Revised plans
May 17, 2011
It's probably not the last time that Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) will have to revise its action plan as the situation at the crippled plant in Fukushima is simply too volatile. Japanese politicians are optimistic however that the timeline can be kept.
"We are still hoping to stabilize the nuclear plant within six months. This corresponds to our original action plan of six to nine months," Prime Minister Naoto Kan said.
The plan is to bring reactors No 1, 2 and 3 to a cold shutdown – this means ensuring that the water containing the fuel is below 100 degrees Celsius. Only then will the plant be considered stable.
The special advisor to Prime Minister Naoto Kan regarding the Fukushima disaster Goshi Hosono tried to play down the impact of recent setbacks on Tuesday.
"It is true that the fuel rods of Reactor No. 1 melted, but the cooling process has made significant progress," he said.
"The temperature in the pressure vessel is now at around 100 degrees Celsius. So we are not that far from a stabilization in terms of temperature. If we use the water that has accumulated in the building for cooling purposes then we can still reach our original timetable."
Alternative cooling methods
Of six reactors at the Daiichi plant, two are considered relatively stable but four are still volatile. The original plan was to submerge the nuclear fuel in reactor No. 1 with water. This method is known as water entombment.
However, it is no longer an option because the vessel containing the fuel was punctured when fuel overheated and melted earlier this year. An alternative would be to cool down the water that has accumulated in the concrete reactor and turbine buildings and pump it back into the pressure vessel.
Tens of thousands of tons of radioactive water has accumulated at the plant and there is a danger it could leak into the ground water or end up in the Pacific Ocean.
Government promises to improve conditions
"We only have one container to store the water at the moment," Hidehiko Nishiyama from the Japanese atomic watchdog NISA pointed out. "Because it is very radioactive we will try to decontaminate it by using an American-made filter, we will then desalinate it and try to re-use it."
Extra tanks are currently being built to help store the water and a giant barge is also going to be used. TEPCO has said it will build a plant that can treat 1,200 tonnes of contaminated water per day and hopes to have treated it all by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the government has announced it is building over 15,000 temporary housing units for the people who have been evacuated from the area. It also wants to improve the conditions for people working at the contaminated plant and ensure that they all receive thorough radiation checks.
Author: Peter Kujath / act
Editor: Ziphora Robina