In an effort to assuage concerns from neighboring countries, Japan sought a review by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The unit three reactor building and storage tanks for contaminated water at the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, February 3, 2020. The temporary storage solution is also highly vulnerable to any future natural disasters. Tepco has long warned that it will run out of storage space as soon as spring 2023, and that the structures are hampering the technologically challenging work of decommissioning the plant. The water will be filtered first to remove about 60 radioactive isotopes, with the exception of tritium, which can't be extracted using existing technology.Īfter inspection and dilution with seawater, the water will be pumped out beyond Japan's fishing zones through a 0.6-mile-long undersea tunnel, which will be carved through ocean bedrock starting near the Fukushima Daiichi plant's reactor number 5.Īs a stopgap, the grounds surrounding the damaged reactors have been converted into a giant tank farm, with more than 1,000 storage vessels holding 1,310,000 tons of wastewater. Late last week, Japan's national nuclear regulator formally endorsed the plan to discharge more than 1 million tons of wastewater from the plant into the sea off Japan's Pacific coast. The drastic measure has been adopted as the only practical way out of a dilemma that's plagued the damaged plant for more than a decade. Tokyo - The fishing industry around Japan's Fukushima coast expressed disappointment and resignation over the weekend as long-expected plans to start releasing treated wastewater into the ocean from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant moved one step closer to reality.

Japan reactor meltdown 2012