nuclear-news

Hamaoka nuclear plant – seawater in reactor core, radiation in farmland

Seawater enters reactor core at nuclear plant,  Oman Observer, Sat, 21 May 2011 TOKYO — Some five tons of seawater is estimated to have entered a reactor core at the Hamaoka nuclear power station in central Japan, the operator said on Thursday. That followed the discovery of an estimated 400 tons of seawater that has inundated the main steam condenser at reactor 5 of the Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka prefecture, south-west of Tokyo.

Chubu Electric Power Co, which runs the plant, found the 400 tons of seawater while shutting down the reactor as requested by the government. Chubu Electric officials said their assessment of the purity of water inside the pressure vessel showed some 5 tons of seawater came from the condenser. The utility will not decommission the reactor. Instead, it will dilute and desalinate the seawater to prevent any corrosion inside the reactor as salt causes corrosion…….
The plant is run by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO). On Saturday, after Chubu Electric started to put the Hamaoka plant in a stable state known as cold shutdown, it discovered seawater in the reactor core, Jiji said. Meanwhile, local officials in the prefecture of Miyagi said on Thursday they had found high levels of radioactive substances in a sample of pasture grass.
Local government officials detected 1,530 becquerels of radioactive caesium per kilogram in a sample collected a week ago from a farm run by the town of Marumori, some 60 kilometres north of the Fukushima plant. — DPA… Seawater enters reactor core at nuclear plant | Oman Observer

May 21, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, safety