On August 7, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) will initiate the eighth batch of discharge of the ALPS treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS), which was affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011. The discharge will take 19 days to complete.
Monitoring has been conducted before, during, and after the timing of each discharge. And the monitoring before the eighth batch made public on August 5 confirmed that the ALPS treated water to be discharged in the eighth batch had met the regulatory standards for discharge. Prior to that, TEPCO had released the ALPS treated water for seven times from August 2023 . From a scientific standpoint, all of these seven discharges had been safely conducted.
On July 18, the IAEA published a report on its second review conducted by the IAEA Task Force in April after the start of the discharge of the ALPS treated water from FDNPS into the sea. The Task Force did not identify anything that is inconsistent with the requirements and confirmed that the equipment and facilities are installed and operated in a manner that is consistent with the Implementation Plan and the relevant international safety standards.
1. The seventh batch of discharge
TEPCO conducted the seventh batch of discharge from June 28 to July 16, 2024. Throughout the seventh batch, the concentration of nuclides, including tritium in the sea water, measured before, during, and after the discharge was far below the relevant standards, which indicates that the discharge was safe as planned.
1) The discharge of the ALPS treated water into the sea was conducted after dilution with seawater. As a result of this dilution process, each tritium concentration detected during the seventh batch of discharge was less than 276 Bq/L, far below the safety standard (1,500 Bq/L) set by the Government of Japan, let alone, much lower than the WHO Standards for Drinking Water (10,000 Bq/L).
2) Furthermore, each tritium concentration detected during and after the discharge off the coast of Fukushima prefecture has been less than 18 Bq/L, far below the safety standard (700 Bq/L) set by the Government of Japan.
3) Additionally, regarding nuclides other than tritium, "the sum of the ratios of the concentration of each nuclide to the regulatory concentration" was 0.18 which is well below the regulatory standard of 1 before the discharge into the sea water.
2. Publication of the IAEA report on the second review of ALPS treated water
On July 18, the IAEA published a report on its second review conducted by the IAEA Task Force in April after the start of the discharge of the ALPS treated water from FDNPS into the sea. The IAEA can reaffirm the fundamental conclusions of its report, including the following major conclusions;
1) The Task Force did not identify anything that is inconsistent with the requirements in the relevant safety review as outlined in the Comprehensive Report issued on July 4 last year.
2) The Task Force confirmed that the equipment and facilities are installed and operated in a manner that is consistent with the Implementation Plan and the relevant international safety standards.
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