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Page added on February 20, 2014
Tepco Finds New Radioactive Leak at Fukushima
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), operator of the crisis-ridden Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, said it found a new leak near the tanks holding contaminated water at the disaster site.
The utility, which serves 29 million customers in the Tokyo metropolitan area, is collecting soil where the leak occurred and doesn’t believe any water reached the ocean, company executives said at a briefing in Tokyo. About 100 metric tons (26,400 gallons) of water may have escaped a concrete barrier, the company said.
“Such a water leak was found despite a variety of measures taken by the company,” Masayuki Ono, an official at the utility’s nuclear power and plant division, said. “We are sorry to have caused concern,” he said.
The finding is a reminder of the task still facing Tokyo Electric as the utility, known as Tepco, battles to manage the plant almost three years since the earthquake and tsunami.
Beta radiation readings of 230 million becquerels per liter were taken in a sample collected from a gutter on top of the leaked tank at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, according to a statement from the Tokyo-based utility. Japan’s safety limit for radioactive materials in drinking water is 10 becquerels per liter, according to the health ministry.
Radioactive water overflowed from the 10-meter long tank after two valves — which were supposed to be closed — had been opened, Ono said today. The leak was found 700 meters (0.4 miles) from the ocean in an area isolated from any drainage ditch, he said.
Setback to Decommissioning
Japan’s nuclear regulator, which is planning to check the utility’s probe of the leak and planned preventative measures, said today that it has asked Tepco to ensure no more leaks from the same type of water storage tanks occur.
The leak highlights difficulties for the regulator as it seeks to force Tepco to limit radiation at the site without slowing down its decommissioning.
“We need a balance of the best regulation and also the quickest decommissioning at Fukushima Dai-Ichi because we really want to have the reduction of the risk at the site,” Nuclear Regulation Authority commissioner Toyoshi Fuketa said today in Tokyo.
Tepco has installed about a thousand tanks at Fukushima to store hundreds of thousands of tons of water used to cool fuel after the nuclear accident in March 2011.
Some 300 tons of contaminated groundwater seep into the ocean each day at the Dai-Ichi station 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo, Japan’s government has said.
Between May 2011 and August 2013, as many as 20 trillion becquerels of cesium-137, 10 trillion becquerels of strontium-90 and 40 trillion becquerels of tritium entered the ocean via groundwater, according to past statements from Tepco.
Tepco’s shares closed down 7 yen, or 2.4 percent, at 455 yen in Tokyo trading after earlier declining as much as 2.8 percent. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average dropped 2.2 percent.
7 Comments on "Tepco Finds New Radioactive Leak at Fukushima"
Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 12:39 pm
Don’t we love when politicians in charge tell us what is plain common sense like we are completely ignorant barely above the level of the ape? Don’t tell me this shit. Tell me something real and relevant. This type of talk comes from our President and most others world leaders in prime time extravagant productions. They make me puk frankly. It just makes me feel like they really are not in control of this situation. It makes me feel like we don’t have real leaders. I feel like these guys are saying this but the reality is things are out of control. They are telling us to be calm we leaders have this handled. We leaders are going to tell you “general public” what you want us to say even though we are clueless and impedant. We really have no solutions and are in fact paralyzed. It is our duty to lie to you so you don’t panic. Well, they have a point, panic leads to loss of confidence leading to loss of liquidity. Liquidity of resources are essential in a complex interconnected global world where our local survival depends on the global survival. Yet, spontaneous panic is a very dangerous thing. At some point a leader is going to have to stand up for something higher than his own self interest and tell the world “Houston we have a problem”. Throughout history we have seen such leaders at times of crisis. We need something…anything. BTW, this Fukushima issues dove tails with my preaching for a managed BAU decent. Multiply Fukushima by 400. Add in weapon grade Plutonium and nuk wmd. We can’t just preach “lets dump BAU” and hope for the best. That solution is a game “ender”
Kenz300 on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 4:18 pm
This disaster is ongoing and TEPCO has shown that they are not able to deal with it.
More than 2 years since the original disaster and it is still not under control.
Seems like nuclear energy is just too costly and too dangerous.
