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Posted: 02 Dec 2013 06:06 AM
PST
Workers at the crippled
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are working around the clock to cool
reactors and spent fuel pools. They are accumulating massive amounts of
highly contaminated water from the cooling operations and running out of space
to store it on-site.
The troubled Advanced Liquid
Processing System, or ALPS, which TEPCO has placed so much responsibility for
helping process highly radioactive water to prepare it for storage, has
broken down once again during trial operations.
The ALPS design removes
radioactive materials by moving contaminated water through various
pretreatment stations and adsorption towers. Once processed, the waste
materials are transferred to high integrity containers, which are transported
to a temporary storage facility.
The first processing systems
used at Fukushima Daiichi only removed cesium. The ALPS system is a
multi-nuclide removal system, which does remove multiple radioactive
materials, but still leaves some behind (like tritium).
TEPCO workers were forced to
shut the ALPS system down on Sunday due to a leak of hydrochloric acid from a
pipe joint. The hydrochloric acid is used to neutralize alkaline water.
After shutting down the system,
workers wrapped the leaking joint with a vinyl bag, which collected over 1
liter of hydrochloric acid at the time of the press release.
The system which was shut down
is one of the two units which were in trial operation and scheduled to go
into full operation on Sunday. TEPCO said that the leaking unit has
been placed on standby and cannot continue operations until the problem is
corrected.
TEPCO has been facing severe
criticism for its failed management of contaminated water at the Fukushima
Daiichi plant. Katsuhiko Ikeda, the secretary general for the Nuclear
Regulation Authority, said in October that many of the problems at the
crippled facility are caused by a lack of basic checks.
During test runs in June, TEPCO
identified that some of the batch treatment tanks had holes in the welds.
In July, the ALPS system was
shut down for inspections after corroded parts and other problems were
identified.
The system failed again in
September after a rubber sheet left in one of the tanks obstructed the flow
of water and clogged a drain.
In October, the system was shut
down due to programming errors and mistakes. Last month, the system was
shut down once again, after the water which was being processed began to
corrode one of the tanks.
Critics are worried that TEPCO
is relying too much on the ALPS system and do not have enough contingency
options if the system is unable to perform as expected.
The post TEPCO forced
to shut down contaminated water processing system at Fukushima Daiichi again
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