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We can reduce theradioactivity of the

contaminated water by afactor of at least athousand so it will besignificantly lessradioactive than when it

News gt Science

Fukushima Workers Tackle Highly Radioactive Waterby RICHARD HARRIS

June 15 2011

Today workers at the crippled Fukushima

Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan tested out asystem that will start cleaning up an enormousvolume of radioactive water there

The water has flooded many buildings at thecomplex and it has seriously complicated effortsto bring the crisis there to an end But its alsoess ential to keep the reactor cores fromoverh eating

In fact the Tokyo Electric Power Co or TEPCOhas been pumping water continuously into thecrip ple d n uclear plant ever since the March 11tsunami k nocked out the system that was

suppose d to keep the reactor co res from o verheating

The result is tha t theres n ow enough radioactive water there to fill something like 40 Olympicswimming pools

Per Peterson chair of nuclear engineering at the University of California Berkeley says thatcontaminated water is actually a good thing mdash if you consider what could have happened instead

Most of the radioactive material that was released from the damaged fuel was actually washed outinto this water instead of going out into the environment Peterson says And thats good

But its also a huge problem when it comes to cleaning up the plant because the radioactive water keeps workers at bay So TEPCO hired several companies to build a water decontamination plantTheyre hoping the plant will be fully operational later this week

Removing Radioactive Sludge

The challenge is to remove radioactive cesium and other elements that are dissolved in the water

The water is being pumped from the flooded basements into holding tanks From those tanks it willgo through a f iltration system something like a charcoal filter and that captures some of theradioactive material

Next the water will run into a system built by the Frenchnuclear company Areva They use a chemical reaction toturn the dissolved cesium into a solid material

In our step of the process the radioactive materialprecipitates out like rain and settles in the bottom of thetanks where it forms a radioactive sludge sayscompany spokesman Jarret Adams And that sludge canbe removed from the tanks and sent for long-termstorage

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Enlarge APTokyo Electric Power Co

Workers set up tanks to process radioactive water at theFukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan The TokyoElectric Po wer Co test ed the new system Wednesday

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- Jarret Adams spokesman for AREVA the French nuclear company working with TEPCO

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ey use s process a o er nuc ear ac es an Adams says it works quite well

We can reduce the radioactivity of the contaminatedwater by a factor of at least a thousand so it will besignificantly less radioactive than when it was coming in

Cleaning up all this water is likely to take a couple of months If the water is clean enough Japanese officialscould decide to dump some of it into the ocean But in the short term they plan to run it back intothe plant That will keep the cores relatively cool And as long as they stay cool they wont ooze

more radioactive cesium into the water

I think this is an important step forward because once they begin t reating this water then theyll beable to get into the plant and start doing significant repairs Adams says

Plugging The Leak

And one of the most important repair jobs will be to stop the reactor vessels from leaking water inthe first place Those leaks mean TEPCO has to keep pumping more and more water into thereactors to keep them cool There are several ideas are in play to plug the leaks

One of the ones that s been suggested is to literally fill the space between the containment vesseland the building walls with cement or grout says Peterson from Berkeley Its possible that onemight also be able using robots to get in and patch places where the leaks are occurring as well

Once the leaks are patched the utility can fillthe three damaged reactor vessels completelywith water without flooding the rest of the plantNot only would that keep the reactor cores coolbut this clean water would serve as an effectiveradiation shield In fact a water shield proved tobe key to cleaning up the Three Mile Islandnuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania back in1979

It was possible to remove the fuel because youcould flood water up above the level of the fuel provide shielding and then workers could get in tomanipulate damaged fuel and get it out Peterson says

Eventually theyll need to do the same thing at Fukushima Daiichi though as with Three MileIsland that process is likely to take many years

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Recent FirstNigel Tufnel (fishnut) wroteGreat analogy Some DudeThursday June 16 2011 134402

