TEPCO says up to 500 tons of groundwater flowing into Fukushima nuclear plant
TOKYO —
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said Tuesday that between 200 and 500 tons of groundwater a day are flowing through wall cracks into the reactor buildings of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
A TEPCO official told TBS that water inflow had increased after heavy rain. The official said the plant is currently decontaminating 1,000 tons of tainted water a day and that the increased amount of groundwater is manageable, TBS reported.
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2
Piglet
I might be stupid, but if groundwater can flow into the reactor buildings, doesn't it mean that water (including contaminated water) can also escape from these buildings?
0
Elbuda Mexicano
Dear Piggy! I think you got a point there!
0
Darren Brannan
Yes and some scientists say it is a matter of time before that core burns down and it seeps into the massive aquifier. A very sobering thought.
0
JapanGal
I bet the cores are already in the ground water.
1
TokyoGas
Does that make sense? I guess if the pressure from the ground water was higher than the pressure in the nuclear plant, it could happen. Still sounds odd to me.
1
Asagao
So when it rains it fills, when it is sunny the lovely people of Japan are treated with plutonium. Luckily another wall cracking earthquake would ever happen....
0
Disillusioned
This was documented by foreign sources within the first two weeks of the disaster. It has taken TEPCO over six months to release the info? There is a large water table under the dai-ichi plant and the earth cracked in the quake and subsequent explosions. The thing is, if the water can get in it can also get out! Oh, and did I mention that water table feeds into Tokyo's water supply? TEPCO and the J-Gov sure as heck won't mention it.
0
the_odeman
Wouldnt it make it easier then to retrieve the melted core if it seeps through the buildings outside?
0
Dennis Bauer
Don't worry Piglet , Tepco has everything under control as from the beginning..............:p
2
windandsea
When a utility can lie and withhold essential news about safety, with the cooperation of the government and its beholden press, who believes any of this stuff? It is also useful to consider that estimates are being made for the recovery of the Tohoku-region: they haven't even started passing out relief-money or made a significant dent in the clean-up operations. What basis does anyone have to make a qualified estimate of any recovery without seeing the outcome of relief-aid, the return of residents to stricken areas, without any systematic approach to clearing, decontaminating, and rebuilding? Look at Chernobyl, decades past and still a ghost-town. Can any of us believe the affected areas around Fukushima #1 will be any different? The charade has gotten completely out of hand. Either Japanese press must reform and transition to a free and independent press, or we are forced to look to the foreign press entirely for reliable news.
3
Cricky
Never thought taking a shower, washing the dishes or veggies could give me cancer...thank you TEPCO. Much appreciated. Oh I forgot to thank the Government and the on the ball informative Press release Press.
2
fds
so if ground water can leak in, can it leak out? seems to me it could. so what is tepco doing about it?
1
Spidapig24
Good old TEPCO, still screwing the people of Japan. Way to go idiots.
0
Asagao
How about just one, tiny, little good news story TEPCO?
0
oberst
bet you they are hoping the flood will wash/dilute the radiation stuff onward to the Pacific Ocean. Not dumping, mind you, but an act of god.
0
smithinjapan
I don't see how it's possible that water is leaking INTO the reactors unless the level of water within them is lower and it's leaking in from above. I can see rain falling in, of course, but generally the level of water will level out from higher to lower, not vice-versa -- unless it's like a torrential river flowing against the holes in the reactor. In any case, radiation is getting out there, in the water, and entering the water supply for cities like Tokyo, and it's disturbing. This won't be admitted or dealt with until long after the current TEPCO execs have retired with their golden parachutes, and the current politicians have been replaced by their sons.
1
Utrack
I think this may be happening because the reactors are mostly underground and with the melt through occurence depth has caused the integration of the underground water table with the radioactive contaminated water.
The level of contamination is undisclosed so there may or may not be way to filter the tainted water individually with a Household water filtration system. I googled to see if there were any on the market and found this site, the link is http://pureeffectfilters.com/anti-rad.html
0
Samantha Zoe Aso
It just gets better and better.
0
zichi
The reactors are built on bedrock. Before building Fukushima Daiichi, there was a hill, which was removed so that the reactors could be sited on the bedrock.
1
Christina O'Neill
Just when you think the situation cant get any worse, it invariabley does.
0
zichi
I think the post should say that ground water is getting into the basements of the reactor buildings and maybe the turbine hall basements but is only a problem in the basement of No1 reactor building.
The melted cores are now Corium, look it up.
