Japan’s nuclear regulator on Friday approved a plan to release more than a million tons of contaminated water from the Fukushima plant into the ocean, causing China to anger.
This project has been adopted by the government and backed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but the plant’s operator, Tepco, has yet to convince local communities to go ahead.
The plan consists of gradually pouring into the Pacific Ocean more than a million tons of water contaminated with tritium , a radionuclide that cannot be eliminated by current technologies, but whose dilution in the sea is already practiced in Japan and abroad. in operating nuclear facilities.
This tritiated water comes from rain, groundwater or water injections needed to cool the cores of several Fukushima nuclear reactors that melted down due to the March 11, 2011 tsunami.
More than a thousand tanks were installed around the plant to store this tritiated water after purification operations aimed at eliminating other radioactive substances. But the storage capacity will be saturated soon.
According to experts, tritium is only dangerous to humans in highly concentrated doses , a situation a priori excluded in the event of a release into the sea over several decades, as Tepco foresees.
The IAEA also believes that this project will be carried out “in full compliance with international standards” and that it “will not cause damage to the environment.”
Tepco plans to start the operation in the spring of 2023, after the construction of an underwater conduit to transport tritiated water approximately one kilometer from the coast.
But the operator still has to obtain prior approvals from the Fukushima department and municipalities near the plant, while also trying to allay concerns from local fishermen, fearing negative consequences on the reputation of their fish among the consumers.
The project was also criticized by its neighbors China and South Korea, as well as environmental organizations such as Greenpeace.
“If Japan continues to put its own interests above the general international interest, if it insists on taking (this) dangerous step, it will definitely pay the price for its irresponsible behavior and leave a stain on history,” the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday. Foreign Affairs of China, Wang Wenbin.
AFP information.
