Japan intends to vaporize contaminated water in Fukushima

Japan is considering measures to evaporate or store contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, replacing the way to discharge water into the ocean.

Japan considered measures to vaporize contaminated water in Fukushima

Naohiro Masuda, an official of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), said yesterday the government is considering a solution to evaporate water containing tritium instead of emitting it to the ocean , but does not know when to make a decision. final.

Experts at Fukushima nuclear power plant.(Photo: AP)

After the catastrophic nuclear disaster in 2011, the removal of hundreds of thousands of tons of tritium-contaminated water, a relatively harmless radioisotope, is one of many TEPCO issues that are undergoing treatment.Water is used to cool reactors and prevent radioactive leaks from occurring, but there is no technology to remove tritium.

According to Reuters, TEPCO wants to discharge water to the ocean, a popular way in many of the world's nuclear power stations that are operating, but encounter disagreements with local fishermen. Therefore, they offer solutions to evaporate water or store underground.

After the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in the US in 1979, experts used a method of evaporation of radioactive water, but this amount was quite small . Dale Klein, an advisor to TEPCO, judged that the amount of water in Fukushima is very large, so it is impossible to apply the method. Water will evaporate, condense and reappear in the form of rainwater.

The catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 seriously affected the Fukushima nuclear power plant, leading to the leak of three nuclear reactors.