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IAEA team visits Fukushima nuclear plant to review water release plan

28 Comments
By MARI YAMAGUCHI

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28 Comments
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Sure hope they properly quarantined so they don't contaminate anything.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited the site

Do they have chance to have local eateries and cuisines, also drink some water from local source?

8 ( +8 / -0 )

What if they say, no? Of course they won't say no. Japan has dithered over this for so long they have no choice than to release the water into the sea. The storage tanks were hastiliy built and only designed to last five years. More than half the tanks are way past the five years. This water is still accumulating and will be for decades until they can figure out how to get the melted fuel rods out of the damaged cooling tanks. Let's not forget the report stating a lot of this water was not properly filtered and contains many more deadly isotopes and not just tritium. Once they start releasing this water it will go on for decades. I have no doubt they will start pumping straight into the ocean and do away with the storage tanks altogether.

There are other options to just dumping the water into the Pacific. There are swaths of land away from the coast that can never be built on again. This land could be used to store this water for the next 500 years or so, but they would have to spend more money on storage tanks and shipping the water. It's cheaper and easier just to dump it into the ocean.

Tritium (irradiated hydrogen) has been successfully removed from water. The process is complicated and expensive. The J-gov and TEPCO have had over a decade to build a plant that would remove the tritium. However, it is expensive! It is much easier to sit on their hands and wait until they have no choice than to pump it into the ocean.

It would be fantastic if this team refuses to allow Japan to dump this water into the ocean, but I sincerely doubt it will happen.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

I’m sure someone has drawn a picture on a napkin at a restaurant that solves the whole thing. Can see it now a bunch of old men standing on a pipe leading into to the sea shouting banzai then being carried back to their cars and being driven to another prefecture to enjoy a sea food meal sourced from the other side of the island.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

The half-life of tritium is 12.3 years.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

oh, I thought that

They say a gradual release of the water, diluted with seawater, into the ocean over decades is safe.

....is what they've been saying all along. just checking I guess. (⌒▽⌒)

wonder if the hotel for the entourage was in Fukushima.... or, say in Roppongi. hmmm. more political theatre, and a nice all-expenses-paid junket.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

The process is complicated and expensive....However, it is expensive! It is much easier to sit on their hands and wait until they have no choice....

Which is why the disaster happened in the first place.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

It would be fantastic if this team refuses to allow Japan to dump this water into the ocean, but I sincerely doubt it will happen.

the IAEA prime goal is promote nuclear power regardless. It’s a bit like MacDonalds calling itself a restaurant.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Regardless of the negative comments above they still have no choice but to do something with the water, they can't just keep on storing it. Blaming the people responsible does not resolve the issue.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

Peter Neil - The half-life of tritium is 12.3 years.

But! It's not just tritium they are planning to dump in the ocean. Even if it was, it is 12 years before it will disapate and that's only what they have now. The contaminated water will continue to build over the next few decades until they remove the melted fuel rods. This adds at least another 30 or 40 years until the tritium is gone.

This water should not be dumped in the ocean no matter how much they try to guild the lilly. It's an environmental disaster on a massive scale. They are talking about millions of tons of irradiated water. Not a few bucket fulls.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

Oh, no doubt all of the remaining contaminated material, not just water, will be a significant problem. I agree. Just as is this water, other water can be filtered, but the not as serious as tritium issue, since it will be diluted far more than it is now before being released over a long period of time.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Oh, and when you say “… it’s not just tritium they are planning to dump in the ocean,” what else is going to be “dumped?”

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Again?

They were here a month or so ago. What was the result of that meeting?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Decades ! they said previously not over a decade !

But however they cannot correctly calculate the predicted amount of contaminated water to be released - only the amount that can be held in the tanks.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

If the water is safe enough to dump your n the sea, does that hat mean it’s safe enough to drink or swallow?

Maybe as a public sign of confidence the PM should drink it or swallow it on TV.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Disillusioned

Tritium (irradiated hydrogen) has been successfully removed from water. The process is complicated and expensive.

Not feasible on an industrial scale. And you forgot to mention that tritium a) is released by power plants world wide and b) is created and occurring natural. This is just a question of dilution, and you are talking about an OCEAN here.

This whole thing is a nothingburger. If the issue is only tritium, just release it already.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

In this new exciting episode of Nuclear Safety Theatre, called Rubber Stamp. They need to make sure they train their staff well on both sides of the table to meet the cultural needs of both the IAEA and Japan, so they don't release their prepared statement too early as to raise suspicion that this is all a canard

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

High radiation Water release = Godzilla soon.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

Ain't nuclear power great? It's cheap, clean and green! Oh, wait a minute!

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

I’m waiting for the next food campaign from Fukushima where the ‘baseless rumours’ will be ignored.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

From the bottom of my heart I wish the brave Fukushima 

people full recovery from that nuclear catastrophe. It sure was a heart breaking scenery.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Paul14

Ain't nuclear power great? It's cheap, clean and green! 

I fully agree with you & so do the happy people of Chernobyl.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Nuclear power done properly can be great, it’s only the greed and incompetence that gets in the way.

As usual as soon as anyone mentions nuclear, a plethora of emotional but scientifically inaccurate posts. I can’t be arsed to correct them as they won’t learn. You just can’t change emotionally based entrenched bias with mere facts and reality.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

urghh..humans…if it wasn’t for them, there would be no nuclear contamination, covid restrictions, animal extinctions etc…

yeh, maybe. there have been low level nuclear chain reactions that have occurred in nature as a result of tectonic shifts; viruses have plagued every facet of biology since time immemorial; and extinction events have occurred on the planet periodically every 30 million years or thereabouts, way before humans were around.

it just so happens that a written record is available detailing the current pattern of climate change.

out of interest, were you aware that ghengis khan may have been the greenest conquerer ever, causing a mini ice age? came across an interesting youtube vid in Japanese the other day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ep_lV1-4JE

and there are a plethora of english sites available, to list a few:

https://www.livescience.com/11739-wars-plagues-carbon-climate.html

https://news.mongabay.com/2011/01/how-genghis-khan-cooled-the-planet/

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The half-life of tritium is 12.3 years.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

OK, so how long is the half-life, you two?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Peter Neil

The half-life of tritium is 12.3 years.

*5** ( +7 / -2 )*

OK, so how long is the half-life, you two?

12.3 years. Is something covering your screen?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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