Discharge to ocean of contaminated water may re-start next January

Japanese comedy duo, Oshidori mako has been attending Tepco’s press conferences where they grill Tepco’s spokesman.

As you will likely remember, the detection of neptunium contamination in the Japanese countryside was revealed because of their efforts too.

On 11/10/2011, they updated their blog.

There are 3 important points in that post.

Fukushima Diary will feature each point.

According to Tepco’s explanation, there are 3 types of highly contaminated water stocked at the Fukushima nuclear disaster site.

(Nika here – note: 1 Cubic Meter = 264.172052 Gallons [US, Fluid] – I multiplied each cubic meter below by 264.2))

1: Condensed salt water

  • Amount: 76,589 cubic meters (20,234,813.8 gallons)
  • Tank capacity: 85,600 cubic meters (22,615,520 gallons)
  • 89.5% full

2: plain water

  • Amount: 8,008 cubic meters (2,115,713.6 gallons)
  • Tank capacity: 17,700 cubic meters (4,676,340 gallons)
  • 45.2% full

3: Condensed highly radioactive water

  • Amount: 3,037 cubic meters (802,375.4 gallons)
  • Tank capacity: 9,500 cubic meters (2,509,900 gallons)
  • 32.0% full

They are supposed to condense them to reduce the volume, but it’s estimated that all the tanks will be full in a couple of months.

Currently they are trying to sort it out in 2 ways.

1: Add more tanks

  • they are planning to make only 1,000 tons and 100 tons of the tanks and still there is no solid plan


2: Purify the water

  • no solid plan yet

Tepco did not deny the possibility of releasing the stored contaminated water into the sea again in a couple of months.

In the blog post, Oshidori mako stated there is the possibility that they might release it into the sea AGAIN in January.

It is from an anonymous source, but from the explanation of Tepco, it sounds quite likely.

(Source)

  1. I did some research about the radioactive contamination of fish due to the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and I found the following very interesting research paper, but the research paper is in German:
    Titel: Zu den Auswirkungen der Reaktorkatastrophe von Fukushima auf den Pazifik und die Nahrungsketten
    Edited by: Stephan Moldzio, Thomas Dersee, Dirk Zimmermann, Josef Lutz,Rolf Bertram, Anton Eisenhauer, Rainer Frentzel-Beyme
    07.07.2011
    Link: http://www.offene-akademie.org/wp-content/plugins/downloads-manager/upload/110707_pazifik_artikel.pdf

    The research paper says that most of the radioctive isotopes will sink into the sediment of the ocean. Demersal fish ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demersal_fish ), algies and molusks should be avoided. Nevertheless phytoplancton can absorbe radiactive isotopes and pass it on into the aquatic foodchain even to pelagic fish. IMHO Tuna (high on the foodchain)has the highest risk of being a bioaccumulator of radiactive isotopes and landing on someones plate.
    I would not eat any octopus either because octopus eats molusks.
    Bye Bye Takoyaki =(

    It is also very interesting what the papers says about the dispersion of radioctive material in order to lower its dose:
    Page 23 Point 3: Regarding radioactive materials there is no unharmful dose, the dose only effects the statistical probability of causing cancer. Which means that there is no low dose that has no effect on the probability of causing cancer. Dispersion of the radioctive material only increases the problem, instead of decreasing it, because a bigger area and a bigger population will be affected by radiation which will increase their risk of causing cancer in that area. Of course there is no way to proof if the cancer of a particular individual was caused by the Fukushima fallout. The atom industry is very aware of this fact!

    Which means that the strategy of the Japanese government of spreading the radioctive material over the whole country in order to “solve” the problem is totaly wrong.

    Cheerio

  2. they should put all the radioactive material into an iron or lead concrete mix-water, rods, everything. & put these blocks into the deepest unused mineshaft that’s away from groundwater.

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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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