Fukushima’s Cooling Efforts Are Delayed by Spilled Water
Mar 27, 2011 (Bloomberg) Efforts to repair the cooling systems at the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors at the Fukushima Dai- Ichi nuclear plant are being delayed by the need to drain radioactive water from the floors, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
Tests found radiation levels at 100,000 times the normal level in the No. 2 reactor at the plant, and the reactor may be leaking water, Vice President Sakae Muto said at a briefing broadcast on the Internet.
The company plans to put the radioactive water into condenser tanks. Those tanks are probably already full, so crews must find a way to drain them, company officials said at a briefing today. [...]
Japan Radiation Levels Surge in Water at Stricken Fukushima Nuclear Plant
Mar 27, 2011 (Bloomberg) Radiation in water at Japan’s earthquake-damaged nuclear plant reached potentially lethal levels, hampering work to cool reactors.
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Efforts to gain control over the damaged plant have been hampered by radiation leaks, forcing repair work to be suspended and engineers to rotate shifts. Two men who were exposed to radiation had “significant” skin contamination on their legs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. [...]
Tepco Head Pressed to Quit After Costing Holders $26 Billion
Mar 27, 2011 (Bloomberg) Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Masataka Shimizu is facing calls to quit after the crisis at the utility’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant capped a tenure that has seen $26 billion wiped off the company’s market value.
The share price decline since Shimizu took charge in June 2008 at Tepco, as the company is known, has deepened to 67 percent in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster, as of the March 25 close in Tokyo. That’s the worst performance of any of the 88 members of the MSCI World Utilities Index and of the 17 companies in the Topix Electric Power & Gas Index.
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“I think Tepco will need to change its culture in many ways,” said Dr Murray E. Jennex, an associate professor at San Diego State University with 20 years’ experience in examining nuclear containment structures at the consulting firm General Physics and the Southern California Edison Co. “They will need to open up and have a very transparent investigation to reinstill confidence.” he said. “Their reputation is very poor as far as being open with information.” [...]
Tepco Says Radioactive Reading in Water at No. 2 Was Wrong
Mar 27, 2011 (Bloomberg) Tokyo Electric Power Co. said its analysis of some of the radioactive substances in the water at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 2 reactor’s turbine building was wrong and the company will reanalyze the water.
The reading of 2.9 billion becquerels per cubic centimeter of iodine-134, one of the substances found in the water, may have been wrong, said Naoki Tsunoda, a spokesman at the Tokyo- based utility. The radiation level of more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour at the building probably won’t change, he said.
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Status Reports on the Reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Plant
Mar 26, 2011 (Bloomberg) The following is the status of each of six nuclear reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant as of 9 a.m., Japan time. [...]
No. 1: Contaminated water in the turbine structure contains 10,000 times the radiation of regular cooling water, NHK said. The company has started removing contaminated water from the basement of the turbine building and will prepare more pumps to drain the water, the agency said. The unit has been damaged since a March 12 hydrogen explosion destroyed the building’s walls. The seriousness of the reactor’s threat to safety is rated level five on an international scale of 1-7.
No. 2: Contaminated water in the turbine structure contains 10 million times more radiation than normal cooling water, NHK said. The company plans to remove contaminated water as early as today, the agency said. The company plans to start using freshwater on fuel pool from March 28, the agency said. The containment chamber may have been damaged in a March 15 explosion, and a power cable was reconnected to the unit on March 19. The reactor is rated a level-five threat.
No. 3: Contaminated water in the turbine structure contains 10,000 times the normal radiation, NHK said. The company is considering ways to remove the contaminated water, the agency said. A March 14 explosion damaged the unit’s fuel cover. The reactor is rated a level-five threat.
No. 4: The company plans to spray water in the spent-fuel cooling pool this afternoon, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said. The agency said on March 17 there may be no water in the pool. It’s rated at three on the threat level. This reactor was undergoing maintenance when the earthquake hit.
No. 5: The unit was idle for maintenance before the earthquake.
No. 6: The reactor achieved cold shutdown at 7:27 p.m. on March 20 when the temperature fell below 100 degrees Celsius, the company said. A backup generator was fixed March 19, according to a company press release. The unit was idle for maintenance before the earthquake.
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