Saturday, June 18, 2011

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Kurion's System Was Stopped At the Very First "Skid"

According to TEPCO's handout for the press for June 18, TEPCO stopped the entire water processing system manually when the surface radiation at the "skid" for removing oil and technetium exceeded 4 millisievert/hour, the limit set for replacing the zeolite cylinders (which TEPCO calls "vessel") inside the skid.

That "skid" contains 4 cylinders filled with SMZ (surfactant modified zeolite) to absorb oil and technetium. (The system diagram by TEPCO is provided below, with English labels added by me.)

The cause for the high radiation at the oil-technetium skid wasn't given in the handout, but in the press conference TEPCO listed the following as potential cause:

  • The radiation measurement device picked up the radiation from the pipe that transports highly contaminated water to the system; or

  • The water contained extremely radioactive sludge; or

  • The water contained too much seawater for the system to handle.

By the way, the skids were welded and fabricated by a company in Delta County, Colorado, called Industrial Systems, Inc.. According to the Delta County Independent's article on June 18, 2011, ISI has tripled the number of workers - welders, fabricators, machinists - to 75 to work 24/7 on the project, which for them now includes internal components for filter assemblies in addition to the skids.

5 comments:

netudiant said...

This kind of start up problem is entirely normal.
Very few facilities run smoothly right off.
The problem is that TEPCO has to deal with the prospect for a massive overflow, which would greatly complicate the job of keeping this disaster under some control.

It may be necessary to store some of the water in a tanker. That would buy time, even though the water is so contaminated that it will make that ship unusable in the future.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

I wish TEPCO had the luxury of time to smooth out the kinks in the system. Lots of people have been calling for tankers from the beginning, and they've been completely ignored. It is almost as if the politicians and TEPCO want the water to overflow.

Anonymous said...

Hi. Thanks 4 blogging...
I dont agree with you at this position.

Oil filtration system link:
http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2011/05/19/unipure-delivers-water-processing-equipment-to-fukushima-nuclear-power-station-051901.aspx

Oil separators system photo in Fukushima plant: http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/news/110311/images/110604_01.jpg

Tepco docs:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110609e8.pdf

Sorry for my English. Best Regards.

Anonymous said...

Ups. Looks like Kurion has another one system...

Anonymous said...

Is the KURION SYSTEM really adequate for the task?? Was the water of TMI (the only more or less large scale) reference)similar to FUKUSHIMA;s. meaning a sludge containing any type and size imaginable of radiant solids??

Can th filtrs on the water intake be removed robotically, meanibg without human intervntion whem the radioactivity as at this moement exceed by far the tolerable limits???

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