Tens of Mill Bequerels per Liter Water Floods Fukushima Waste Processing Facility

Tens of Mill Bequerels per Liter Water Floods Fukushima Waste Processing Facility

nsnbc : TEPCO workers mistakenly turned on a pump, flooding the basements of the waste-processing facility at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi NPP with 200 tons of highly radioactive water, previously used to cool crippled reactors at the site. The “mistake” happened on the day the Abe administration announced that it ends Japan’s moratorium on nuclear energy, prompting the question why it took TEPCO so long to announce the mistake that could not have come at a more convenient time.

FukushimaFukushima Daiichi operator TEPCO announced on April 14 that 200 tons of highly radioactive contaminated water have flooded the basements of buildings at the crippled nuclear power plant (NPP). While TEPCO officials claimed that there were no channels through which the contaminated water could leak out of the basements, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has ordered TEPCO to collect the water as soon as possible and to closely monitor the situation.

The water is highly contaminated because it was previously used to cool the crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi NPP, said TEPCO officials. The water has, in other words, most likely, been in direct contact with the melting reactor cores during the triple meltdown at the facility, said a German nuclear engineer who is functioning as consultant for nsnbc on nuclear issues.
The tank farm keeps growing as water decontamination equipment continues to fai.

The tank farm keeps growing as water decontamination equipment continues to fai.

TEPCO admitted that the water contains tens of millions of bequerels per liter of radioactive cesium because it has not yet been purified to remove the radioactive materials. That said, TEPCO continues having problems with the filter system that is supposed to de-contaminate the radioactive water that is being stored in an ever growing number of tanks which could rupture during earthquakes.

Making matters worse is that the water has poured into the basements of a complex of buildings, which house the central waste processing facilities. With the highly ionizing waste water underneath the waste processing facilities, there is a risk that the waste processing has to be discontinued as long as the acute situation persists.

TEPCO reports that workers, on April 10, noticed that water-levels in buildings from which they planned to pump out water began to rise instead of to fall. It was only on April 12, that workers discovered that four pumps that should have been turned off were in operation.

Motegi_Toshimitsu_Japan_energyThe pumps in question are reverse flow pumps, used for redirecting water in the case that problems arise. The pumps were stopped at 05. p.m. on April 13, reports TEPCO, but by then some 200 tons of contaminated water had flooded the basement floors.

It is noteworthy that the announcement by Japan’s Trade and Energy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, that Japan will restart its nuclear power plants, was made on Friday, 10 April, the day that the “mistake” was made. Considering TEPCO’s, the NRA’s and the Abe administration’s track record of cover-up, the question why it took TEPCO days to discover the obvious, and even longer to inform the public is not exactly unjustified.

Ch/L – nsnbc 14.04.2014

http://nsnbc.me/2014/04/14/tens-of-mill-bequerels-per-liter-water-floods-fukushima-waste-processing-facility/

And they are trying to restart their nuclear energy?