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Japan will start releasing treated radioactive water from the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, despite opposition from its neighbours. The decision comes weeks after the UN’s nuclear watchdog approved the plan. Some 1.34 million tonnes of water – enough to fill 500 Olympic-size pools – have accumulated since the 2011 tsunami destroyed the plant. The water will be released over 30 years after being filtered and diluted. Authorities will request for the plant’s operator to “promptly prepare” for the disposal to start on 24 August if weather and sea conditions are appropriate, Japan’s Prime Minister...

The leader of the Justice Party, a South Korean formation in the opposition, began a hunger strike Monday in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul to protest Tokyo’s plan to dump water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant at sea. Lee Jeong-mi, leader of liberal bloc, told the media in front of the embassy that she took the decision because the government of conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol “remains in silence at a time when the water spill is imminent.” “We cannot bear to see our government accept the lies of the Japanese government,” said Lee, who accused Yoon and...

Radiation in the water will be diluted to almost-background levels, but some researchers are not sure this will be sufficient to mitigate the risks.Despite concerns from several nations and international groups, Japan is pressing ahead with plans to release water contaminated by the 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. Starting sometime this year and continuing for the next 30 years, Japan will slowly release treated water stored in tanks at the site into the ocean through a pipeline extending one kilometre from the coast. But just how safe is the water to the...

Images captured by a robotic probe inside one of the three melted reactors at Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant showed exposed steel bars in the main supporting structure and parts of its thick external concrete wall missing, triggering concerns about its earthquake resistance in case of another major disaster. An underwater remotely operated vehicle named ROV-A2 was sent inside the Unit 1 pedestal, a supporting structure right under the core. It came back with images seen for the first time since an earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant 12 years ago. The area inside the pedestal is where traces...

The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency has said he would allow his own children to drink and bathe in public water near the site of a train derailment and chemical spill in Ohio, so long as it had been tested and deemed safe by officials. EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited the site of the East Palestine derailment on Thursday, seeking to reassure skeptical residents that the water is fit for drinking and the air is safe to breathe. Asked if he would allow his own children to drink the water, Regan said, as long as it has been...

Japan’s government on Feb. 10 adopted a policy seeking to maximize the use of nuclear power in a bid to stabilize the country’s energy supply amid soaring energy costs fueled by the prolonged war in Ukraine.The new policy marks a major turnaround from Japan’s previous policy of reducing its reliance on nuclear energy and shutting down most of its nuclear reactors in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.Under the new policy, the government will set up a final disposal site for the proper disposal of radioactive waste generated during nuclear energy production. It also calls for the development of...

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A planned discharge of treated water from the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture into the sea will start around this spring or summer, some two years after a decision on its release was made, the Japanese government said Friday. A revised policy on the disposal of the treated water containing low-level concentrations of tritium as well as financial support for affected fishing communities was endorsed during a meeting of relevant Cabinet ministers on Friday. "We would like to thoroughly explain these measures to fishing communities and other relevant parties while listening to their concerns," Chief...

Japan has announced a major U-turn in its energy policy after the Asian nation adopted a new policy promoting greater use of nuclear energy, effectively ending an 11-year prohibition and phase-out that was triggered by the Fukushima disaster. Under the new policy, Japan will maximize the use of existing nuclear reactors by restarting as many as possible, prolong the operating life of old reactors beyond their 60-year limit and also develop next-generation reactors to replace them.The proposed legislation marks a complete reversal of the nuclear safety measures the country adopted after a powerful tsunami hit caused three of its six...

The town of Futaba, previously deemed off-limits, is the last of 11 districts to lift its evacuation order, a spokesman for the town's municipal office told CNN. On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan's east coast, triggering a tsunami that caused a nuclear meltdown at the power plant and a major release of radioactive material. It was the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. More than 300,000 people living near the nuclear plant were forced to evacuate temporarily; thousands more did so voluntarily. Once-bustling communities were turned into ghost towns. In the years since, large-scale...

