[Kyodo News, June 28]Tokyo Electric Power Company announced on the 27th that it will start preparations to dismantle the empty tanks after the treatment water of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was discharged into the sea in July. After obtaining approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority, 12 tanks will be dismantled as early as January next year. There are thousands of tanks in total, and this will be the first dismantling since the discharge of treated water began in August last year.

The preparation work includes pumping out the treated water remaining at the bottom of the tank and removing the surrounding pipes to avoid obstructing the removal work. The site after the tank is removed is planned to be used as the site for the facilities related to the removal of the melted nuclear fuel (fuel fragments) of Unit 3. The 9 tanks adjacent to the 12 tanks will also be removed in turn after being emptied, and a total of 21 tanks will be removed by the end of 2025.

In the face of opposition from fishermen to the discharge of treated water into the sea, the government believed that “if the current situation of the storage tanks occupying a large amount of land is not changed, it may have a great impact on the future decommissioning of the reactors”, so the basic policy was finalized in April 2021. Since the discharge into the sea started on August 24 last year, it has been discharged six times, totaling about 47,000 tons. (End)