Disasters & Accidents

Greenpeace says Fukushima dismantling, dumping not credible

Tokyo, Mar 3 (EFE).- Greenpeace denounced Thursday the lack of clarity and “inconsistencies” in the dismantling project of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, calling it a “fantasy” and saying the discharge of the water contaminated and treated to the ocean “does not solve the crisis.

Eleven years after the earthquake and tsunami that led to one of the worst nuclear accidents in history, the environmental organization makes a new call for attention after reviewing multiple documents from different government agencies and industry.

“Decommissioning is not possible in 40 years. The government should announce how much progress has been made. We are still in the shadows,” nuclear engineering expert Satoshi Sato told media.

“We will have to deal with treated water for decades,” said the expert in relation to the discharge of treated water into the Pacific Ocean, a plan planned for the year 2023 and that the International Atomic Energy Agency recently evaluated in a mission to the country.

The expert spoke about the serious problems detected in the dismantling plan. These included the poor condition of the buildings and their continuous degradation, the challenges and “not very credible” plans for extracting the fuel, the high levels of radiation present, the exposure of workers and the amount of highly radioactive waste generated.

The extraction of fuel from the four reactors of the Daiichi plant “will lead to more contaminated water and the water will be dumped back into the ocean. The current roadmap is minimizing the human and environmental impact and dumping is not the solution,” Greenpeace nuclear specialist Shaun Burnie said.

“TEPCO has no intention of dismantling the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the next 20 or 30 years. It is a fantasy and a much longer process than what they have explained to us,” said Burnie, stressing the need to inform affected communities in detail.

“The long-term consequences cannot be dismissed, because this transcends generations and this fact should be crucial when addressing the problem, and not the official agenda of the actors involved,” Burnie criticized the roadmap approved by the Japanese government. EFE

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