Tepco redefined Processed water as Processed water et cetera. 70 percent not processed enough.

Photo : The Inside of Reactor 2 in June, 2021 by Tepco [Link]

 

Tepco and the government of Japan are planning to discharge the filtered contaminated water to the Pacific from 2023. The filtered contaminated water officially only contains radioactive water, Tritium.  

However, Tepco actually revised the definition of the filtered contaminated water on the 27th of April, 2021. In the new definition, the filtered contaminated water is changed to be the filtered contaminated water “etc”. 

Et cetera is added because 70% of such water to be discharged to the Pacific, still contains a significant amount of radionuclides other than radioactive water, Tritium due to the insufficient filtration. 

Rhetorically, the discharged water will primarily contain only Tritium. However, according to Tepco’s technical papers issued on the 12th of July, 2021, the filtered water is going to be mixed with insufficiently filtered water before the discharge. Only in cases when the radionuclide density (other than Tritium) is higher than the safety level, the mixed contaminated water is to be sent back to ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System). 

The unfiltered water, which has 70% share of all the contaminated water, is estimated to contain 9 (Cs-134/137,Sr-90,Co-60,Sb-125,Ru-106, I-129, C-14,Tc-99) to 56 sorts of radionuclides more than the safety limit (60,000,000 Bq/m3) in total. The filtered water contains these nuclides at lower density than the safety limit though this safety limit is approximately 667 times higher than WHO’s guideline for Drinking-water quality. 

Based on Tepco’s report, at the time of the end of March, 2021, around 33% of all the stored contaminated water in Fukushima nuclear plant has 1 to 5 times higher levels of these radionuclides than the safety limit. 5% of the stored contaminated water contains 100 to 19,909 times higher levels than the safety limit. 

As a result of mixing, the discharged water will contain both filtered and unfiltered water. Even though the water will be diluted, as the nature of the water remains the same, the total amount of contamination to be discharged will not be reduced.

 

https://www.tepco.co.jp/decommission/progress/watertreatment/

https://www.tepco.co.jp/decommission/progress/watertreatment/images/increase.pdf

https://www.tepco.co.jp/decommission/information/committee/evaluation_review/pdf/2021/evaluation_review_2021071201.pdf

https://www.meti.go.jp/earthquake/nuclear/osensuitaisaku/committtee/genchicyousei/2019/0930_01_01.pdf

 

 

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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