The operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan said Tuesday steam had been spotted at the battered reactor for the second time in days, but levels of radioactivity had not risen. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
By Kate Seamons
More than two years after disaster struck the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, TEPCO has confirmed what pretty much everybody thought: radioactive water that leaked from the wrecked reactors is believed to have seeped into the underground water system, TEPCO officials finally admitted today at a regular news conference. Japan’s nuclear… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
The operator of Japan’s crippled nuclear plant says steam appears to be coming from a reactor building but radiation levels are steady.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. says workers Thursday are continuing to inject water into the No. 3 reactor to cool it. It says the reactor’s spent fuel pool is stable and the temperatures and pressure there aren’t changing significantly.
The No. 3 reactor was one of three at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant that suffered core meltdowns after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, leading to the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. Thousands of people have been unable to return to their homes near the plant because radiation levels are still high.
Most of Japan’s nuclear reactors remain shut down for safety checks following the disaster.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Steam has been spotted near a pool storing machinery removed from a crippled reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, its Japanese operator said Thursday.
“Steam has been seen around the fifth floor of the Reactor 3 building,” a TEPCO spokesman told AFP.
The roof of the building was blown off in a hydrogen explosion in the days after the March 2011 meltdowns.
“(The steam) was drifting thinly in the air and it’s not like a big column of steam is spurting up,” the spokesman said.
“Neither the temperature of the reactor nor readings at radiation monitoring posts have gone up.
“We do not believe an emergency situation is breaking out although we are still investigating what caused this.”
The pool is on the fifth floor and stores devices and equipment removed from the reactor.
The incident is the latest in a growing catalogue of mishaps at Fukushima that have cast doubt on TEPCO’s ability to fix the world’s worst atomic disaster in a generation.
A series of leaks of water contaminated with radiation have shaken confidence, as did a blackout caused by a rat that left cooling pools without power for more than a day.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The operator of Japan‘s crippled nuclear power plant says it has detected a fresh leak of radioactive water from one of the facility’s storage tanks.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. previously said that two of seven underground tanks at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had been leaking since Saturday.
TEPCO said Tuesday that the latest leak involves a tank that was being used to take water from one of the two that were leaking. It said none of the radioactive water was believed to have reached the ocean.
TEPCO has halted the transfer of water while looking for alternative storage.
The tanks are crucial to the management of contaminated water used to cool melted fuel rods at the plant’s reactors, which were damaged in March 2011 by an earthquake and tsunami.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
By Matt Cantor Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority was launched in September to keep a closer watch on the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and TEPCO‘s work there—but what was supposed to be a more independent, tougher regulator is simply running “the same old routine,” says an investigator. The NRA is just rubber-stamping TEPCO‘s… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
Experts who investigated Japan‘s nuclear crisis said Monday that a watchdog’s oversight of the crippled plant’s operator is still too lax, amid renewed public fear over a recent spate of safety problems.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has been plagued with glitches. A blackout last month, caused by a rat that short-circuited a switchboard, left the plant’s fuel storage pools without cooling for more than a day. Last Friday another cooling failure occurred, and hours later the operator reported a massive contaminated water leak from underground tanks.
The plant’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. revealed Saturday that up to 120 tons of highly contaminated water has escaped from a temporary underground tank, and a smaller amount from another tank. TEPCO said it believes the water hasn’t escaped into the ocean.
Regulators asked TEPCO on Monday to determine the cause and contain the problem quickly.
But the investigators said the Nuclear Regulation Authority is only rubber-stamping TEPCO‘s work at the plant that still runs on makeshift equipment.
“The public is extremely concerned, especially about the latest contaminated water leak. Many people worry if it’s a good idea to leave the plant up to TEPCO and the regulators,” said Shuya Nomura, a lawyer who served on the 10-member investigation panel commissioned by the parliament last year. “Regulators should demonstrate they can properly carry out a decades-long decommissioning process.”
Another investigator Mitsuhiko Tanaka, a nuclear engineer, said regulators routinely approved work plans submitted by the utility.
“They make a risk assessment, submit their plans to the government and they’re approved,” he said. “It’s the same old routine.”
Nine of the investigators testified at a lower house nuclear committee Monday for the first time since releasing their findings in July. The report called the March 2011 disaster “manmade,” and blamed regulator-operator collusion and botched crisis management. The NRA started in September as a more independent, tougher regulator.
TEPCO is moving tons of highly radioactive water from the temporary tanks to two similar ones nearby to minimize the leak. They are among seven underground tanks in different sizes with the same design.
TEPCO admitted Sunday it had dismissed earlier signs of water loss as a margin of error and waited until a spike in radiation levels …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The operator of Japan‘s crippled nuclear plant said Saturday that it was moving tons of highly radioactive water from a temporary storage tank to another after detecting signs of leakage, in a blow to the plant’s struggles with tight storage space.
Tokyo Electric power Co. said about 120 tons of the water are believed to have breached the tank’s inner linings, some of it possibly leaking into the soil. TEPCO is moving the water to a nearby tank at the Fukushima Dai-chi plant — a process that could take several days.
TEPCO detected the leak earlier in the week, when radiation levels spiked in water samples collected in between the inner linings of the tank. Radiation levels in water samples taken outside the tank also have increased, an indication of the water leak, TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono said.
Contaminated water at the plant, which went into multiple meltdowns after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan, has escaped into the sea several times during the crisis. Experts suspect there has been a continuous leak into the ocean through an underground water system, citing high levels of contamination among fish caught in waters just off the plant.
