TEPCO Expects to End Fukushima Nuclear Crisis as Early as October

Tokyo Electric Power Co. set out a plan to end the crisis at its tsunami-hit Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, within six months.

The utility known as Tepco expects a sustained drop in radiation levels at the plant within three months, the company said in a statement released at a news conference in Tokyo yesterday. Following that, a cold shutdown, where core reactor temperatures fall below 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit), may be achieved within three to six months, according to the statement.

“You aren’t generating any new fission products and it’s going to get easier and easier to bring the reactors under control,” said David Fletcher, an adjunct professor of chemical and bio-molecular engineering at the University of Sydney. “It’s quite possible to do it in that sort of time. Seems like some better news than what we’ve been hearing for a while.”

The cooling systems at the power station were knocked out by a 15-meter (49-foot) surge following a magnitude-9 earthquake on March 11. Efforts to cool the reactors and stem radiation leaks have been hampered by fires and aftershocks. Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata told reporters in Tokyo yesterday that he plans to resign when the time is “appropriate.”

“Maintain the cooling, that’s the main thing,” Fletcher, who studied the 1986 Chernobyl disaster while working for the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, said by telephone from Sydney. “One would hope they turn the corner and get reliable cooling.”
Radioactive Water

Radioactive water continued to accumulate in ditches near the No. 2 and 3 reactors, Tetsuya Terasawa, a spokesman at Tepco, told reporters yesterday. Radiation levels in the sea near the plant have also risen, according to Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. Tepco has placed bags of sand and zeolite, a material that can trap radiation, in the sea, Nishiyama said on April 16.

The utility halted a leak of highly radioactive water in the sea from a pit near the No. 2 reactor, Tepco said on April 6. The company separately ejected water with lower levels of radiation from a treatment facility and trenches outside the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors, to make space for more dangerous fluids. In the next three months, Tepco plans to fill the reactor containment vessels at the No. 1 and No. 3 units with water, the company said in yesterday’s statement. The utility will seal the vessel of the No. 2 reactor before flooding it.
‘Monitor Volume’

“For the No. 2 unit, the containment vessel is highly likely to be damaged,” Vice President Sakae Muto told reporters in Tokyo yesterday. “If we flood the damaged vessel, the leak of contaminated water will increase. We will continue injecting water with care and monitor the volume of water leaked.”

Tepco plans to inject nitrogen into the containment vessels of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors by the end of April, Muto said. The utility injected the inert gas into the No. 1 unit this month to prevent hydrogen explosions.

The Fukushima plant has six generating units. Reactors Nos. 4, 5 and 6 were already shut for maintenance before the tremor stuck on March 11.

Tepco will repair and strengthen the walls and base of a pool containing spent fuel rods in the No. 4 reactor building under the first phase of the plan, according to the statement.

Three to six months after the initial phase, Tepco will attempt a cold shutdown of reactors No. 1, 2 and 3, the company said. During this time, the utility will also cover the No. 1, 3 and 4 reactor buildings with scaffolding as a temporary measure to reduce radiation emissions after the structures were damaged by hydrogen blasts last month, according to the statement.
Evacuated Families

Japan’s government plans within six to nine months from now to tell families evacuated from the area whether they can return home, Trade Minister Banri Kaieda said in a briefing in Tokyo yesterday. A 20-kilometer (12-mile) evacuation zone was imposed after the accident. The government widened it this month to include the towns of Iitate, Katsurao and Namie.

Radiation no longer poses “significant” health risks beyond an 80-kilometer radius, according to the U.S. State Department, as it cleared employees’ families to return to Japanese cities including Tokyo, Nagoya and Yokohama.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Tokyo yesterday for a five-hour stop in a show of solidarity for Japan after the tsunami and earthquake last month left more than 28,000 people dead or missing.

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