[國際新聞] Fukushima leaking radioactive water for '2 years, 300 tons flowing daily' official, nuclear, before, plant

peter236

http://rt.com/news/japan-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-164/

Fukushima leaking radioactive water for '2 years, 300 tons flowing into Pacific daily'

Edited time: August 07, 2013 14:54



The rate at which contaminated water has been pouring into the Pacific Ocean from the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant is worse than thought before, an Industry Ministry official said as PM Shinzo Abe pledged to step up efforts to halt the crisis.

"We think that the volume of water is about 300 tons a day," said Yushi Yoneyama, an official with the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, which regulates Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO).

Abe put the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry in charge of the situation, while demanding that the plant's operator, TEPCO take the necessary steps to deal with the cleanup, which is anticipated to take more than 40 years at a cost of US$11 billion.

On Wednesday TEPCO confirmed the leak but refused to confirm the quantity being emitted from the plant.

"We are not currently able to say clearly how much groundwater is actually flowing into the ocean," Tokyo Electric Power spokesman Noriyuki Imaizumi told Reuters when asked for an estimate.

Japanese authorities are working in crisis mode, attempting to assure the public both at home and abroad that the situation will not further deteriorate into a widespread environmental catastrophe.

Yoneyama said the government plans to reduce the leakage amount to 60 tons per day by as early as December, but given the Japanese government’s progress in the cleanup to date that goal may be difficult to achieve. Removing 300 tonnes of groundwater, however, would not necessarily halt leakage into the sea, he said.

The nuclear plant was severely damaged in an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March 2011. About 90,000 people within a 20km radius of the plant were forced to evacuate their homes due to the possibility of a full-scale nuclear meltdown.

Nearing boiling point?



Earlier, TEPCO said it detected 2.35 billion becquerels of cesium per liter in water that is now leaking into the groundwater through cracks in the plant’s drainage system. This radiation level is roughly the same as that measured in April 2011.

The normal level is 150 becquerels of cesium per liter of water.

For the past two years, TEPCO has claimed that it managed to siphon off the excess water into specially-constructed storage tanks. However, the company was forced to admit late last month that radioactive water was still escaping into the Pacific Ocean. These consistent failures are testing the patience of Japanese authorities.

"You can't just leave it [disposing of radioactive waste at the plant] up to TEPCO," Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) told Reuters. "Right now, we have an emergency."

Earlier this month, TEPCO was forced to go on the defensive after a scathing first-page article appeared in The Asahi Shimbun daily criticizing the company’s cleanup efforts.

"TEPCO did nothing for more than two years despite having pledged to seal a leaking hole between a turbine building [the leakage source] and an underground pit [a trench] in April 2011 when water contaminated with radioactive materials…was found to have leaked into the ocean; and the company only began preparing for shielding tests this summer after contaminated water was found to be leaking into the sea this time," the newspaper stated on August 1, 2013.

TEPCO fired back with its own version of events, saying that despite "technical difficulties and a severe work environment" the company has been working to implement a plan "in order to further reduce the risk of having outflow of contaminated water beyond the trench."

Although TEPCO engineers have constructed a barrier between the destroyed facility and the ocean, it only extends 1.8 meters below the ground, thus water continues to accumulate inside the plant vaults.



"If you build a wall, of course the water is going to accumulate there. And there is no other way for the water to go but up or sideways and eventually lead to the ocean," Masashi Goto, a nuclear engineer who has worked at several TEPCO plants, told Reuters. "So now, the question is how long do we have?"

TEPCO has pledged to begin pumping enough radioactive seepage to stop the water level from rising. But the company faces limitations, as its storage tanks are 85 percent full.

"New measures are needed to stop the water from flowing into the sea," emphasized Kinjo, who accused TEPCO of failing to implement long-term solutions for a crisis that has been continuing for more than two years.

Not only is TEPCO running up against technical problems associated with the cleanup efforts, it must also deal with the unpredictable force of nature, specifically in the form of earthquakes.

On Sunday, a 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Miyagi prefecture, the same northeastern region of the island country that was devastated by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which resulted in 15,000 people killed and more than 3,200 missing.

