Fukushima: commissioning planned Friday of a radioactive water treatment - A device for processing radioactive water must be put into service Friday at the Fukushima nuclear power plant (northeastern Japan), announced Thursday the operator, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO).
More than 100,000 tons of radioactive water are being stored in the central Fukushima Dai-Ichi (Fukushima 1). The cooling system broke down after the tsunami of March 11, causing the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
We had to inject water directly into the hearts of reactors 3 and 1.2 for cooling and prevent them from melting completely. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of contaminated water were common as well in galleries and basements of the plant, preventing technicians to restart the pumps for cooling and stabilizing the damaged reactor.
Some of the radioactive water leaked into the nearby Pacific Ocean, which has raised serious concerns regarding the contamination of the marine environment in a region where fishing is predominant.Leaks were finally sealed.
According to TEPCO, technicians conducted last Thursday to test the system for the treatment of water before commissioning scheduled for Friday. Tests conducted during the week helped to lower levels of radioactive cesium to a 10,000 th of their initial value, said the operator.
This decontamination system at a cost estimated at 53 billion yen (468.4 millon euros) is expected to handle 1,200 tons daily of water will be reused to cool the reactors, said a spokesman for TEPCO, Junichi Matsumoto.
The situation is still not stabilized in Fukushima, where TEPCO hopes to reach a "cold shutdown" of the reactors by January 2012.A schedule considered too optimistic by some experts, particularly because of high radiation and the amount of contaminated water.
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