1
Utrack
Corium, also called fuel containing material (FCM) or lava-like fuel containing material (LFCM), is a lava-like molten mixture of portions of nuclear reactor core, formed during a nuclear meltdown, the most severe class of a nuclear reactor accident. It consists of nuclear fuel, fission products, control rods, structural materials from the affected parts of the reactor, products of their chemical reaction with air, water and steam, and, in case the reactor vessel is breached, molten concrete from the floor of the reactor room.
between 200 and 500 tons of groundwater a day are flowing through wall cracks into the reactor buildings of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
-1
beangry
Can you say crime against humanity? They should be indicted for criminal negligence - among kther things like going out of their way to give us all radiation - and join their buddy gadaffi in the Hague.
This is worse than chernobyl. They didnt have these sort of grounfwater problems there , they tried to avoit them.
0
zichi
Blueprint of reactor building No1 http://www.houseoffoust.com/fukushima/reactorblueprint.jpg
2
hatsoff
No. That stuff is so radioactive you can't get near it for years. It needs to be covered and contained. If it gets exposed - well let's just say we really don't want to see that happen.
2
Cricky
I am confused!!! Both the Government and TEPCO have been assuring me that all is OK?
Have the Press not done their job? the government not been honest or TEPCO been devious?
I have to wait 12 months to get an answer to that? Hope I can hear it as I will be coughing up my lower intestine by then.
1
gonemad
This news, as innocent as it is written, is the confirmation that not only the cooling systems have been heavily damaged by the earthquake, but the basements as well. Apart from the fact that the legal rules for earthquake resistance of nuclear power plants are by themselves insufficient, the Fukushima Daiichi plant obviously did not even meet the legal requirements in practice. How did this happen? Flawed calculations or simulations? Botched-up construction? Material fatigue due to the age of the plant? These are serious questions for all other plants in Japan.
Disillusioned, honestly, I have some doubts about what you write. Can you give some references?
1
zichi
Tokyo water comes from Arakawa and Tonegawa river watersheds. The source of the Tonegawa is Mount Ominakami between Gunma and Niigata. The point of origin of the Arakawa river which flows through Tokyo, is Mount Kobushi in Saitama. There is no water from Fukushima.
0
nigelboy
???
I believe it was common knowledge during the first weeks that cooling systems failed and the basement was compromised with sea water. The cracks along the walls of the reactor building was to be expected given the magnitude of the quake but since the workers couldn't get in (high levels of radiation) to fix the leak.
None of this would of been an issue if the back up generator wasn't placed where it could be compromised for all they had to do was fix the leak along the walls (no need for infusing large amounts of water into the reactor, hence no contaminated water buildup inside the reactor building).
0
gonemad
nigelboy, I can't make sense of some of your sentences. Let me focus on these two items:
No. Any systems or parts of the building(s) of the plant which are safety-relevant must not be damaged by an earthquake. And don't forget that while the magnitude of the 3/11 earthquake was 9.0 at the epicenter somewhere out in the ocean it was significantly lower (a mere 7.x if I remember correctly) at Daiichi. A magnitude which not rare at all in Japan.
This is probably wrong. The cooling systems failed immediately after the earthquake. Whether a continuous operation of the generators would have allowed a fix of the cooling system before the core meltdown started is highly doubtful.
1
nigelboy
a "mere" 7. Thanks. Now, let me change that to, "The cracks along the walls of the reactor building was DEFINITELY to be expected".
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/20110524/2010_gaibudengen.html
What initially compromised were the back up electrity system outside the plant as indicated by the above. Hence, the only source of electricty to operate the cooling system were the back up battery and the diesel generators of which the former operated but ran out and the latter was damaged due to the tsunami.
1
Farmboy
I do enjoy fixating on disaster as much as anybody, but, "the increased amount of groundwater is manageable" means not much bad and new is happening. It's just the same old bad stuff as before, and wasn't made much worse by the storm. This is good news, comparatively speaking.
2
gonemad
I was using the word "mere" because the strength was below the design target of the plant (and thus the cracks are definitely unexpected) and because the probability that a quake of that strength occurs at any of the other reactors in Japan is very high.
Yes, there is no contradiction. The logs of the operators state that the cooling system of reactor #1 was shut off before the back-up batteries run out of power. They have done this because the cooling system wasn't operational due to damages from the earthquake. Whether they would have been able to fix the cooling system within a few hours in case they still had electricity is pure speculation. It seems there have been no attempts, so the damages must have been serious.
0
Utrack
Here is the same article but with a bit more information.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20_31.html
http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2011092000590
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/09/tepco-admits-to-200-to-500-tonnes-of.html
0
Utrack
really informative article on this subject from asahi
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ2011092211606
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