Japan: IAEA Experts Check Fukushima Water Discharge
The main problem is not wastewater, but radioactive fuel
A group of specialists from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has arrived in Japan on Monday, December 9, to monitor and analyze the safety of discharge of wastewater from the catastrophic Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. The delegation, consisting of eleven independent international experts from Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, France, Great Britain, the Marshall Islands, Russia, South Korea, the USA, Vietnam, will remain in Japan until December 12 and will hold a series of meetings with representatives of TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and the Tokyo government.
This is the third visit by IAEA experts to Japan to observe on-site the discharge of water treated with ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) into the sea under TEPCO’s plan, which calls for a gradual discharge over thirty years. The plan got the green light from the IAEA, which on July 4, 2023, deemed the Japanese plan “consistent with international safety standards” after two years of preliminary analysis.
The agency estimates that “negligible radiological effects on people and the environment can be expected from the water release.” Many neighboring countries, including China, have criticized the dumping of wastewater into the sea and banned imports of fish and other seafood from Japan. For its part, the IAEA has committed itself to long-term monitoring in consultation with the Government of Japan.
According to Japanese and international experts, the main problem is not so much the wastewater used to cool the former power plant’s systems, but rather the molten and extremely radioactive nuclear fuel found inside the reactors destroyed by the tsunami that followed the earthquake in 2011. At this point, no one knows how to extract tons of nuclear fuel from the plant’s reactors. In Ukraine, this was not possible at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, so a reinforced concrete dome was built over the power plant, which without proper maintenance by the Kiev authorities is collapsing and releasing gas and other radioactive and hazardous substances.
