TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A team of experts from Taiwan’s Atomic Energy Council (AEC) arrived in Japan on Wednesday (March 23) to learn about the country’s plan to release treated radioactive wastewater at the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.
The five-day trip follows the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) visit to the site last month. Japan is set to discharge more than a million tons of wastewater into the Pacific in the spring of 2023.
The eight-member task force from Taiwan will exchange opinions with Japanese experts on Thursday (March 24) about technical issues before traveling to the wrecked nuclear plant on Friday (March 25), per CNA. They will observe first-hand how Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) officials manage the contaminated water, which contains tritium, an isotope inseparable from the water even after further dilution.
The AEC has rebutted the opposition KMT’s claim that the special section about the Fukushima wastewater added to its website was designed to help downplay the risk of the release plan. The section was set up to provide relevant information on Taiwan’s monitoring efforts and the IAEA’s investigation into the work, not for whitewashing purposes, it said.
The IAEA has taken samples of the treated water for analysis and is expected to produce a report in two months.
Men in hazmat suits work inside a facility with equipment to remove radioactive materials from contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, March 3, 2022. (AP photo)
