Tepco to try again at radioactive water decontamination
NHK World reports that Tokyo Electric Power Company will try again to restart its experimental filtration system for cleaning the vast amounts -- now well over 100,000 tons -- of highly contaminated radioactive cooling water that is accumulating onsite at Fukushima Daiichi. The system abruptly failed after only five hours of operation just over a week ago, as radioactive particle filters quickly became saturated given the high levels of contamination. Areva of France is reportedly involved in the filtration scheme. Tepco has completely run out of storage room for the highly contaminated cooling water, and it is feared the hazardous liquid will overflow uncontrollably and spill into the ocean as the raining season gets underway. Several weeks ago, Japanese authorities actually intentionally dumped "lower" contaminated water into the ocean, in order to free up space to store much more highly contaminated cooling water. The intentional dumping angered neighboring countries like South Korea and China; Japan later apologized to them. While Tepco hopes to reuse the filtered water for additional cooling operations at Fukushima Daiichi -- in order to avoid using "virgin" water -- its interim storage and ultimate disposal plans for the intensely radioactive filters has not been announced.
admin
In separate coverage, NHK World reports that the failed radioactivity filters were U.S. made, and that only 1,850 tons of the well over 100,000 tons of highly radioactively contaminated water has thus far been decontaminated despite many, largely unsuccessful, days of "test runs."