Tritium Too Scarce to Detect in Sea Near Fukushima Nuclear Plant, Says TEPCO in First Monitoring Results

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:09 JST, August 25, 2023

Tritium in seawater within 3 kilometers of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was found to be too scarce to detect, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. said Friday.

The utility company took water samples from 10 locations within the range, and announced its first monitoring results a day after it began releasing treated water into the ocean.

The treated water is water that has been used to cool nuclear fuel that melted and hardened after the 2011 meltdown, and from which most radioactive materials other than tritium have been removed.

The company dilutes the treated water with a large amount of seawater to reduce the tritium concentration to less than 1/40th of Japan’s standard, or 1,500 becquerels per liter, and releases it from the end of an undersea tunnel about 1 km offshore from the plant.