Next week, Japan will begin the second phase of dumping treated water from the Fukushima plant into the sea, a month after the start of operations, which provoked China’s fury.
The inspections of the first phase of dumping that began on August 24 have been completed and the second phase will begin on October 5, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, reported this Thursday.
This water was stored for a long time in tanks at the plant and was treated to eliminate radioactive substances, with the exception of tritium, which is only dangerous in very high concentrated doses, according to experts.
Tepco then dilutes the water with seawater before releasing it into the ocean, to ensure the level of radioactivity does not exceed limits.
The dumping into the sea was approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but the project caused a diplomatic crisis between Japan and China, which suspended all imports of Japanese seafood products at the end of August.
Russia, with tense relations with Japan, is considering doing the same.
“As with the first discharge, we will continue to monitor tritium levels. We will continue to inform the public in a clear and understandable way, based on scientific evidence,” Akira Ono, a Tepco official, told reporters on Thursday.
Despite Beijing’s trade measures, Chinese vessels continue to fish off Japan in the same areas as Japanese vessels, according to the Japanese newspaper Asahi.
The United States ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, published photographs last week on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that, according to the diplomat, show Chinese fishing boats off Japan on September 15.
During this first phase of 17 days, around 7,800 cubic meters of water containing tritium will have been discharged. In late August, Tepco said it was planning three more similar operations by the end of March 2024.
In total, Tokyo plans to release more than 1.3 million cubic meters of Fukushima water into the Pacific Ocean – the equivalent of 540 Olympic swimming pools – gradually, until the early 2050s, according to the current schedule.
Source: TSF
