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Date 16.10.2020
The Japanese government plans to release treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea, according to reports published Friday.
The decision ends years of speculation over what to do with the more than one million tons of water that were treated after the power plant was severely damaged and suffered a meltdown due to the massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami in 2011.
... Tokyo Electric said it has removed most of the radioactivity from the water.
The filtration system was able to remove all but one of the radioactive isotopes that were found in the water. That final isotope is tritium, which cannot be removed by currently existing technology.
An expert panel said that tritium is only harmful in very large doses.
... South Korea, which bans seafood imports from the region, has also voiced its concern about the plan.
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Tritium: A radioactive isotope of hydrogen
Tritium is a beta-emitting radioactive isotope of hydrogen. Its nucleus consists of one proton and two neutrons, making it three times as heavy as a hydrogen nucleus (with its one proton) and one-and-a-half times as heavy as deuterium (which contains one proton and only one neutron).
The half-life of the unstable tritium nucleus is of 12.3 years, which is very short on the radioactive time-scale.
The World Health Organization, WHO) considers that the limit of acceptability of water containing tritium is 10,000 Becquereles per liter. This limit is protective. One should drink 2 liters of such water everuyday a day for a year to be exposed to a dose of 0.1 mSv per year equivalent to two weeks of natural radioactivity in France.
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