Uranium is naturally radioactive and undergoes a process called fission-its atoms decay, or split, at a predictable rate, emitting neutrons and heat. Now the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the power plant’s owner, is facing a new problem: what to do with radioactive water piling up at the site.Įach reactor encloses rods of uranium pellets. For nearly a decade, the plant’s workers have cooled the wreckage with water. The disaster at the plant-about three hours’ drive north of Tokyo on the shore of the Pacific Ocean-began with a Magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that flooded critical control equipment and triggered a meltdown. The word “Fukushima” has become known globally as shorthand for a nuclear disaster that happened at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on the coast of Japan in March 2011. Novem| 1,400 words, about 7 minutes Share this article Photo by Richard Atrero de Guzman/AFLO/Alamy Live News Fukushima’s Radioactive Wastewater Dilemma What to do with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of contaminated water? Authored by Ongoing efforts to keep the plant cool during cleanup have generated large volumes of water contaminated with radioactive elements, and this water may soon be released into the ocean. State Department spokesperson Ned Price commented in a statement that Japan "appears to have adopted an approach in accordance with globally accepted nuclear safety standards.The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was severely damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, leading to a meltdown. In Seoul, South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon summoned Japan's ambassador to Seoul to protest the decision, expressing "deep regret over the potential threat to our citizens' health and environment." They argue that the government's decision to dump the wastewater will make it impossible to sell their catch and will devastate their industry.Ĭhina expressed grave concern at the decision to dump wastewater, which the Foreign Ministry called "extremely irresponsible" and damaging to neighboring countries' interests. Local media report that in February, shipments of black rockfish were halted after one sample caught near Fukushima contained cesium far in excess of acceptable levels.įish catches are at 17.5% of pre-quake levels, and many fishermen have been subsisting on handouts from TEPCO. The nonprofit Health Physics Society says tritium is considered to be hazardous to health only in large amounts and "may very slightly increase the probability that a person will develop cancer during his or her lifetime," although humans are naturally exposed to many other forms of radiation.īut Friends of the Earth Japan says the water in the storage tanks contains unknown quantities of radioactive contaminants besides tritium. "They are making distrust by themselves." "That kind of attitude is not honest to people," she says. But they didn't disclose that information before." But it turned out that the water contains more radioactive materials. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga met last week with Hiroshi Kishi, the president of JF Zengyoren, a nationwide federation of fishing cooperatives, and asked for their understanding about the government's decision, but Kishi said the group's stance remains unchanged.Īnother problem, Fukakusa adds, is that "TEPCO and the government said the water just contains tritium, which cannot be separated from water. She adds that a series of hearings intended to canvass residents' opinions on the Fukushima water issue involved almost all men, thereby excluding women's viewpoints. "The government and TEPCO said that without consent from the fishing communities, they won't discharge the contaminated water," she notes. "This process of decision-making is quite undemocratic," says Ayumi Fukakusa, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth Japan, a Tokyo-based nongovernmental organization. However, tritium - a radioactive hydrogen isotope - remains.īut environmental groups remain skeptical of the government's and TEPCO's claims. TEPCO says the wastewater has been treated to remove most of the radioactivity. Last year, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said Japan's plan to release the water - or alternatively, to let it evaporate into the air - was technically feasible, "routinely used by operating nuclear power plants worldwide," and soundly based on safety and environmental impact assessments. Critics argue that the government could acquire more land to build storage tanks. (TEPCO), says that by around next summer it will run out of space to build new tanks to hold the accumulated 1.25 million tons of wastewater. The plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. Since the quake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, water used to cool the nuclear reactors and contaminated groundwater have been stored in massive tanks at the plants.
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