Troubled Water

The world needs to remind of the melted fuel rods in the First Fukushina Nuclear Power Plant. They have to be cooled down, otherwise they radiate extremely high temperature and get into unstable situation. What does cool them down? Water does. To cool them down, a huge amount of water is required. So the process produces a huge amount of water contaminated by radioactive materials. Where will it go? That is the problem. Although Tokyo Electric Power Company says they will keep it in tanks around the site, they are doubted to have leaked it to the Pacific Ocean. Serious investigation is required.

Through the process of cooling the melted fuel rods, TEPCO produced 260 thousand tons of contaminated water last two years. The water has been stocked in big tanks located around the site. Although there is a pessimistic assessment that the space for tanks is limited, or the possibility of collapse of the tank caused by deterioration, TEPCO keeps optimistic plan to deal with the problem by building the capacity up to 700 thousand tons.

That discussion is based on the notion that the contaminated water has been contained in the tanks. A report of Japanese public broadcasting undermined that basis. According to the report of NHK, the leak of contaminated water is suspected, because the radioactive level of seawater inside the port for the power plant has been consecutively high even after TEPCO declared the leak was stopped in June 2011. The research group of Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology confirmed that the consistency of Cesium 137 in the seawater has been around 100 Bq per liter. That meant that 16.9 trillion Bq of Cesium 137 had been flowed into the water.

It is obvious that the method of cooling melted fuel rods by water and stocking the contaminated water in tanks will reach a limit anyway. TEPCO now is thinking of releasing the water to the sea after “purification.” It is said that the purification can remove 62 kinds of radioactive materials, however, only tritium cannot be removed anyhow. If TEPCO insist on the plan, it may become one of the greatest seawater polluters in history.

What we need is precise information about what is going on. If TEPCO insists on their process to be right, it needs to explain why the radiation level of the seawater has not been improved. The credibility of the tanks will also be needed. In addition, if TEPCO is releasing the water, it is necessary to show how radioactive materials removed from the contaminated water will be dealt with. Not only the government of Japan, also the world needs to put a pressure on TEPCO to answer the questions.