Japan's government is to spend almost $500m (£320m) in an attempt to contain leaks and decontaminate highly toxic water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The measures, announced on Tuesday, come as the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), struggles to prevent leaks into the Pacific Ocean and to find a way to contain and treat the huge volume of water that has accumulated at the site since it was hit by a tsunami in March 2011. The decision is widely seen as a safety appeal just days before the International Olympic Committee chooses between Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid on which city will host the 2020 Olympics. The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said the government would take a more active role in the biggest nuclear cleanup in history, amid mounting concern that Tepco is no longer able to cope alone. "The world is watching to see if we can carry out the decommissioning of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, including addressing the contaminated water issues," Abe reportedly told cabinet ministers. Reports said that about 32bn yen of the 47bn yen in new funding would be spent on constructing a 1.4km-long underground frozen wall around four damaged reactors – an untested and expensive technique. The wall would prevent groundwater from mixing with coolant water that becomes contaminated after it comes into contact with melted nuclear fuel. A further 15bn yen will be spent on improving technology to remove all radioactive particles – except tritium – from the water, or to least reduce them to legally accepted levels. The head of Japan's nuclear watchdog, Shunichi Tanaka, confirmed on Monday that discharging treated water into the ocean is one option under consideration. Given the large volumes involved, experts say that Tepco will soon run out of storage space and will have no choice than to discharge or evaporate the contaminated water....These are the facts :
1. TEPCO has "no idea" where the melted reactor cores from reactors 1,3 and 4 have gone. They know that they are somewhere under the remains of the shattered and sinking reactor buildings but where remains a mystery
2. Radiation on site will kill an unprotected man in just 4 hours. Something is extremely hot (which is why they keep having to spray thousands of gallons every day) and extremely radioactive. See point 1 for a clue what
3. Heat + Radioactivity = bonkers ice wall not working, that is assuming that they are able to successfully build it
4. Reactor 4's shattered building is sinking diagonally. The entire site is built on aquifers, its extremely soft thanks to the earthquake + tsunami + water spray. TEPCO need to manually remove the 1,300 fuel rods from the pool above what's left of reactor 4 (never been done before)
5. Ground water is now just over a foot away from the surface and rising. Its extremely radioactive (see points 1 and 2) and if it does reach the surface would force the evacuation of personnel. Remove them and that removes both the bonkers ice wall project and the ability to (a) cool and (b) remove the 1,300 fuel rods. That means an uncontrolled nuclear fire.
All of that is just reactor 4. 1 and 3 are also shattered though in a slightly less precarious state, 5 + 6 are shut down with the fuel extant. With the greatest of respect, an untested ice wall is not the solution. Fukushima is an ongoing disaster so great that it literally threatens the continuation of Japan as a nation, and a much larger area should another earthquake topple reactor 4's building and expose the fuel rods. And they are bidding for the Olympics? FFS
No comments:
Post a Comment