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.

The big challenge is how to manage 1.3 million tonnes of unsafe radioactively-tainted water.

One of three options was to filter out the nuclear fission nuclei, then dump the filtered water into the ocean to dilute any remaining amount of tritium or carbon-14.  Japan has chosen this complex way from all the fraught options.

Disposing of untreated wastewater into the ocean would release nuclear fission products in an uncontrolled manner. The danger of indiscriminately releasing nuclear fission products into the ocean is that the products can find their way into the food chain.

Once in the food chain, the nuclear fission heavy nuclei like cesium-137, strontium-90 and iodine-131 tend to concentrate in human muscle, bones, and thyroid and cause Cancer.

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.

The big challenge is how to manage 1.3 million tonnes of unsafe radioactively-tainted water.

One of three options was to filter out the nuclear fission nuclei, then dump the filtered water into the ocean to dilute any remaining amount of tritium or carbon-14.  Japan has chosen this complex way from all the fraught options.

Disposing of untreated wastewater into the ocean would release nuclear fission products in an uncontrolled manner. The danger of indiscriminately releasing nuclear fission products into the ocean is that the products can find their way into the food chain.

Once in the food chain, the nuclear fission heavy nuclei like cesium-137, strontium-90 and iodine-131 tend to concentrate in human muscle, bones, and thyroid and cause Cancer.

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.

The big challenge is how to manage 1.3 million tonnes of unsafe radioactively-tainted water.

One of three options was to filter out the nuclear fission nuclei, then dump the filtered water into the ocean to dilute any remaining amount of tritium or carbon-14.  Japan has chosen this complex way from all the fraught options.

Disposing of untreated wastewater into the ocean would release nuclear fission products in an uncontrolled manner. The danger of indiscriminately releasing nuclear fission products into the ocean is that the products can find their way into the food chain.

Once in the food chain, the nuclear fission heavy nuclei like cesium-137, strontium-90 and iodine-131 tend to concentrate in human muscle, bones, and thyroid and cause Cancer.