After the Fukushima nuclear accident caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, the president of Tokyo Electric Power Company of Japan went to Fukushima Prefecture every year and delivered a New Year's speech. This year, TEPCO President Tomaki Kobayakawa emphasized the importance of restoring regional trust in his speech. Kobayakawa also said that the core work of decommissioning the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant reactor, that is, the removal of nuclear fuel fragments from the spent reactor, will be fully launched. Therefore, "this year will be the year to fulfill our responsibilities to the Fukushima region. We need to respond more cautiously in terms of safety to avoid losing the trust of local society."
The sudden strong earthquake in Japan's Noto Peninsula has once again drawn attention to the safety of the seven nuclear power plants located in the coastal area, including Japan's largest nuclear power plant under the jurisdiction of TEPCO, the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Niigata Prefecture. According to Xinhua News Agency, Japan's Hokuriku Electric Power Company admitted on the 5th that in the Noto Peninsula earthquake, the damage to the Shiga Nuclear Power Plant in Ishikawa Prefecture was more serious than previously announced, and the amount of oil leakage from related equipment was more than five times that originally announced.
On April 13, 2021, the Japanese government announced that the nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant would be discharged into the sea after being treated with the multi-nuclide removal equipment (ALPS). In July 2022, Japan's Atomic Energy Regulatory Commission officially approved the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant's "discharge into the sea" plan. On August 24, 2023, Japan officially started the process of "discharging sewage into the sea". This decision of the Japanese government immediately triggered strong opposition in Japan and abroad.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning once said at a regular press conference that the Fukushima nuclear accident was the highest-level nuclear accident in the world, causing the leakage of a large amount of radioactive material and having a huge impact on the marine environment and human health. Japan should do a good job in decommissioning nuclear facilities and disposing of nuclear contaminated water after the accident to ensure absolute safety.
TEPCO decided at the end of July 2019 to abandon all reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which was out of service after the Great East Japan Earthquake. All nuclear power plants in Fukushima Prefecture have been determined to be abandoned. How to deal with and scrap these contaminated nuclear power plants is a thorny challenge for both TEPCO and the Japanese government. Cai Minggang, a professor at the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences at Xiamen University, once told China Business News that the disposal measures for equipment that have experienced accidents at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant are not the same thing as normal equipment with complete protective measures, reasonable emergency measures and other procedures under normal working conditions; in terms of treatment level alone, they are not comparable. "Otherwise, there would not be a large accumulation of nuclear sewage."
According to CCTV News, data from TEPCO shows that the removal of nuclear fuel fragments from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and the demolition of surrounding buildings will generate 450,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste. The scrapping work in the next 10 years will also generate 805,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste. As far as the scrapping of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is concerned, TEPCO's estimate at the end of 2019 showed that the dismantling work of all four nuclear reactors will take more than 40 years.
In December last year, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry stated that it would increase the total amount of compensation, pollution cleanup and other processing costs caused by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in Japan from the original 21.5 trillion yen to 23.4 trillion yen. It is worth noting that the amount of compensation has continued to increase in recent years, from the original 6 trillion yen in 2011 to 11 trillion yen in 2013 and 21.5 trillion yen in 2016. Of the 21.5 trillion yen in compensation, 8 trillion yen is used for waste dumps, 7.9 trillion yen is used for compensation, 4 trillion yen is used for pollution cleanup, and 1.6 trillion yen is used for temporary storage facilities. The increase in the amount is mainly due to adjustments in the compensation policy, which increases the amount of compensation for fishery practitioners due to the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea.
Since the official launch of the "discharging sewage into the sea" process on August 24 last year, TEPCO has completed three batches of nuclear sewage discharge, with a total cumulative discharge of 23,000 tons. Data on TEPCO’s website shows that as of December 21, 2023, the nuclear sewage stored at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has accounted for 97% of the total storage volume, reaching 1.3257 million cubic meters, of which 32% has been treated by ALPS and 68% is to be treated. According to TEPCO’s plan, the entire emissions process will last for 30 years.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning once said that the discharge of Japan's Fukushima nuclear contaminated water into the sea is related to human health, the global marine environment, and international public interests. Japan should take seriously the reasonable concerns at home and abroad and properly handle them in a responsible and constructive manner. Japan should respond to the concerns of the international community with a serious attitude, dispose of nuclear-contaminated water in a responsible manner, fully cooperate in establishing a long-term and effective international monitoring arrangement with the substantial participation of Japan's neighboring countries and other stakeholders, and prevent irreparable consequences from the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea.
In addition, as corporate operations deteriorate due to rising fuel costs, TEPCO has cited the previously mentioned restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant as a pillar of profit improvement this year. Just at the end of last year, the ban on the operation of the nuclear power plant was lifted. To officially restart, it still needs to be recognized by the local people and the government.
However, a strong earthquake at the beginning of the new year caused the fuel pool of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant to overflow. Although TEPCO previously emphasized that the overflowing water did not have a radioactive impact on the outside world and the fuel cooling situation was not abnormal, it may also disrupt the plan to restart the nuclear power plant.