Hundreds of tons of radioactively contaminated water leak from the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors every day. That water has to go somewhere and the operator of the plant is running out of places to store it. So the suggestion has been made that it be dumped in the sea.
At the scene of the Fukushima nuclear disaster they can’t clean anything without getting something else dirty.
The plant’s operator TEPCO has a decontamination system at Fukushima called ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System). It takes the contaminated water and filters out most of the radioactivity except for tritium. This “tritiated” water is then stored in tanks.
The problem is that ALPS hasn’t been the most reliable of systems at Fukushima. Of the three systems in use, two had to be shut down for repairs earlier this year when it was found they were being corroded by the very water they were supposed to decontaminate. Last week one of them was found to be leaking hydrochloric and was shut down again.
It’s estimated it will take at least seven years to partially decontaminate the water already being stored.
There are currently something like 1,000 storage tanks on the Fukushima site. Some of the tanks aren’t safe – they were built by illegally hired workers who didn’t do a great job. Some of them leak. A lot.
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