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Tepco Considers Dumping Radioactive Water in Sea
Friday, 09 December 2011 00:00
from the Press... - The Jakarta Globe
Tepco Considers Dumping Radioactive Water in Sea
December 09, 2011
Tokyo. The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant is considering dumping water it treated for radiation contamination into the ocean as early as March, the company said on Thursday, prompting protests from fishing groups.
Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the utility operating Fukushima’s Daiichi plant, hit by a powerful tsunami in March that caused the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years, said it was running out of space to store some of the water it treated at the plant, due to an inflow of groundwater.
“We would like to increase the number of tanks to accommodate the water but it will be difficult to do so indefinitely,” Tepco spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said.
He said the plant was likely to reach its storage capacity in March.
Tepco plans to come up with possible ways to handle radioactive waste and present its proposals to the government’s nuclear regulatory body for approval.
“The government should not, and must not, approve a plan allowing Tepco to dispose treated water in the ocean,” said Kenji Sumita, an emeritus professor at Osaka University who specializes in nuclear engineering.
The admission is a setback for the utility, which appeared to be making progress in its cleanup after building a cooling system that no longer required pumping in vast amounts of water.
It also built a system that decontaminates the pool of tainted water to supply the cooling system.
Tepco estimates that due to the inflow the amount of water requiring storage is increasing by 200 to 500 tons every day. The utility released more than 10,000 tons of water tainted with low levels of radiation in April to free up space for water with higher levels of radioactivity.
Reuters
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/nvironment/tepco-considers-dumping-radioactive-water-in-sea/483566
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