Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (northeast of Japan), said on Wednesday that it had begun final preparations for the start of the release of stored water into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday. on the site.
Tepco explained in a press release that it transferred approximately 1 m3 of this water which was filtered beforehand to remove its radioactive substances, with the exception of tritium, and then diluted this quantity with 1,200 m3 of water from sea.
The concentration of tritium in this sample will be measured to confirm that it is below the expected radioactivity level of 1,500 becquerels (Bq) per liter, the maximum that Tepco has set for discharge at sea.
This level is 40 times lower than the Japanese national standard aligned with the international standard (60,000 Bq/litre), and it is also about seven times lower than the limit established by the World Health Organization (WHO) for drinking water. (10,000 Bq/litre).
Only highly concentrated doses of tritium are harmful to health, experts say.
In total, Japan plans to discharge more than 1.3 million m3 of water from the Fukushima Daiichi plant into the Pacific Ocean from rainwater, groundwater and injections needed to cool reactor cores. melted after the March 2011 tsunami that devastated the country’s northeast coast.
This process should take nearly three decades and the tritiated water content in daily discharges into the sea will not exceed 500 m3.
The first spill is expected to last “about 17 days” and involve some 7,800 m3 of tritiated water from the plant, Tepco said in an online presentation on Wednesday.
The group plans three other spills by the end of March, for volumes equivalent to or less than the first.
Japan’s plan has been validated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which will also oversee operations.
But that was not enough to reassure China in particular, very critical of this plan and which has applied restrictions on its imports of foodstuffs from Japan since July. Hong Kong followed on Tuesday with similar restrictions.
Discharging tritiated water into the sea is, however, a common practice in the nuclear industry worldwide, and the annual level of radioactivity from these discharges by Chinese nuclear power plants is much higher than that expected at Fukushima Daiichi, underlines Tokyo.
Analysts say Beijing’s hardline stance on Fukushima water is likely linked to already strained Sino-Japanese relations over many economic and geopolitical issues.
Other Asia-Pacific states with better relations with Japan, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and even Fiji and the Cook Islands, have on the other hand expressed their confidence in the security of the process at Fukushima controlled by the IAEA.
23/08/2023 11:54:38 – Tokyo (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
