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Since August 24, 2023, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) of Japan officially started the discharge of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, and it has been one year since then.

On August 26, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that the amount of treated water at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant had only decreased by about 2% compared to before the discharge.

China opposes the discharge of nuclear wastewater and has imposed an embargo on Japanese seafood, causing losses to domestic seafood processing and other related companies. Tokyo Electric Power Company currently estimates that the amount of compensation required is 75.3 billion yen, and the expansion of the impact is worrying.

Due to the nuclear power plant accident caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the cores of Units 1 to 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melted down and the nuclear fuel melted. It still remains in the reactor in the form of fragments, and its radiation level is extremely high. Cooling water and rainwater flowed into the plant, producing contaminated water. Although it has decreased from the average of 540 tons per day 10 years ago, it is still around 80 tons now.

The Japanese government and Tepco used large amounts of seawater to dilute the treated water, reducing the concentration of tritium per liter to less than 1/40 of the national safety standard (1,500 becquerels) before discharging it into the sea. The Nikkei report claimed that no abnormalities were found in measurements over the past year.

The impact continues to expand

Although the Japanese government emphasizes the safety of treated water, China continues to stop importing Japanese aquatic products, and the impact is expanding to fishery-related areas.

Tepco has provided a total of 75.3 billion yen in compensation by June 2024. As of August 14, about 32 billion yen had been paid. As the embargo continues, the amount of compensation is expected to increase in the future.

Fisheries officials in Miyagi Prefecture are concerned that some processing companies have not received enough compensation to make a living. In addition, Tepco will have to bear more than 100 billion yen in additional costs for the maintenance of water discharge equipment and the removal of emptied water tanks.

As of July, a total of 55,000 tons of treated water has been discharged into the ocean. Another 7,800 tons will be discharged by August 25. As of August 15, there were 1.31 million tons left in the tanks. The amount of contaminated water is still increasing, and the amount reduced in the past year is only equivalent to 32 tanks, totaling about 32,800 tons. Tokyo Electric Power will start dismantling the empty tanks for the first time in January 2025.

In addition to the economic losses, the decommissioning of the Fukushima nuclear power plant also faces many difficulties. Recently, the No. 2 unit was interrupted due to an equipment installation error when trying to recover the reactor debris, and the restart time has not yet been determined. This series of problems makes the goal of completing the decommissioning work in 2051 seem even more out of reach, and there is no end in sight for the water treatment problem.