Nearly 12 years ago, a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant. The nuclear reactors have been decommissioned - a process which will take 40 years to complete. But the shutdown has stalled over the build-up of vast quantities of water used to keep the damaged reactors cool.
To free up space, operator TEPCO has started to release 1.3 million tonnes of the wastewater into the sea. They claim that the water is filtered to remove most radionuclides, making the release safe. But local fishers and environmental groups aren’t convinced.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org
The site produces 100,000 litres of contaminated water daily. It is a combination of groundwater, rainwater that seeps into the area and water used for cooling. More than 1.32 million tonnes of treated wastewater is currently stored at the site. That accounts for 96 per cent of storage capacity.
TEPCO says several filtering systems remove most of the 62 radioactive elements in the water, including caesium and strontium, but tritium - a radioactive form of hydrogen - remains. TEPCO plans to dilute the water to reduce radioactivity levels to 1,500 becquerels per litre, far below the national safety standard of 60,000 becquerels per litre.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said the release meets international standards and "will not cause any harm to the environment". But neighbouring countries, including China and South Korea, along with activist groups such as Greenpeace and some local residents are strongly opposed to the release.
Around 12.1 trillion yen ($82 billion) has already been spent to deal with the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. That means more than half of the government’s total estimated cost of 21.5 trillion yen, including compensation payments and reactor decommissioning expenses, has been used in the 11 years since the meltdowns occurred. However, the nuclear decommissioning process is not going smoothly, and there are fears that the planned discharge of treated radioactive water from the plant into the sea could damage the reputations of the disaster-affected areas. The government, however, said the cost will likely not increase.
The total cost incurred until the end of 2017 was around 8.6 trillion yen. The breakdown was: 7.1472 trillion yen for damages paid to people affected by the disaster; 2.9954 trillion yen for decontamination-related costs; 268.2 billion yen related to temporary storage facilities for contaminated materials; and 1.7019 trillion yen for nuclear decommissioning work and dealing with contaminated water.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the stricken plant, and other parties published an “estimated compensation cost” of 12.5865 trillion yen as of April 2023. However, this figure doesn’t include projected damages to compensate businesses and others for reputational damage caused by the treated water being discharged into the sea. TEPCO pays for all nuclear decommissioning work and dealing with contaminated water.
If the wastewater is safe, why can’t TEPCO direct it to the Japanese people for the local water consumption instead of the Pacific Ocean? Should we stop or ban all Japanese seafood? And for how long? 40 years? Why is the U.S. exceptionally quiet with this development? Why is Japan behaving like a nuclear terrorist? Do all the Pacific nations need to suffer because of TEPCO’s ineptitude? Is there any compensation to the Pacific-rim countries?
References:
Fukushima: Japan prepares to release 1.3 million tonnes of treated wastewater into the sea, Charlotte Elton, Euronews, 20 Feb 2023
12.1 trillion yen spent so far on Fukushima nuclear disaster, Takaoki Yamamoto, The Asahi Shimbun, 7 November 2022
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