Ye Qizhen, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, speaks at a forum on China's nuclear power development held in Beijing on July 10, 2024. Photo: Fan Anqi/GT

Chinese nuclear power industry insiders told the Global Times at an event in Beijing on Wednesday that China offered Japan a technology specifically for tritium wastewater treatment for their crippled Fukushima Daiichi complex, but due to the high costs, Japan eventually chose what was the simplest and cheapest method for them - to discharge it into the sea.

At a forum on China's nuclear power development on Wednesday, Ye Qizhen, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said China is currently working on a technology to separate and treat high-concentration tritium waste specifically, ensuring it does not mix with other wastewater. 

For the very small remaining amount of highly concentrated tritium waste that cannot be treated, China will store it through glass encapsulation, triple-engineered barriers, and burial at depths of 400-500 meters underground, strictly isolated from the biosphere, as it naturally decays by half in about 12.5 years, Ye said. 

Another approach is to further concentrate tritium for potential reuse in fusion reactor development and medical research, particularly for cancer treatment, the expert told the Global Times.

"We had previously proposed a treatment plan for tritium to the Japanese side," Ye said, "However, as their wastewater involves seawater intake, it resulted in millions of tons of contaminated water, and the cost for such a solution was more than what they were willing to cover. Therefore, they ultimately went for the simplest solution - discharging it into the sea regardless of pollution," Ye noted.  

In response to foreign media hype, which said that in 2022, Chinese nuclear power plants released wastewater containing tritium at levels up to nine times higher than the amount expected to be found in the planned annual discharge from Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi complex, Ye said the two are "fundamentally different." 

Fukushima's wastewater is contaminated with nuclear waste containing fission products, which is uncontrollable. By contrast, China's wastewater was properly treated, and contains encapsulated fission products. While there may still be some radioactive materials emitted, they have also met regulatory standards and are short-lived.

"This is just how they [Japan] try to confuse concepts, put out misleading information, and divert attention," Ye said. 

As for the International Atomic Energy Agency's assessment of Fukushima's contaminated water, Ye said the problem lies in the fact that the assessments are mostly based on materials provided by TEPCO, the operator of the plant, without external verification. Therefore, Ye called for international collaboration on third-party supervision so as to generate a comprehensive and objective assessment of the waste.