nuclear-news

Typhoon Roke Hits Japan on Track for Leaking Nuclear Power Plant, SF Gate, Tsuyoshi Inajima and Yuriy Humber,   September 20, 2011 (Bloomberg) — Typhoon Roke brought evacuation orders, downpours and fears of floods to southern Japan today as it began to traverse the country on a course towards the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant………..

Roke, due in Fukushima prefecture in 48 hours, may hinder work to control leakage of water into the basements of the Dai- Ichi reactor buildings, which contained 102 million liters of radioactive water as of Sept. 13, according to Tokyo Electric estimates. Roke may drop 150 millimeters of rain on Fukushima within 24 hours, likely in short, heavy downpours, Kenji Okada of the Japan Meteorological Agency said by phone today.

Since July, when Tepco said it achieved its phase-one goal of keeping reactors cool and reducing the amount of radiation being emitted, much of the utility’s work has focused on decontaminating highly radiated cooling water that ran off into basements and trenches around the damaged reactors.

Radioactive Water In addition, as much as 500 tons, or 500,000 liters, of underground water are leaking into Dai-Ichi buildings every day through cracks in walls and trenches, Tokyo Electric spokesman Hajime Motojuku said today.

The utility has been injecting water into Dai-Ichi’s reactors them since a March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the designated cooling systems, causing the worst nuclear accident in 25 years. Reactors need to be cooled below 100 degrees Celsius to shut down the plant…..

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/09/20/bloomberg_articlesLRT4QP6KLVRE.DTL#ixzz1YVRcYtpK