Nuke water a new threat

Okuma – Eight years after the Fukushima nuclear crisis, a fresh obstacle threatens to undermine the massive clean-up: 1 million tons of contaminated water must be stored, possibly for years, at the power plant.

Last year, Tokyo Electric Power Co said a system meant to purify contaminated water had failed to remove dangerous radioactive contaminants.

That means most of that water – stored in 1 000 tanks around the plant – will need to be reprocessed before it is released into the ocean, the most likely scenario for disposal.

Reprocessing could take nearly two years and divert personnel and energy from dismantling the tsunami-wrecked reactors – a project that will take up to 40 years.

It is unclear how much that would delay decommissioning. But any delay could be pricey: the government estimated in 2016 that the total cost of plant dismantling, decontamination and compensation, would amount to 21.5 trillion yen (R2.7 trillion), roughly 20% of the country’s annual budget.

Tepco is already running out of space to store treated water. And should another big quake strike, experts say tanks could crack, unleashing tainted liquid and washing highly radioactive debris into the ocean.

Fishermen struggling to win back the confidence of consumers are vehemently opposed to releasing reprocessed water – deemed largely harmless by Japan’s nuclear watchdog, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) – into the ocean.

“That would destroy what we’ve been building over the past eight years,” said Tetsu Nozaki, head of the Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Co-operative Associations. Last year’s catch was just 15% of pre-crisis levels, partly because of consumer reluctance to eat fish caught off Fukushima.

On a visit to the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi plant last month, huge cranes hovered over the four reactor buildings. Workers could be seen atop the No 3 building getting equipment ready to lift spent fuel rods out of a storage pool, a process that could start next month.

Fanning out across the plant’s property are enough tanks to fill 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Machines called Advanced Liquid Processing Systems, or ALPS, had treated the water inside them. – Reuters