South Korea’s Report on Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant Reveals Water Leak

Tokyo, July 7 – Kyodo News reported that the South Korean government has released its report evaluating Japan’s plan to dump low-level radioactive water into the ocean.

South Korea’s report on Japan’s plans to drain water accumulated at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant after the reactors have been cooled and cleaned of radionuclides, says that “compliance with international standards has been confirmed,” and also that the impact on seawater in South Korea will be insignificant.

This coincides with the conclusions contained in the IAEA report. At the same time, South Korea is not yet going to abandon the ban on imports of products from Fukushima and eight other Japanese prefectures, which was imposed after the accident at the Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011.

“We plan to maintain (these measures) until such time as all residents are calm (on this outcome),” the agency quoted part of the report as saying.

This summer, Japan plans to start draining water purified from all radionuclides except tritium into the ocean at a distance of one kilometer from the station.

During the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant in 2011, nuclear fuel melted in reactors one, two and three. Water used to cool reactors and contaminated with radioactive substances passes through the multistage ALPS system, which makes it possible to purify it from 62 types of radionuclides, with the exception of tritium. Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, otherwise it’s called “superheavy hydrogen,” or 3H, which makes it difficult to clean water from. Tritium exists in nature, due to its weak beta radiation, its effect on humans is limited, and at the same time it is dangerous if it enters the body. Water purified from radionuclides, except for tritium, is now stored in giant tanks at the station. Every day, about 140 tons of radioactive water are added to it. About 1,000 giant tanks are installed at the station, but 90% of its 1.37 million tons has already been filled.

The issue of water disposal methods has been considered since 2013. Among other things, options for mixing it with cement and concrete underground, for hydrogen separation by electrolysis, and others were considered. In the end, the government decided to start dumping the water into the sea, after diluting it and raising the tritium concentration to 1,500 Bq per liter, which was 40 times less than the standard in Japan for dumping water into the sea from the process. Operating nuclear power plants – 60 thousand Bq. According to the Japanese Ministry of Industry, the radioactivity of tritium in the 1.25 million tons of water accumulated at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant is 860 trillion becquerels. Before the accident, the station was annually drenched in seawater containing 2.2 trillion becquerels of tritium.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Raphael Grossi, said in Tokyo on Tuesday that the water release plan is in line with agreed international standards and that the environmental impact will be minimal. However, local residents, farmers and fishermen in Fukushima fear that leaking weakly radioactive water into the ocean will negatively affect the image of the products produced in the prefecture. On Wednesday, Grossi paid a visit to the station and also held a meeting with local residents and fishermen.