Why Japan Is Releasing Fukushima Water Into the Sea: QuickTake

Japanese utility Tepco has started to release about 1.3 million cubic meters (343 million gallons) of treated radioactive water — enough to fill about 500 Olympic-size swimming pools — from the wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, part of its nearly $150 billion effort to clean up the worst atomic accident since Chernobyl. The decision was made because storage tanks at the site were forecast to be full as early as 2024, and space for building more is scarce. Scary as it sounds, discharges are common practice in the industry, and the plan has been ruled ...