The clean - up of the Fukushima atomic power station is heading towards a major vault .
Within just three years , the projection will run out of space to contain its ever - increase stores of radioactive water . As account by Japanese newspaperAsahi Shimbun , authorities are now left skin to experience what to do with the water build - up before it ’s too late .
After being struck by an earthquake and a 15 - meter ( 49 - foot ) tsunami in 2011 , three reactors at the Fukushima Dai - ichi atomic major power plant life in northeastern Japan get catastrophic meltdown , in what became the secondly - most severe nuclear disaster since the1986 Chernobyl event . While it ’s now estimated that up to 96 per centum of the magnate plant can be safely accessed without protective clothing , it ’s expected to take another 30 to 40 year to decontaminate moved areas and complete the decommissioning of the works .
As part of this on-going clear up , around 1,000 specialised tanks were built to store thecolossal quantity of waterthat deluge in from the tsunami wave or were used to cool the liquid reactors . Some of the water has been treated through the removal of cesium , although much of it remains radioactive due to the presence of tritium , a relatively harmless isotope of H that ’s baffling to separate from water .
There ’s presently over 1.15 million tons of this radioactive water being stored at the facility in 960 tanks and it ’s continuing to accumulate at a rate of about 150 loads a twenty-four hours , think the tanks could reach full capacity by the summer of 2022 .
So , what next ? Japanese authorities and Tokyo Electric Power Co.(TEPCO ) , who runs the plant and are leadingthe clean - up physical process , met last week to discuss the fewoptions on the table . Theirpanelbrought forward a small handful ofstrategies , including the evaporation of the water supply , shoot it late underground , or the construction of more long - term storehouse tankful .
“ When we talk about Fukushima ’s reconstruction , the interrogative sentence is if we should prioritize the decommissioning at the expense of Fukushima people ’s lives , ” Naoya Sekiya , prof of disaster social science at the University of Tokyo , told theAssociated Press . “ The issue is not just about science . ”
