[Column] Summary of Fukushima situation – The difference among contaminated water, groundwater and sea contamination

The contaminated water situation is getting increasingly complicated. I think some people are too busy to follow up. Here I’d like to summarize the situation short so you can read it before the next metro station.

■ The difference among contaminated water, groundwater and sea contamination.

1. Contaminated water
Contaminated water comes from the coolant water because the buildings are crippled. It’s retained in the building, tanks, and the trenches underground. It keeps increasing and Tepco is building the storage tanks in a hurry. Some of the tanks had leakage recently.

2. Groundwater
Groundwater becomes contaminated groundwater when it comes close to the plant buildings. This is the main cause of the sea contamination. Tepco is also stocking this in the tanks. It’s less contaminated than (1) but the volume is huge. It’s overflowing to the sea, flowing into the plant buildings to overwhelm the storage capacity, and also coming up to the ground surface near the seaside. (It doesn’t “leak” because it’s outside from the beginning)

3. Sea contamination
Sea contamination is mostly caused by the contaminated groundwater. To know the actual sea contamination situation, they need to take samples near the sea surface, bottom of the sea, and in the middle, inside of the plant port and outside, also offshore the plant. However currently the sea contamination is not entirely researched.

 

 

You can ignore the truth but the truth won’t ignore you.

_____

Français :

[Édito] Résumé de la situation à Fukushima : La différence entre eaux extrêmement radioactives, eaux souterraines et contamination marine

 

La situation des eaux extrêmement radioactives devient de plus en plus compliquée. Je pense que certains sont trop occupés pour suivre. Je vais la résumer brièvement ici pour que vous puissiez le lire avant la prochaine station de métro.

■ La différence entre eaux extrêmement radioactives, eaux souterraines et contamination marine.

1. Eaux extrêmement radioactives
Elles proviennent des systèmes de refroidissement parce que les bâtiments sont en ruines. On la tient dans les bâtiments, les citernes, et les tranchées souterraines. Elles continuent d’augmenter et Tepco construit des citernes de stockage à toute vitesse. Certaines de ces citernes ont fuit récemment.

2. Eaux souterraines
Elles se transforment en eaux extrêmement radioactives lorsqu’elles passent près des bâtiments de la centrale. C’est la cause principale de la contamination de l’océan. Tepco en stocke aussi dans ses citernes. Elles sont un peu moins radioactives que celles en (1) mais leur volume est énorme. Elles débordent en mer, inondent les bâtiments de la centrale à en submerger les capacités de stockage et remontent aussi près de la surface du sol du côté mer. (Elles ne “fuient” pas parce qu’elles sont à l’extérieur depuis le début)

3. La contamination de la mer
Elle est principalement due aux eaux souterraines extrêmement radioactives. Ils doivent prendre des échantillons près de la surface et du fond de la mer, et au milieu aussi, plus dans et à l’extérieur du port de la centrale et également au large pour connaître la situation réelle. En fait, actuellement, ils ne recherchent pas complètement l’état de la contamination marine.

Vous pouvez ignorer la vérité mais la vérité ne vous ignorera pas.

About this site

This website updates the latest news about the Fukushima nuclear plant and also archives the past news from 2011. Because it's always updated and added live, articles, categories and the tags are not necessarily fitted in the latest format.
I am the writer of this website. About page remains in 2014. This is because my memory about 311 was clearer than now, 2023, and I think it can have a historical value. Now I'm living in Romania with 3 cats as an independent data scientist.
Actually, nothing has progressed in the plant since 2011. We still don't even know what is going on inside. They must keep cooling the crippled reactors by water, but additionally groundwater keeps flowing into the reactor buildings from the broken parts. This is why highly contaminated water is always produced more than it can circulate. Tepco is planning to officially discharge this water to the Pacific but Tritium is still remaining in it. They dilute this with seawater so that it is legally safe, but scientifically the same amount of radioactive tritium is contained. They say it is safe to discharge, but none of them have drunk it.

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