Japan starts discharging treated water into the sea : Regulation & Safety

The process for releasing the ALPS-treated water (Image: Tepco)Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) announced it has begun releasing treated water currently stored at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean. The operation - expected to take up to 30 years to complete - is being closely monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).At the Fukushima Daiichi site, contaminated water - in part used to cool melted nuclear fuel - is treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), which removes most of the radioactive contamination, with the exception of tritium. This treated water is currently stored in more than 1000 tanks on site. The total tank storage capacity amounts to about 1.37 million cubic metres and all the tanks are expected to reach full capacity in late 2023 or early 2024.Japan announced in April 2021 it planned to discharge treated water stored at the site into the sea over a period of about 30 years.On 22 August, the government announced that it had decided to request Tepco begin preparations for the release of ALPS-treated water into the sea.On the same day, the company transferred a very small amount of ALPS-treated water - about 1 cubic metre - to the dilution facility using the transfer facilities. This water was then diluted with about 1200 cubic metres of seawater and...
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Japan begins space capsule analysis hoping for asteroid sample

Scientists in Japan on Tuesday began analysing a capsule sent back to Earth by a probe, hoping to find asteroid material that could offer clues on how the universe was formed.Officials from Japan’s space agency said they were jubilant about the successful return of the capsule, which landed in Australia on Sunday after separating from the Hayabusa-2 probe.“I’m genuinely appreciative of the fact that the capsule came back, after a 5.24 billion-kilometre round-trip,” project manager Yuichi Tsuda told reporters.Scientists hope it will yield up to 0.1 grams of material collected from the asteroid Ryugu some 300 million kilometres from Earth — though they won’t know for sure until they look inside.“I’m really looking forward to seeing (the samples) with my own eyes,” Tsuda said.But that isn’t expected to happen before at least next week, with a series of steps required first to ensure the material is not contaminated.For now, the capsule is “in a secure location” at a space centre in Sagamihara, south of Tokyo, agency director general Hitoshi Kuninaka said.“Now we move to the matter-analysis phase,” he said. The samples — collected last year — are hoped to include both surface dust and pristine material stirred up when Hayabusa-2 fired an “impactor” into Ryugu.Scientists hope they can shed light on how the formation of the universe unfolded,...
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