March 4 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co. said recently that it is difficult to judge the state of the nuclear reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after it is scrapped, saying that the future will be decided after discussions with the central and local governments.

According to the report, TEPCO's top executive of the reactor scrapping promotion department at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Akira Ono, said in an interview that "it is difficult to make a judgment at this stage" about the state of the nuclear reactors after scrapping.

The reactor scrapping schedule says that the furnace will be completed 30-40 years after the Fukushima nuclear accident, but there is no indication of the final state, such as whether it will be leveled to an empty site, and it is not clear whether all the fuel debris will be removed and the plant dismantled. Ono said, "It is very important to collect information now."

Japanese fishermen and others continue to oppose the discharge of nuclear effluent into the sea, and Ono stressed that "even if there is equipment, whether it is discharged or not is another issue. In order to gain everyone's understanding, we will fulfill our responsibility to explain." The Fukushima nuclear effluent discharge plan is currently under review by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Commission, and TEPCO will start construction of the equipment after approval, with the aim of starting the discharge in the spring of 2023.

The Japanese government decided in April 2021 to discharge Fukushima nuclear effluent into the sea after filtering and diluting it. The move was strongly opposed by local residents as well as the National Federation of Fisheries Unions of Japan and the international community.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)