ID :
208384
Tue, 09/20/2011 - 19:02
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Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/208384
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Gov't, TEPCO look to stabilize Fukushima nuclear plant by year-end
TOKYO, Sept. 20 Kyodo -
The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday they will seek to achieve a stable condition called ''cold shutdown'' of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant by the end of this year but maintained the deadline of January in their updated work schedule to contain the crisis.
Announcing the outcome of their monthly review of the work schedule, the regulatory authority and plant operator also said the amount of radioactive substances currently leaking from the plant's damaged Nos. 1 to 3 reactors remains below the limit set by the government, but that they will try to reduce it further.
The estimated maximum rate of 200 million becquerels per hour in the latest assessment, unchanged from a month earlier, means that a person could be exposed to up to 0.4 millisievert when standing around the plant for one year, and clears the targeted limit of 1 millisievert per year.
But it is still high compared with the 0.05 millisievert target for nuclear plants that are operating normally.
''Work is proceeding basically as planned...and we will put all our effort into achieving a state of cold shutdown by around year-end,'' Tokyo Electric Executive Vice President Zengo Aizawa said at a press conference.
Cabinet Office Parliamentary Secretary Yasuhiro Sonoda, who also attended the press conference, stressed that the year-end target is ''a goal to strive for'' and the government hopes to offer support to the utility so that the schedule can be moved up.
The remarks were in line with nuclear disaster minister Goshi Hosono's statement Monday at an annual conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
Cooling the pressure vessels of the three troubled reactors is part of the key conditions to realize the plant's cold shutdown, which the government and Tokyo Electric said in their road map will be achieved sometime between October and January.
Cold shutdown is also defined by the government and the utility as a state in which the release of radioactive materials from reactors is under control and the radiation exposure dose is held down significantly.
To further reduce the leaking radioactive materials, the utility known as TEPCO said it plans to install a new device that can extract gas from reactor containment vessels, take away radioactive materials from it and release the cleaned gas outside.
TEPCO plans to start work to build the device from next week.
Crisis management efforts are continuing at the plant after reactors and spent fuel pools lost their key cooling functions in the wake of a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami on March 11.
2011-09-20 23:58:44
The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday they will seek to achieve a stable condition called ''cold shutdown'' of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant by the end of this year but maintained the deadline of January in their updated work schedule to contain the crisis.
Announcing the outcome of their monthly review of the work schedule, the regulatory authority and plant operator also said the amount of radioactive substances currently leaking from the plant's damaged Nos. 1 to 3 reactors remains below the limit set by the government, but that they will try to reduce it further.
The estimated maximum rate of 200 million becquerels per hour in the latest assessment, unchanged from a month earlier, means that a person could be exposed to up to 0.4 millisievert when standing around the plant for one year, and clears the targeted limit of 1 millisievert per year.
But it is still high compared with the 0.05 millisievert target for nuclear plants that are operating normally.
''Work is proceeding basically as planned...and we will put all our effort into achieving a state of cold shutdown by around year-end,'' Tokyo Electric Executive Vice President Zengo Aizawa said at a press conference.
Cabinet Office Parliamentary Secretary Yasuhiro Sonoda, who also attended the press conference, stressed that the year-end target is ''a goal to strive for'' and the government hopes to offer support to the utility so that the schedule can be moved up.
The remarks were in line with nuclear disaster minister Goshi Hosono's statement Monday at an annual conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
Cooling the pressure vessels of the three troubled reactors is part of the key conditions to realize the plant's cold shutdown, which the government and Tokyo Electric said in their road map will be achieved sometime between October and January.
Cold shutdown is also defined by the government and the utility as a state in which the release of radioactive materials from reactors is under control and the radiation exposure dose is held down significantly.
To further reduce the leaking radioactive materials, the utility known as TEPCO said it plans to install a new device that can extract gas from reactor containment vessels, take away radioactive materials from it and release the cleaned gas outside.
TEPCO plans to start work to build the device from next week.
Crisis management efforts are continuing at the plant after reactors and spent fuel pools lost their key cooling functions in the wake of a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami on March 11.
2011-09-20 23:58:44
