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The Japanese government has decided to release already treated cooling water containing radioactive elements from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which suffered a disaster in 2011, into the ocean, the Reuters news agency reported on Friday, citing Japanese media reports.
The formal decision will reportedly be announced later this month.
The power plant is operated by Tokyo Electric Power collected more than one million tons of contaminated cooling water in tanks at the Fukushima I nuclear power plant Since the tsunami that followed the severe earthquake on March 11, 2011, three reactors at the power plant were severely damaged.
A committee of Japanese experts made a proposal to the government in January this year to release radioactively contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean and thus dispose of it. Committee of the Ministry of Industry He also considered allowing the water to evaporate, but this solution was eventually discarded.
A large amount of cooling water that has accumulated over the years has been treated, and Tokyo Electric said that the levels of 62 radioactive elements in the water, excluding tritium, could be reduced to levels that are no longer harmful to the humans.
There isn’t much room for additional water tanks in the power plant area anymore, and it can take decades to clean up the disaster site. Molten fuel disposal is scheduled to begin in 2021 and will last ten years. The six reactors of the plant have 4,741 fuel elements in their rest tanks, and 1.2 million tons of contaminated cooling water have accumulated in the tanks installed for this purpose.
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