Japanese Minister: Radioactive Fukushima Water Could Be Dumped Into The Pacific

[Rhiannon12866]

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the operator of the former Fukushima nuclear plant, is running out of storage to keep radioactive water from the 2011 disaster and may have to dump some radioactive water in the Pacific, Japan’s environment minister Yoshiaki Harada said on Tuesday.

Tepco is keeping more than 1 million tons of contaminated water from the 2011 disaster--water that was used to cool the nuclear plant’s core to stave off a meltdown. But the company has said that it will run out of room for the water by 2022.

The Japanese government has yet to come up with an official position on how to proceed with the water disposal/treatment and is awaiting a report from a panel of experts on the best ways to dispose of the radioactive water.

“The only option will be to drain it into the sea and dilute it,” minister Harada said at a news briefing on Tuesday, as carried by Reuters.

Harada did not elaborate on details about how much water could end up in the Pacific, and noted that “The whole of the government will discuss this, but I would like to offer my simple opinion.”

Read more: https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Japanese-Minister-Radioactive-Fukushima-Water-Could-Be-Dumped-Into-The-Pacific.html

[Duppers]

1. We rather knew this would be coming.

[democratisphere]

2. Humans love to use the oceans as their sewer.

One step closer to extinction.

[IndyOp]

3. Between this and the Russian "accident" that has them dragging

radioactive debris out of the ocean and up onto the beach - the horror will continue and increase in future. Nuclear waste, chemical waste, plastics, recycling from the U.S. that is dumped in countries that can’t actually recycle it, burning Amazon and opening Tongass to corporate greed, greenhouse gasses. Collapse is certain, I think.

[FBaggins]

5. It is not "still hot and cooking"

Nuclear decay is a known factor.

[FBaggins]

7. Sorry. The premise of the question is faulty

The threat being over does not mean "no more radioactivity"

You're surrounded by radiation every day. It's in every breath you take.

There will still be risk involved in the decommissioning process... but not risk to the global environment... and only the tiniest fraction of the water contamination that they've had to deal with over the first several years.

[FBaggins]

9. Most people who passed an actual science course

The water that is being discussed has already been "cleaned up" of all but tritium (which is an essentially harmless substance).

As it relates to the "still hot and cooking" nonsense... radioactivity from fission daughter elements decays naturally (that's what the radiation is after all). The heat that was such a problem for the first hours/days/months came largely from the shorter half-life elements that are now largely gone.

For example - The Cesium 134 that some are using as the "fingerprint" of Fukushima radiation has a half-life of about two years... meaning that ~95% of it is gone... and the vast majority of the heat in spent fuel comes from much shorter half-life elements.

Spent fuel rods don't even need to be stored under water after about five years. They can be transferred dry casks with natural air flow keeping the fuel cool.

[defacto7]

11. Thank you for sharing facts in a sea of unnecessary fear.

[hunter]

10. If I was a fish in the neighborhood I'd be cheering this news.

Better to be a fish shunned by fishermen for a slight increase in radioactivity than a fish on someone's dinner plate.

In any case Japan dumps worse toxins than tritium into the ocean and into the atmosphere every day and many of these have a half life of FOREVER.

Not to mention greenhouse gasses.