Tokyo Electric Power Company has announced plans for the construction of an undersea tunnel, about 1 kilometre in length, for the discharge of treated water currently stored at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The tunnel will release the tritiated water into an area of the ocean away from the plant but where no fishing rights are in place.

Details have been agreed of support that the International Atomic Energy Agency will give to Japan during the release of tritiated water from the Fukushima Daiichi site. IAEA's first official visit will be in September, ahead of the release of the water, which will be diluted to drinking-water quality.

Swiss drone developer Flyability has launched an indoor drone equipped with a radiation sensor specifically for conducting inspections at nuclear facilities. The Elios 2 RAD is designed to help maintain low radiation exposure levels to nuclear facility workers. It does this both by taking the place of personnel where possible for visual and radiation data collection, and by providing high-quality data for planning interventions that do require exposure, so that it can be kept to a minimum.

Japanese laboratories monitoring radionuclides in seawater, marine sediment and fish near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant continue to produce reliable data, according to a new International Atomic Energy Agency report. Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Company plans to rear fish in treated radioactive water from the plant to demonstrate its safety. A University of Georgia study has shown that radioactive contamination in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone can be measured through its resident snakes.

The scope of technical assistance the International Atomic Energy Agency will provide in monitoring and reviewing the planned discharge of treated water stored at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site has been agreed. The Terms of Reference defining the objective of the IAEA's assistance, how it will be implemented and its organisational arrangements were signed yesterday by the agency and the Japanese government.

A new technology using drones is set to be deployed for the remote monitoring of radiation measurements at former uranium mining and processing areas in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with gamma spectrometers have been developed by a German consortium in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Europe must take action to maintain the current level of medical radioisotopes supply, according to a joint position paper from Foratom, the European nuclear trade body, and Nuclear Medicine Europe, which represents pharmaceutical and imaging equipment companies in the field of nuclear medicine. They say the European Union should promote new research reactor capacity along with innovation in the sector and the design modification of the current fleet.

SHINE Medical Technologies of the USA has selected the municipality of Veendam in the province of Groningen, the Netherlands, as the location of its European medical isotope production facility. The company is currently building its first production facility, using its transformational non-reactor technology, in Janesville, Wisconsin.

Technology that enables drones to be used to carry out radiological measurements has been developed by Belgium's Nuclear Research Centre and the Belgian aeronautical firm Sabca. The measuring equipment was officially attached to a drone yesterday, in the presence of the country's Minister of the Interior, Annelies Verlinden.

The Japanese government today announced its formal decision that the treated water stored at the Fukushima Daiichi site will be discharged into the sea. Tokyo Electric Power Company is expected to start discharging the mildly-radioactive water in 2023 in line with international standards and regulations.

Increased incidences of radiation-related health effects among those exposed from the March 2011 accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are unlikely to be discernible, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation said in a new report today. The report's major findings and conclusions broadly confirm those of UNSCEAR's 2013 report on the accident.

Ongoing support to developing countries is essential to ensure adequate cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a panel discussion held on 4 February to mark World Cancer Day. Panelists called for more and urgent action to address the wide gap in diagnosis and therapy access between developed and developing countries.