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Posted: 14 Nov 2013 06:07 AM
PST
After two and a half years, two
leaks have been found in the containment vessel of the Unit 1 reactor at the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Workers used a robotic boat
equipped with cameras and radiation detectors to investigate the suppression
chamber of the Unit 1 reactor. The suppression chamber is filled with
contaminated water, which was injected to cool the melted reactor fuel.
Extremely high radiation levels have prevented workers from investigating
these critical areas of the reactor buildings.
Tokyo Electric engineers were
not able to locate the actual location of the leaks, or to measure the amount
of water which is leaking, but described the flow as gushing out into the
basement of the reactor building.
“Part of the containment vessel
is damaged, and water leaking from there is likely to be flowing down into
the ground via the pipe,” one TEPCO official said.
One leak was discovered near a
rupture in a sand-cushioned drain pipe which was used to direct condensation
which formed on the surface of the vessel.
The other leak was located just
above the suppression chamber, in a vent pipe which connects to the
suppression chamber.
TEPCO engineers assume that
there is similar damage to the bottom of the Reactor 2 and Reactor 3
containment vessels which are also allowing the leakage of highly
contaminated water.
Hiroshi Miyano, a professor at
Hosei University, said the volume of leaking water suggests a significantly
large amount of damage to critical connections between the containment vessel
and suppression chamber. Miyano suggested that the damage could have
been due to the impact from the hydrogen explosion in March of 2011.
Source: TEPCO
Source: NHK
Source: JiJi Press
The post Leaks
confirmed in Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 containment vessel
appeared first on Enformable.
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