The leak is not only an immediate environmental concern, but threatens TEPCO‘s tight water management situation, Ono said.
The tank contains 13,000 tons of water, which is part of the water that was used to cool melted fuel at the plant’s reactors damaged in the twin disasters. So much water has been used that TEPCO is struggling to find storage space.
“The impact (from the leak) is not small, as the space is already tight,” Ono said. “We need to revise our water management plans.”
More than 270,000 tons of highly radioactive water is already stored in hundreds of gigantic tanks and another underground tank. They are visible even at the plant’s entrance and built around the compound, taking up more than 80 percent of its storage capacity.
TEPCO expects the amount to double over three years and plans to build hundreds of more tanks by mid-2015 to meet the demand.
Because of that, TEPCO is anxious to launch a new water treatment system that can purify the contaminated water. The machine, called ALPS, recently started a final test run after six months …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The utility that operates Japan‘s crippled nuclear plant says it deserves most of the blame for the crisis, in the company’s strongest remarks about its own shortcomings.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. acknowledged in a report Friday that it was not prepared to deal with the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged northeast Japan in March 2011, causing meltdowns at its Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. TEPCO had earlier maintained that the tsunami was mostly to blame for the crisis.
The report said that TEPCO‘s equipment and safety measures were insufficient and that the meltdowns should have been avoided. It also said TEPCO did not try to inform the public of risks and troubles at the plant.
The report is part of an internal investigation into the crisis that TEPCO launched last year.
Technicians have restored power to all cooling systems at the reactors of Japan‘s tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, the operating company said Wednesday after a blackout sparked a new crisis. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Four fuel storage pools at Japan‘s tsunami-damaged nuclear plant have been without fresh cooling water for nearly 20 hours due to a power outage, the plant’s operator said Tuesday, raising concerns about the fragility of a facility that still runs on makeshift equipment.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said that pool temperatures at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant were well within safe levels, and that pools would remain safe for at least four days without fresh cooling water. The utility said the reactors were unaffected and no other abnormalities were found.
TEPCO workers were scrambling to find the cause and repair the problems.
Workers were fixing the last of the three switchboards that they suspect as a possible cause of the problem and the utility was preparing a backup system in case the repairs didn’t fix the issue, TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono told reporters.
“If worse comes to worst, we have a backup water injection system,” said Ono.
Japan‘s March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami destroyed the plant’s power and cooling systems, causing three reactor cores to melt and fuel storage pools to overheat.
The current power outage is a major test for TEPCO to show if it has learned anything from the disaster. TEPCO, which has repeatedly faced cover-up scandals, was already slammed by local media Tuesday for waiting hours to disclose the blackout.
Ono acknowledged the plant was vulnerable.
“Fukushima Dai-ichi still runs on makeshift equipment, and we are trying to switch to something more permanent and dependable, which is more desirable,” he said. “Considering the equipment situation, we may be pushing a little too hard.”
Ono said the utility did not immediately try to switch to a backup cooling system because doing so without finding and fixing the cause could lead to a repeat of the problem. There is a backup cooling system but no backup outside power.
Regulators previously have raised concerns about the makeshift equipment and urged the plant to switch them to more permanent arrangement. The operator still has to remove melted, fatally radioactive fuel from reactors before fully decommissioning the plant, which officials say could take 40 years.
Yoshihide Suga, the chief government spokesman, sought to allay concerns.
“In a sense, we have put in place measures that leave no room for worry,” Suga told reporters in a regular press briefing.
The command center at the plant suffered a brief power outage before 7 p.m. Monday. Electricity was quickly restored to the command center but not to equipment pumping water into the fuel pools.
The temperature in the four pools had risen slightly, but was well below the utility’s target control temperature of 65 degrees Celsius, TEPCO said.
The operator of Japan‘s tsunami-damaged nuclear plant says a power failure has left three fuel storage pools without fresh cooling water for hours.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. says the blackout Monday night at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was brief at its command center but continued for hours at three of the seven fuel storage pools and a few other facilities.
TEPCO says the reactors were unaffected, and it plans to restore power to the pool cooling systems as soon as it determines the cause. It says the nuclear fuel stored in the pools will remain safe for at least four days without fresh cooling water.
The March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami destroyed the plant’s power and cooling systems, causing three reactor cores to melt and fuel storage pools to overheat. The plant is now using makeshift systems.
An independent panel says the operator of Japan‘s tsunami-crippled nuclear plant misinformed investigators and blocked inspection of key equipment last year, but that there was no cover-up attempt.
The case involves a parliamentary probe of equipment at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant’s Unit 1 reactor. A member of the investigative team said investigators had to scrap an inspection of the reactor’s emergency cooling equipment, accusing plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. of falsely saying the building was dark and dangerous.
After the incident caused an outcry from lawmakers and the public, TEPCO commissioned a panel to look into the matter.
On Wednesday, the panel attributed the problem to a TEPCO official’s misunderstanding of the situation at Unit 1, and said TEPCO wasn’t trying to hide the equipment from the inspectors.
Fukushima nuclear plant operator TEPCO on Monday slashed its outlook for the fiscal year to March, warning it expected to lose about $1.29 billion or almost three times an earlier estimate.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
A fish contaminated with radiation levels more than 2,500 times the legal limit has been caught near Japan‘s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, its operator said Friday.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