No damage or injuries were reported in the latest earthquake, but some roads and railways were temporarily closed for safety inspections.

peter236

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/japan-upgrades-fukushima-water-leak-to-level-3-serious-incident

Japan upgrades Fukushima leak to highest level in two years

By Shingo Ito

National Aug. 21, 2013 - 07:30PM JST



Reporters and Tokyo Electric Power Co workers look around during a media tour at the Fukushima plant in June. AFP

TOKYO

Japan on Wednesday issued its highest-level warning over the crippled Fukushima plant since a tsunami triggered the nuclear crisis two years ago, saying there was “no time to lose” to seal a tank that has leaked 300 tonnes of radioactive water.

Nuclear regulators said the leak represented a level-three “serious incident” on the U.N.‘s seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), which measures radiation accidents.

“Something that we were very much concerned about has occurred,” Nuclear Regulation Authority chairman Shunichi Tanaka told a meeting in Tokyo. “We are in a situation where there is no time to lose.”

The alert, raised from level one which indicates an “anomaly”, is the most serious declared at the ruined plant since March 2011, when a quake-generated tsunami knocked out reactor cooling systems and sparked meltdowns.

At its height, the Fukushima disaster was classified as level seven—one of only two events ever rated in that category along with the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

The NRA said in a statement that the amount of radiation leakage and the “fact that there is no safety protective layer remaining at the facility” meant the level-three warning needed to be declared.

It will now consult with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the reassessment, it said.

Japan’s top government spokesman, chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga, said the incident was “extremely deplorable”.

“The government as a whole will do its utmost to prevent the leakage of contaminated water as promptly as possible,” he told a news conference. “We will make a proper assessment after consulting the IAEA.”

Other incidents which have been ranked level three include a 2005 radioactive waste leak at the British nuclear reprocessing facility in Sellafield.

The evaluation came a day after plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said some 300 tons of radioactive water was believed to have leaked from one of the tanks that hold water used to cool Fukushima’s unstable reactors.

It said the water, which has formed puddles near the tank, is so toxic that anyone exposed to it would receive the same amount of radiation in an hour that a nuclear plant worker is allowed to receive in five years.

However, the plant lies inside a 20-kilometer exclusion zone and the general public is not allowed near it.

While no one is officially recorded as having died as a direct result of meltdowns in Fukushima’s tsunami-hit reactors, large areas around the plant had to be evacuated. Tens of thousands of people are still unable to return to their homes inside the exclusion zone.

TEPCO said the leak was thought to be continuing on Wednesday and it had not yet pinpointed the source, and was also “hurriedly checking” if any of 350 similar tanks were also leaking.

“We are removing the soil contaminated with the leaked water, while sucking the remaining water from the troubled tank,” a TEPCO spokesman said, adding that there were no significant changes in radiation levels outside the plant.

“We are trying our best not to spread the contamination to areas outside the facility, including the sea,” the spokesman added.

TEPCO vice president Zengo Aizawa told a news conference that the operator was taking the situation seriously.

“Handling contaminated water is our top priority,” he said.

On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, shares in TEPCO plunged 9.28% to 557 yen ($5.70) even as the benchmark Nikkei index closed higher.

The company—which faces huge clean-up and compensation costs—has struggled to handle the world’s worst nuclear disaster in a generation.

Its most serious problem is how to handle the massive amount of water accumulating as a result of continuing water injections to cool the reactors, which has been stored in the hastily built tanks.

The embattled utility in July admitted for the first time that radioactive groundwater had been leaking outside the plant. This month it started pumping it out to reduce leakage into the Pacific.

“Problems with contaminated water have emerged one after another,” Kenzo Oshima, a Nuclear Regulation Authority commissioner, told Wednesday’s meeting.

“TEPCO has been struggling and is likely to continue to do so from now on,” Oshima said.

The problems have led the Japanese government and the NRA to say they would become more directly involved in the cleanup at Fukushima, rather than leaving it to the much-criticised operator.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in early August described as “urgent” the battle to stop contaminated water from escaping into the ocean.