The construction of facilities needed for a planned release of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea next year from the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant began yesterday, despite opposition from the local fishing community.
Plant workers started construction of a pipeline to transport the wastewater from hillside storage tanks to a coastal facility before its planned release next year, said the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co Holdings (TEPCO).
The digging of an undersea tunnel was also to begin later yesterday.
Construction at the nuclear facility follows the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority’s formal approval last month of a detailed wastewater discharge plan that TEPCO submitted in December last year.
The Japanese government last year announced a decision to release the wastewater as a necessary step for the plant’s ongoing decommissioning.
A massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed the plant’s cooling systems, causing triple meltdowns and the release of large amounts of radiation.
Water that was used to cool the three damaged and highly radioactive reactor cores has since leaked into basements of the reactor buildings, but was collected and stored in tanks.
TEPCO and government officials say that the water will be further treated to levels far below releasable standards, and that the environmental and health impacts would be negligible.
Of more than 60 isotopes selected for treatment, all but one — tritium — would be reduced to meet safety standards, they say.
Local fishing communities and neighboring countries have raised concerns about potential health hazards from the radioactive wastewater and the reputation damage to local produce, and oppose the release.
Scientists say the impact of long-term, low-dose exposure to not only tritium, but also other isotopes on the environment and humans are still unknown, and that a release is premature.
The contaminated water is being stored in about 1,000 tanks that require a lot of space in the plant complex.
Officials say they must be removed so that facilities can be built for its decommissioning.
The tanks are expected to reach their capacity in autumn next year.
TEPCO said it plans to transport treated and releasable water through a pipeline from the tanks to a coastal pool, where it would be diluted with seawater and then sent through an undersea tunnel with an outlet about 1km away to minimize the impact on local fishing and the environment.
TEPCO and the government have obtained approval from the heads of the plant’s host towns, Futaba and Okuma, for the construction, but local residents and the fishing community remain opposed and could still delay the process.
The current plan calls for a gradual release of treated water to begin next spring in a process that will take decades.
On Wednesday, Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori and the two mayors visited Tokyo and asked Japanese Minister of Economy and Industry Koichi Hagiuda to ensure safety and prevent further damage to the reputation of Fukushima fishing products.
Akira Ono, who is the top TEPCO decommissioning officer at the plant, promised the highest efforts to ensure safety and understanding.
“We are aware of various views on reputational impact and safety concerns [of the release], and we’ll keep explaining throughly to stakeholders,” Hagiuda said.
TEPCO on Wednesday said that weather and sea conditions could delay a completion of the facility until summer next year.
Japan has sought help from the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure the water release meets international safety standards, and reassure local fishing and other communities and neighboring countries.
IAEA experts who visited the plant earlier this year said that Japan was taking appropriate steps for the planned discharge.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS