nuclear-news

The leak is coming from the fifth unit of The Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) nuclear power complex which was not part of the original four damaged from the level 9 earthquake in 2011.

According to Cleantechnica.com, “Engineers on the Fukushima site have said that apparently about 1,300 liters of highly radioactive water has leaked from a 3mm-diameter hole near a cooling system flow valve in Unit 5. The leak forced TEPCO workers at around 12pm on Sunday to shut off the cooling water system that was stabilizing the temperature of the spent fuel rod pool.”

Various news sites have explained that the unit is rising in temperature and within nine days it could exceed the dangerous threshold of 65^oC. Hotter water increases the possibility of further reactions and radiation leaks.

“TEPCO still remains in crisis at these plants due to leakage from corroded and incompletely sealed tanks, groundwater influx from the nearby hills, planned emergency discharges into the Pacific, and tricky fuel rod removal from the blasted Unit 4 reactor. In addition, the ice wall we reported on in June is not working as well as expected, and the Advanced Liquid Processing System for water purification only went back online several weeks ago after numerous false starts. Also in June, an American company, Kurion Inc., contracted with TEPCO to remove the hazardous strontium that ALPS decontamination cannot address with its own first-of-a-kind, truck-mounted at-tank filtration system. (Cleantechnica.com)