Nigel Tufnel (fishnut) wroteI think Willy is recomending his own posts Or paid bloggers are helping him There are notthat many nuclear industry apologists on this thread NO NUKESThursday June 16 2011 134155

Morris Townson (MorrisTN) wroteElectrical Fire Knocks Out Spent Fuel Cooling at Nebraska Nuke Plant

On June 6 2011 the Fort Calhoun pressurized water nuclear reactor 20 miles north of Omaha Nebraska entered emergency status due to imminent flooding from the MissouriRiver Aday later there was an electrical fire requiring plant evacuation

June 15 2011

Tom Burnett writes on Rensecom on that Ft Calhoun is the designated spent fuel storagefacility for the entire state of Nebraskaand maybe for more than one state

Calhoun stores i ts spent fuel in ground-level pools which are underwater anyway - but theyare open at the top When the Missouri riv

morehttpwwwforbiddenknowledgetvcomvideosradiation-poisoningfire-at-flooded-nebraska-nuke-plantleads-to-level-4-emergencyhtml

Why wont NPR report thisThursday June 16 2011 073412

Some Dude (NoNameProvided) wrote

Hey I just spilled 50000000 gallons of orange paint onto the streets of New York City Nowwatch me put it al l back into these five 10000 gallon tanks Well all of the orange pigmentthat is all that didnt spill down into the sewers attach itself to car tires shoes run intobasements adhere to buildings you know ummm Hey Watch this monkey dance while Iplay an accordion

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Thursday June 16 2011 002422

Steve Carr (Abu_el_Banat) wroteRobert Keeler (Flyingstar) wroteThere IS no good news when it comes to Nuclear power

Good news Neither BP nor Massey Energy are in charge of safety at any nuclear reactorsWednesday June 15 2011 190602

Steve Carr (Abu_el_Banat) wroteNPR neglected to report the actual level of 137-Cs contamination in the holding tanks

40 Olympic swimming pools is 40 x 2500000 litres = 100000000 litres which at 2000

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litres metric ton = 50000 tons

Now can NPR report the current contamination level ( Ci 137-Cslitre ) and we can do themath on a thousand-fold reduction and compare it to acceptable discharge levels into theoceanWednesday June 15 2011 185837

Steve Carr (Abu_el_Banat) wroteWilly Roentgen (xray2) wroteThe water is not radioactive The water contains contamination which is radioactiveTherefore the suspended radioactive elements can be fil tered out Finally the material canbe precipitated out and removed

When we say Coke is brown we mean its a watery drink with brown coloring in it If a bottleof Coke were contaminated with radioactive cesium as well as E coli you could run itthrough an appropriate filter to remove all the particulate bacteria It would stil l beradioactive brown and taste like Coke You could then run the brown fluid through anadsorption system something like charcoal that would bind the brown coloring and get aclear radioactive fluid that mostly tasted like coke Then you do your precipitation to reducethe concentration of cesium and get a clear less radioactive fluid that taste almost exactlyunlike Coke Share and enjoyWednesday June 15 2011 184106

Willy Roentgen (xray2) wroteThe water is not radioactive The water contains contamination which is radioactive

Therefore the suspended radioactive elements can be fil tered out Finally the material canbe precipitated out and removed The inaccurate reporting creates a false impression of thedangers involvedWednesday June 15 2011 173748

Robert Keeler (Flyingstar) wroteThere IS no good news when it comes to Nuclear powerWednesday June 15 2011 170938

H W (CheChe) wroteFinally some good news

Are these tanks staying on site If so what about another Tsunami and or quake Maybethey could move them to higher ground ya know just in case

But I guess not since Most of the radioactive material that was released from the damagedfuel was actually washed out into this water instead of going out into the environmentPeterson says And thats good (Really which -environment- are we talking about)

AND

Cleaning up all this water is likely to take a couple of months If the water is clean enoughJapanese officials could decide to dump some of it into the ocean (Nice how aboutspreading it over the airstrip so pilots can see it at night)Wednesday June 15 2011 161550

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