New tactics adopted to fight Japan nuke crisis
Source: Agencies |
May 16, 2011, Monday
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JAPANESE officials are readying a new approach to cooling reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant after discovering an Olympic swimming pool-sized pond of radioactive water in the basement of a unit crippled by the March earthquake and tsunami.
The discovery has forced officials to abandon their original plan to bring under control No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant as they focus on how to deal with the rising pool that some experts see as a threat to groundwater and the Pacific coast.
Despite the setback, Japanese nuclear safety officials and the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, will stick to a target of stabilizing the plant and bringing its reactors to a state of "cold shutdown" by January. At that point, the fuel at the core of the reactors would have dropped in temperature and no longer be capable of boiling the surrounding water.
"We want to preserve the timetable, but at the same time we're going to have to change our approach," Goshi Hosono, an adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, told a television talk show yesterday.
Some outside experts have questioned whether the initial timetable for Fukushima was too optimistic. "We would be cautious about saying the danger is over until the decontamination and cleanup of the site are well under way with no more leakage," Serge Gas, a spokesman for the Paris-based Nuclear Energy Agency, said.
On Saturday, a Tepco worker was able to peer into the basement of the No. 1 reactor and saw it had filled to almost half its 11-meter height - an estimated 3,000 tons, larger than the volume of an Olympic swimming pool.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said new steps were being readied to treat and store radioactive water at Fukushima. As a first step, a massive barge set out for Fukushima yesterday.
The 136-meter long "Mega-Float" had been used as an artificial island for fishing in Shizuoka, south of Tokyo. It will be turned into a floating storage site for water with low levels of radioactivity starting in June.
Among the major risks ahead, experts say, is the prospect of another hydrogen explosion like those believed to have destroyed parts of the buildings housing reactors No. 3 and No. 4. Nishiyama said that Japanese officials "don't believe it is in danger of immediate collapse," but want to shore up the No. 4 reactor with new steel girders and cement. TEPCO is scheduled to provide a progress update tomorrow.
(Reuters)
The discovery has forced officials to abandon their original plan to bring under control No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant as they focus on how to deal with the rising pool that some experts see as a threat to groundwater and the Pacific coast.
Despite the setback, Japanese nuclear safety officials and the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, will stick to a target of stabilizing the plant and bringing its reactors to a state of "cold shutdown" by January. At that point, the fuel at the core of the reactors would have dropped in temperature and no longer be capable of boiling the surrounding water.
"We want to preserve the timetable, but at the same time we're going to have to change our approach," Goshi Hosono, an adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, told a television talk show yesterday.
Some outside experts have questioned whether the initial timetable for Fukushima was too optimistic. "We would be cautious about saying the danger is over until the decontamination and cleanup of the site are well under way with no more leakage," Serge Gas, a spokesman for the Paris-based Nuclear Energy Agency, said.
On Saturday, a Tepco worker was able to peer into the basement of the No. 1 reactor and saw it had filled to almost half its 11-meter height - an estimated 3,000 tons, larger than the volume of an Olympic swimming pool.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said new steps were being readied to treat and store radioactive water at Fukushima. As a first step, a massive barge set out for Fukushima yesterday.
The 136-meter long "Mega-Float" had been used as an artificial island for fishing in Shizuoka, south of Tokyo. It will be turned into a floating storage site for water with low levels of radioactivity starting in June.
Among the major risks ahead, experts say, is the prospect of another hydrogen explosion like those believed to have destroyed parts of the buildings housing reactors No. 3 and No. 4. Nishiyama said that Japanese officials "don't believe it is in danger of immediate collapse," but want to shore up the No. 4 reactor with new steel girders and cement. TEPCO is scheduled to provide a progress update tomorrow.
(Reuters)
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