy. By the end of March next year, TEPCO expects to discharge 31,200 tons, or 2.3% of the total 1.34 million tons of contaminated water, into the sea through the fourth round of discharges. The amount of tritium entering the sea when 31,200 tons of contaminated water is discharged to the sea as planned is estimated to be 5 trillion becquerels. It will take more than 30 years to release all the contaminated water stored at the site.
The controversy is expected to continue. "It is part of a controversial plan that has drawn fierce opposition from some governments, including China and Hong Kong, as well as fishermen and many consumers," explains the UK's Guardian, "and has created a diplomatic headache for the Japanese government despite support from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."
In response to the discharge of contaminated water, the Chinese government announced a blanket ban on imports of Japanese seafood, effective immediately. Previously, China had banned seafood from 10 cities, including Fukushima and Tokyo, expanding the ban to include all of Japan.
Experts have emphasized that nuclear power plants in other countries have been releasing diluted tritium for decades without incident. "Nuclear power plants around the world have routinely released water containing tritium for more than 60 years without harming people or the environment," said Tony Irwin, emeritus associate professor at the Australian National University, "often at higher levels than planned at the Fukushima plant."
"The safety concerns in some countries are unfounded," said Nigel Marks, an associate professor at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, who specializes in radioactive waste, noting that a lifetime of eating seafood from the vicinity of contaminated water releases would only result in the same amount of tritium as a bite of a banana.
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