Ten years later, after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, radioactive water still exists in Japan. An important press conference is scheduled for today in Japan. It seems that the only solution is to dump this water into the sea, which environmental organizations strongly oppose. The International Atomic Energy Agency will respond to the plans today.
Although all of this sounds very drastic, the hydration effect and its consequences via food consumption ultimately won’t be so bad, according to Jouvert de Wey, a radiation protection consultant at the Nuclear Research and Consulting Group (NRG). At NRG, we’ve been looking at the impact of this dumping in an international context for some time now. We have done this based on all the available information that has been released, and it seems that the consequences will be limited.
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According to De With, it’s the way the water is shed. It all comes down to the fact that there is a regulation on how this water should be discharged under what conditions. In this way the presence of significant risks is prevented.
drop by drop
De With refers to drop by drop of the water that is still there. “The water at the site is the result of all the cooling, of course, so it’s already filtered out to some extent. This has already negated some of the activity. It’s also been around for a number of years, so a number of the radionuclides with short half-lives have already faded away and thus Disappeared If you gradually drain the rest into the ocean over several years, its effect will be minimal.
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International Atomic Energy Agency
Thus, phasing out the remaining radioactive fluid feels like a storm in a glass of (nuclear) water, but De With is not yet afraid to say whether the IAEA will simply agree. Since 2011, the Atomic Society has been constantly looking over the shoulders of the Japanese government and the operator of the TEPCO plant to see what they intend to do about it. The intention to discharge radioactive water has already been discussed very intensively with the Atomic Society. International expert teams have also been set up to see if what Japan intends to do is really compatible with our international protection framework.
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