NHK Broadcasting reported that Tokyo Electric Power, the operator of Japan's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, is experimenting with breeding fish and shellfish in water diluted with contaminated water from the nuclear power plant.
According to a report by NHK, TEPCO announced that from next summer, fish, shellfish and seaweed, including flatfish, will be raised in contaminated water diluted with seawater.
At the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was generating contaminated water containing radioactive materials.
TEPCO purifies the contaminated water with a multi-nuclide removal facility and stores it in a storage tank at the site of the nuclear power plant. This contaminated water also contains tritium, a radioactive material that cannot be removed technically.
It is analyzed that TEPCO's experiment of breeding fish and shellfish by putting water diluted with contaminated water in a tank is intended to promote that there is no problem with safety even if it is released into the sea.
TEPCO plans to create a tank with seawater collected from the vicinity of the nuclear power plant to raise fish and shellfish together.
The Japanese government plans to dilute the contaminated water 400 to 500 times with seawater to reduce the tritium concentration to less than 1,500 becquerels per liter, which is 1/4 of the Japanese government standard, and then release it into the sea from the spring of 2023. .