TEPCO Announces Test Run of Improved Water Decontamination System at Fukushima RIA Novosti, PUBLISHED 28.09.2014 Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has begun trials of the first unit of the improved water decontamination system at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the company announced on its website. TEPCO said that the remaining two units of what it called “a significantly enhanced” Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) will be put into operation in the foreseeable future. The company then will be able to double the amount of radioactive water it can process through the ALPS from 750 to 1,500 tons a day, TEPCO stated. The Fukushima operator is storing close to 400,000 tons of contaminated water that has to be filtered through the ALPS. 400 tons of water is contaminated each day. Fukushima’s purification system has been plagued with problems since it was launched in 2013. However, TEPCO claims it improved the ALPS system taking into account the lessons learned from the earlier ALPS design. “They include new rubber linings to prevent erosion, improved monitoring of water flow, improved leak detection, enhanced backup equipment and enhanced physical barriers to contain any leaks,” TEPCO said in a statement. Additionally, the groundwater bypass initiative, launched in May, has finally started to show progress, the Japan Times reports. It has been designed to reduce the amount of water flowing into the reactors by diverting it to the wells and discharging it into the ocean following radiation checks. The Fukushima operator said that so far it has released over 35,000 tons of groundwater. It claimed that it has managed to reduce the amount of water leaking into the reactors by 50 to 80 tons. “If the groundwater bypass is really cutting the amount by that much, it’s good progress,” said Atsunao Marui, a researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, as quoted by the Japan Times. On March 2011, the Fukushima nuclear power plant was hit by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a subsequent tsunami, which caused a partial meltdown of three of the plant’s nuclear reactors. The incident is considered the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. Topics: NPP Fukushima Daiichi Other news: Finnish Government Approves Rosatom Nuclear Reactor Project Ten ministers voted in favor of granting the application, while seven ministers voted against. Prime Minister: Finland to Continue Nuclear Cooperation With Russia Despite Sanctions If we look at Rosatom's activities, there have been no problems whatsoever. Russian Nuclear Experts Present Bushehr-2 NPP Project in Iran Several Russian companies, including OKB Gidropress and Atomstroyexport participated in the seminar. |
Hero of the day The ISTC Responsible Science Program and Subprogram Culture of Nuclear Nonproliferation The dual-use nature of nuclear technology consisting in the potential for its application equally in peaceful and military sphere is the basic contradiction for the existing nuclear nonproliferation regime and comprehensive development of the nuclear power and nuclear fuel cycle. INTERVIEW
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