Had this been a wind or solar powered plant the area would already be cleaned up, the people would be back in their homes and safe, clean alternative energy would once again be produced at the site.
chilyb on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 4:52 pm
where is that guy to tell us this is just another small amount of radiation? We need to stop counting the leaks and focus on the big picture – which is stopping the flow of groundwater below the reactor buildings and figuring out how we are going to remove the melted piles from the reactor buildings.
GregT on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 10:12 pm
davy,
We could always dump BAU first, and then use some of the remaining resources to focus on the important stuff. It’s not like we’re about to run out of fossil fuels anytime soon. And besides, they have already said that it will take 40 years to deal with Fukushima even with BAU, which certainly would appear to be well beyond the scope of many of the limits that we face.
First, secure everything that needs to be secured, then crash BAU, let the chips fall where they may, and then come back and clean up the mess. From there, hopefully, we would be able to move ahead to a sustainable future, after learning such a hard lesson from all of the mistakes that we’ve made.
Just a thought.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 11:32 pm
@GregT
Well, as we both know we are theorizing with linear thought on a nonlinear highly complex system called BAU. BAU, being self-organizing and complex, functions like an ecosystem so generally beyond normal efforts to change. It is not like we are going to have an agreement to end it. How do you end business as usual by agreement? The crashing of BAU would of course be very hard to do without agreement of TPTB if it were possible. That is doubtful. We could have some action done by forces against BAU that would initiate a collapse by a lone wolf or a mad scientist act. If BAU were to come apart quickly for whatever reason on its own would probably be the best way to describe it. We are forecasting this very outcome here in our discussions. We know TPTB with their fingers on WMD’s could definitely bring an end to BAU and all of us. A romantic part of me sees ending BAU quickly as saving mother earth and her creatures. Yet, as we discussed over and over here “what about the industrial man global poisons”? That is the question I always get back to. If this decent is not handled right will we open Pandora’s Box within her box. We already open the box with our pursuit of knowledge and technology. The inner box is the game ending poisons. It is very obvious to us here that we have open the floodgates to hell with no known way to close it. What-ifs, blaming, and crying is of no use really anymore. I think it should be the highest mission of mankind at this point to navigate a way out of this. That is a romantic view yet again on my part. I don’t think Modern Industrial Man is not capable of that level of awakening in a global sense only in an individual or small group sense. I think Greg once BAU starts to fragment and come apart the resulting event will be anything but rational and controllable. When a system bifurcates the system switches to a new behavior with the onset of chaos. The resulting outcome may vary wildly from what the desired result was. In this situation there is no reason your thoughts of a quick BAU death would not work but so is winning the lottery. Your idea of a quick end to BAU is conceivable. It may be worth the risk if a slow managed BAU is not possible and or more harmful. I still think as BAU comes apart a controlled decent with the bottom up affecting change enough to guide us to a gentle landing with enough BAU abilities to manage the worst of industrial man’s poisons seems less risky. If not completely manage the worst poisons then do battlefield triage saving something somewhere. Saving some of us.
Makati1 on Fri, 21st Feb 2014 2:05 am
@D.H.,I have to agree on most of your comment. I do not see homo sapiens surviving any crash, no matter the cause or speed. The slow decent is unlikely because the house of cads is not resistant to gravity, even a small amount.
If the only dangers were from the chemical/biological pollution, we would have a chance, but the nuclear genie’s bottle is broken and we cannot ever put it back in. We are stuck with concentrated deadly poison for the next 10,000+ years, in quantities and in locations that make sure 100% of us will be affected.
I have no hopes for mankind to last beyond 2100 except as mentally and physically crippled animals trying to survive in a dying world. Radioactivity is a stealth killer unless you are exposed to massive doses and then it is almost instantaneous. About like ingesting mercury. A tiny bit is ok and your body can handle it, but your mind starts to go as you ingest more and more, and then, as it accumulates it finally kills you. Ditto for lead, and other slow killers you may not even be aware of.
The greedy ape will be a short lived species.
GregT on Fri, 21st Feb 2014 5:31 am
davy,
I agree with all of what you have said, again.
“We could have some action done by forces against BAU that would initiate a collapse by a lone wolf or a mad scientist act.”
Or perhaps a planned collapse of the world’s financial and economic systems would work, after a plan was put into effect for martial law of course.
Ya I know, other than doing our own personal best to prepare, everything else is pure speculation.