Despite much opposition from home and abroad, Japan began dumping wastewater from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant in the Pacific Ocean around 1 p.m. local time on Thursday. That reports the Japanese news agency Kyodo News. Ultimately, Japan wants to release more than a million tons of the water into the sea, spread over decades.
According to the Japanese government, the discharge of the treated radioactive wastewater is safe. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said last month, based on a two-year investigation, that the government’s plan meets the agency’s safety standards. The water would be almost completely free of radioactive radiation and the impact of the discharge on people and the environment would be “negligible”.
Five hundred Olympic swimming pools
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was destroyed in 2011 by a massive tsunami. It was one of the most serious nuclear disasters ever. Twelve years later, the owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), still pumps water through the plant for cooling. Tepco then filters that water to remove radioactive substances. Only tritium, an isotope of hydrogen, cannot be removed in this way. That is why Tepco dilutes the water so that the tritium level is well below legal limits.
The water, enough to fill 500 Olympic swimming pools, is now stored in more than 1,000 tanks on the factory grounds. But the field is now full. Japan wants to pump the waste water into the sea little by little via a kilometre-long pipeline: a maximum of 500,000 liters per day.
According to experts, tritium in small amounts is not harmful to human health. Other nuclear power plants in different countries, including China, use a similar technique and also discharge small amounts of tritium into the oceans.
Read also: Unrest due to Japanese plan to discharge Fukushima water into the sea
Chinese import ban on Japanese food
Nevertheless, the discharge plans of the Japanese government caused a lot of unrest. Some scientists point out that only part of the water in the storage tanks at Fukushima has now been treated. They also believe that the long-term consequences of dumping the water in one place for a longer period of time are insufficiently known. Fishermen in the region are concerned about the reputation of their fish. China has announced an import ban on food from Japan.
“The decision ignores scientific evidence, violates the human rights of Pacific residents and is inconsistent with international maritime law,” environmental group Greenpeace wrote in a statement. a statement. “More importantly, it ignores the concerns of its people, including fishermen.”
The South Korean government said on Tuesday it has no problem with the scientific or technical aspects of the Japanese plan. But opposition parties and many South Koreans are still concerned. Last month, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi was received at Seoul airport by dozens of angry protesters. The government of President Yoon Suk Yeol believes it is important to maintain good relations with Japan.