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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Japan : TEPCO may face more problems in stabilizing plant

Article from NHK News :

" Tokyo Electric Power Company is sticking to its plan to bring the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station under control by next January. But the company may face further unexpected problems.

On Tuesday, TEPCO announced a new timeline which reflects the problems that have emerged since it revealed the original road map one month earlier.
It says it will keep to its original schedule of stabilizing the plant sometime between October and January.

TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto told reporters that on the whole, the work is progressing as expected, although some tasks are taking longer than planned.

But many unexpected problems have occurred since TEPCO released the original plan in April.

A large quantity of water was found in the basement of the No.1 reactor building. Highly radioactive water was found to be leaking into the ocean from the No.3 reactor.

TEPCO told reporters that the barrier set up in the sea near the water intake of the No.3 reactor may be failing to prevent contaminated water from spreading.
The utility said it will use the mineral zeolite to remove radioactive cesium from the sea.

Workers have not been able to enter the buildings of the No.2 and No.3 reactors, making it impossible to restore their cooling functions.

In addition to these obstacles, TEPCO may also face an increase in the amount of radioactive water, highly radioactive work environments, and the possible effects of the rainy season, typhoons and aftershocks."

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