Japan to Release 1.3 Million Tonnes of Water Used During Fukushima Nuclear Accident

This atmospheric source of ocean radioactivity has worked on Earth for almost three billion years. Along with uranium radioactive decay products, humans live within this natural radioactive background.

This year the Japanese government plans to release 1.3 million tonnes of water – used to cool the damaged reactor cores from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011 – into the Pacific Ocean

Between 2011-2013, approximately 300,000 tonnes of untreated wastewater had already flowed into the ocean off Fukushima. These first two years were the most dangerous time because long-lived heavy nuclei, like cesium-137, strontium-90 and shorter-lived iodine-131, from nuclear fission in the reactors ended up in the ocean.

Since 2013, the stored water has also accumulated flushed seawater goundwater which leaked into the three damaged reactor cores.

This atmospheric source of ocean radioactivity has worked on Earth for almost three billion years. Along with uranium radioactive decay products, humans live within this natural radioactive background.

This year the Japanese government plans to release 1.3 million tonnes of water – used to cool the damaged reactor cores from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011 – into the Pacific Ocean

Between 2011-2013, approximately 300,000 tonnes of untreated wastewater had already flowed into the ocean off Fukushima. These first two years were the most dangerous time because long-lived heavy nuclei, like cesium-137, strontium-90 and shorter-lived iodine-131, from nuclear fission in the reactors ended up in the ocean.

Since 2013, the stored water has also accumulated flushed seawater goundwater which leaked into the three damaged reactor cores.

This atmospheric source of ocean radioactivity has worked on Earth for almost three billion years. Along with uranium radioactive decay products, humans live within this natural radioactive background.

This year the Japanese government plans to release 1.3 million tonnes of water – used to cool the damaged reactor cores from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011 – into the Pacific Ocean

Between 2011-2013, approximately 300,000 tonnes of untreated wastewater had already flowed into the ocean off Fukushima. These first two years were the most dangerous time because long-lived heavy nuclei, like cesium-137, strontium-90 and shorter-lived iodine-131, from nuclear fission in the reactors ended up in the ocean.

Since 2013, the stored water has also accumulated flushed seawater goundwater which leaked into the three damaged reactor cores.