Source: PDI
TOKYO—Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) will release almost 11,500 tons of water contaminated with low levels of radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station into the Pacific Ocean, as workers struggle to contain the increasing amounts of dangerous runoff resulting from efforts to cool the plant’s damaged reactors.
The runoff is now threatening to swamp the generators powering the cooling systems at two of the six reactors just recently brought under control, threatening to reverse what little progress the operator of the tsunami-hit complex has made in resolving the world’s worst nuclear crisis in decades.
“We have no choice but to release water tainted with radioactive materials into the ocean as a safety measure,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, the top government spokesperson, said in a televised press conference.
To prevent a catastrophic meltdown, TEPCO has been pumping hundreds of tons of water into four reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant to cool the nuclear fuel in the reactor core and in spent fuel storage pools.
While much of that water is evaporating, a significant amount has also been discovered in various parts of the nuclear complex whose internal cooling systems were knocked off by the 9-magnitude earthquake and 15-meter-high tsunami on March 11.
Workers have focused especially on trying to pump out highly radioactive water flooding the turbine building of Reactor No. 2, as well as stemming a direct leak of what is thought to be the same water into the ocean from a pit near the reactor.
But a facility at the plant designed to store and treat the radioactive water has already been filled with runoff in recent days, TEPCO said.
To free up space, about 10,000 tons of less seriously contaminated water will soon be released into the sea from the facility, Edano said.
An additional 1,500 tons of radioactive water will also be released from Reactors No. 5 and No. 6 after runoff was found flooding parts of their turbine buildings.
There are concerns that the water could damage the generators powering the cooling systems of the reactors, Edano said.
“Unfortunately, the water contains a certain amount of radiation,” he explained. “This is an unavoidable measure to prevent even higher amounts of radiation from reaching the sea.”
The water that will be released—the equivalent of more than four Olympic swimming pools—contains about 100 times legal limits of radiation, TEPCO said.
The radioactive water will not harm marine life or compromise seafood safety, a TEPCO spokesperson said.
Earlier on Monday, workers’ efforts to plug a leak of contaminated water from the nuclear plant by using sawdust, shredded newspaper and an absorbent powder appeared to be failing.
Water with high amounts of radioactive iodine has been leaking directly into the Pacific Ocean from a large crack discovered on Saturday in a 2-meter-deep pit next to the seawater intake pipes at Reactor No. 2.
After an unsuccessful attempt to flood the pit with concrete to stop the leak, workers on Sunday turned to trying to plug the apparent source of the water—an underground shaft thought to lead to the damaged reactor building—with more than 50 kilos of sawdust, three garbage bags full of shredded newspaper and about 4 kilos of a polymeric powder that officials said absorbed 50 times its volume of water.
Although the effort did not appear to be succeeding, workers would keep trying to stem the leak, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
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TOKYO—Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) will release almost 11,500 tons of water contaminated with low levels of radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station into the Pacific Ocean, as workers struggle to contain the increasing amounts of dangerous runoff resulting from efforts to cool the plant’s damaged reactors.
The runoff is now threatening to swamp the generators powering the cooling systems at two of the six reactors just recently brought under control, threatening to reverse what little progress the operator of the tsunami-hit complex has made in resolving the world’s worst nuclear crisis in decades.
“We have no choice but to release water tainted with radioactive materials into the ocean as a safety measure,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, the top government spokesperson, said in a televised press conference.
To prevent a catastrophic meltdown, TEPCO has been pumping hundreds of tons of water into four reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant to cool the nuclear fuel in the reactor core and in spent fuel storage pools.
While much of that water is evaporating, a significant amount has also been discovered in various parts of the nuclear complex whose internal cooling systems were knocked off by the 9-magnitude earthquake and 15-meter-high tsunami on March 11.
Workers have focused especially on trying to pump out highly radioactive water flooding the turbine building of Reactor No. 2, as well as stemming a direct leak of what is thought to be the same water into the ocean from a pit near the reactor.
But a facility at the plant designed to store and treat the radioactive water has already been filled with runoff in recent days, TEPCO said.
To free up space, about 10,000 tons of less seriously contaminated water will soon be released into the sea from the facility, Edano said.
An additional 1,500 tons of radioactive water will also be released from Reactors No. 5 and No. 6 after runoff was found flooding parts of their turbine buildings.
There are concerns that the water could damage the generators powering the cooling systems of the reactors, Edano said.
“Unfortunately, the water contains a certain amount of radiation,” he explained. “This is an unavoidable measure to prevent even higher amounts of radiation from reaching the sea.”
The water that will be released—the equivalent of more than four Olympic swimming pools—contains about 100 times legal limits of radiation, TEPCO said.
The radioactive water will not harm marine life or compromise seafood safety, a TEPCO spokesperson said.
Earlier on Monday, workers’ efforts to plug a leak of contaminated water from the nuclear plant by using sawdust, shredded newspaper and an absorbent powder appeared to be failing.
Water with high amounts of radioactive iodine has been leaking directly into the Pacific Ocean from a large crack discovered on Saturday in a 2-meter-deep pit next to the seawater intake pipes at Reactor No. 2.
After an unsuccessful attempt to flood the pit with concrete to stop the leak, workers on Sunday turned to trying to plug the apparent source of the water—an underground shaft thought to lead to the damaged reactor building—with more than 50 kilos of sawdust, three garbage bags full of shredded newspaper and about 4 kilos of a polymeric powder that officials said absorbed 50 times its volume of water.
Although the effort did not appear to be succeeding, workers would keep trying to stem the leak, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
