Friday, April 22, 2011

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Contaminated Water Increased in Reactor 4 Turbine Building

So much for TEPCO's "roadmap". And remember, TEPCO thinks the Spent Fuel Pool of the Reactor 4 may collapse unless they put in a support structure.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (12:40PM JST 4/23/2011):

Contaminated water with radioactive materials in TEPCO's Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant Reactor 4 turbine building has risen 20 centimeters in 10 days. There's also 5-meter deep water in the reactor building, estimated to be 4,000 tons, as has been already disclosed by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency; this is in addition to the amount of contaminated water from other reactors.

TEPCO has been transporting the contaminated water with high radioactive materials from Reactor 2 [turbine building] to the central waste disposal facility. But the amount that the facility can store safely is likely to be half of what was planned, and there is no clear plan to deal with the contaminated water from other reactors.

According to TEPCO, the water in the Reactor 4 turbine building basement was 0.9 meter (2.95 feet) deep on April 13, and 1.1 meters (3.61 feet) deep as of 6:00PM on April 22. It rose 20 centimeters in about 10 days. In the adjacent Reactor 3, water is being injected at 6.8 tons/hour to cool the Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV). TEPCO suspects that the water leaked from the RPV is leaking through the cracks in the wall that separates the Reactor 3 turbine building and the Reactor 4 turbine building.

 東京電力福島第一原子力発電所4号機で、放射性物質を含む汚染水が増え続け、タービン建屋の水位が約10日間で20センチ上昇したことが明らかに なった。原子炉建屋地下にも水深約5メートル、水量4000トンの汚染水がたまっていることを経済産業省原子力安全・保安院が明らかにしており、その処理 が新たな課題として浮上している。

 東電は2号機の高濃度汚染水を集中廃棄物処理施設に移す作業を進めているが、施設の収容可能量は当初の半分程度になる見込みで、他号機の汚染水処理のめどは立っていない。

 東電によると、4号機のタービン建屋地下の水深は13日に0・9メートル、22日午後6時には1・1メートル。約10日間に20センチ上昇した。 隣接する3号機では原子炉冷却のため1時間当たり6・8トン注水されている。東電は炉から漏れた水が、3、4号機のタービン建屋を隔てる壁の亀裂などから 4号機側に漏れていると見ている。

3 comments:

netudiant said...

The water will rise a lot more.
Areva's treatment plant will begin to whittle down the flood once it is operational, but that is at least two months away. In the interim, it takes about 500 tons/day of cooling water to keep the site stable, so by then there will be 100,000 tons of contaminated water in the plant. It will take till year end to process that water, so the reactor site will remain pretty much as is until then. Hopefully nothing else will break in the interim.

Anonymous said...

I bet the rain won't help those numbers if water is running through crack in the foundation lines between reactor hulks. It sounds like the buildings are as leaky as a colander maybe some of the recent aftershocks have done damage that TEPCO hasn't detected yet.

The last inundation estimate I saw was nearly 70,000 tons of highly contaminated water in various places around the facility. They are pumping about 162 tons of water a day just in reactor #3 the entire inundation operation for the whole facility has to be 100's of extra tons of water each day that they'll need storage for. Where is the Mega-float? I wonder if the weather caused a change of plans?

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Mega float nowhere to be seen. Supposedly still working on plugging the leaks.

They will soon run out of place to even let the water stay where they are.

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