As part of the clean-operations at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan, engineers sent down a remotely operated submarine into the bowels of Unit 1 on February 9, according to plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO). When the catastrophe struck, Units 1, 2, and 3 were busy working and had fuel in their reactors. The tsunami knocked down the power sources and cooling systems used to control the temperature of the fuel, which resulted in a colossal amount of heat to melt the fuel and the reactor. Eventually, this melting slurry of radioactive fuel and equipment...

A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Japan on Monday to review a plan to release treated radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean. Japan hoped the visit would help it push through the plan, which is opposed by the local fishing industry and neighboring countries. The wastewater has been kept in massive tanks since the plant went into meltdown in 2011, and storage space is running out. The IAEA team would evaluate the safety and radiation effects on humans and the sea.

Germany, as we well know with its Russian gas capers, is a highly industrialized society in need of a lot of energy. Fine and dandy. But how they get it presents increasingly bad options. They got rid of their nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown after a big earthquake in Japan, (despite Germany not being in a quake zone), driving themselves to dependency on foreign suppliers. That's presented problems for them what with Russia filling that role, so their other recourse has been the one Joe Biden is touting for America: Green energy -- like...

TOKYO, Dec 21 (Reuters) - The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant intends to build an underwater tunnel to release water from the plant into the sea, it said on Tuesday, as part of a project to treat and dispose of contaminated water.... ...Pumps would move the treated water from the tanks to the seashore and through a seabed tunnel to release it at a depth of 12 metres (40 ft), and about 1 km out at sea....

A rash of seismic activity across an arc of southern Japan in recent weeks – including the most powerful earthquake to strike Tokyo in a decade – has triggered renewed concern that a major natural disaster may be imminent, potentially the much-feared rupture of the Nankai Trough. Experts and government agencies have called for calm and insist there are no signs of an impending disaster to rival the March 2011 magnitude-9 quake, a tremor that unleashed a towering tsunami and caused devastation across much of northeast Japan. The Great East Japan Earthquake caused nearly 20,000 deaths and the meltdown of...

The 1986 reactor explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant forced a region-wide evacuation, sending radioactive fallout billowing across Europe. While the explosion itself killed 31 people, millions were exposed to dangerous radiation levels, and estimates of the final death toll from long-term health problems are as high as 200,000. Hoping to better understand the effect of radiation exposure from the disaster, a team of scientists at the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Maryland studied 130 children born to 105 mother-father pairs, where at least one parent had been exposed to gonadal -- reproductive gland -- radiation, having worked...

Japan's government announced on Tuesday (April 13) that it will dump more than a million tons of contaminated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, beginning in two years. Roughly 1.25 million tons (1.13 million metric tons) of water have accumulated around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan since 2011, after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami devastated the region. The twin disasters killed nearly 20,000 people, according to NPR, and caused meltdowns in three of the plant's six reactors, triggering the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

The Japanese government decided on Tuesday to release treated radioactive water accumulating at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea, having assessed there will be no negative impact on human health or the environment despite concerns from local fishermen and neighbouring countries. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga met members of his Cabinet including industry minister Hiroshi Kajiyama to formalise the decision, which comes a decade after a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a triple meltdown in March 2011. The decision came despite China saying it had “deep concerns” over the plan. On Monday China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao...

Cooling water levels have fallen in two reactors at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant since a powerful earthquake hit the area last weekend, indicating possible additional damage, its operator said on Friday (Feb 19). New damage could further complicate the plant’s already difficult decommissioning process, which is expected to take decades. Tokyo Electric Power spokesman Keisuke Matsuo said the drop in water levels in the Unit 1 and 3 reactors indicates that the existing damage to their primary containment chambers was worsened by Saturday's magnitude 7.3 quake, allowing more water to leak. The leaked water is believed to have remained...

I'm thinking: maybe we shouldn't put another nuclear power plant in Fukishima again???

The Japanese government is planning on releasing millions of gallons of contaminated water into the ocean starting in 2022, according to international news reports. “170 tons of new radioactive wastewater is generated each day [at Fukushima] and is stored in 1,000 specially designed tanks,” Forbes reports. The government would begin to release the contaminated water into the ocean when the tanks being used to store it reach capacity. The final decision about whether or not to implement the plan is expected to be announced by November. The water is being treated to “reduce radioactivity,