The 13th discharge of water into the ocean from the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant began in Japan

The 13th discharge of purified water from the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant into the ocean has begun in Japan. Tokyo Electric Power announced this in a statement on July 14.

The conducted studies of water samples confirmed its compliance with the criteria for discharge.

"In this regard, we plan to begin dumping the ALPS-treated water into the sea from July 14, 2025 and complete the discharge by August 1, 2025. The planned total volume of water discharge is about 7.8 thousand cubic meters, the planned volume of tritium discharge is about 2.0 trillion Bq," the document says.

It is specified that after dilution, the concentration of tritium in the contaminated water is about 340 Bq/liter. As noted in the organization, this is significantly below the regulatory concentration limit (60 thousand Bq/liter).

The samples also comply with the World Health Organization (WHO) standard for drinking water quality (10 thousand liters). Bq/litre) and the standard set by the Japanese government policy (1.5 thousand Bq/liter).

It is expected that seven discharges will be carried out during 2025, each of which will contain approximately 7.8 cubic meters. The total annual volume of water will thus amount to approximately 54.6 thousand cubic meters.

Japan began dumping radiation-free water from a nuclear power plant into the ocean in August 2023. The government of the country stated that it is safe for the environment, since the water as a whole is purified from radioactive substances and contains only an isotope of hydrogen, also known as tritium. According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, we are talking about the discharge of almost 1.5 million tons of radioactive water contaminated with tritium, carbon-14, potassium-40, strontium-90, iodine-129, as well as isotopes of caesium and plutonium.

On January 25, it became known that the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant plans to dump about 54.6 tons of purified water into the ocean in 2024. In addition, it is planned to explore the possibilities of eliminating fragments of molten nuclear fuel from the nuclear power plant.