General Economic news
(Update) Removal of Highly Radioactive Water Begins at Fukushima Plant
19 April 2011 01:25
Jiji Press English News Service
© 2011 Jiji Press, Ltd.
Fukushima, April 19 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. Tuesday morning started removing highly radioactive water from the basement of a reactor turbine building at a crippled nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan.
The operator of the plant in Fukushima Prefecture will move some 10,000 tons of the 25,000 tons of contaminated water to its nuclear waste disposal facility with a storage capacity of 30,000 tons.
The disposal facility will receive 480 tons per day from the No. 2 turbine building of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The company plans to finish the work by mid-May.
The amount moved is limited amid concerns that radioactive water may spill out of the disposal facility after a possible inflow of groundwater, company officials said.
The company is considering moving the remaining 15,000 tons to temporary tanks.
The removal of contaminated water is necessary to start work to restore cooling functions at the nuclear plant damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The operation is expected to lower the level of contaminated water in the building, but raises concerns that radioactive substances will become dry and eventually fly off. Equipment to remove the substances will be installed to address the concerns.
After the removal of contaminated water from the building is completed, the company will investigate how such water came and consider how to prevent such an inflow.
The company will reduce radiation levels in the water by June, introduce a water treatment system and start using the less-radioactive water to cool reactors in July.
Tokyo Electric is also setting up temporary tanks and preparing to use a vast floating structure in order to remove 42,500 tons of low-level radioactive water from the plant's No. 1 and No. 3 reactor buildings.
The floating structure, known as megafloat, has a storage capacity of 10,000 tons of water.