A robot failed on April 18 to locate a leak of radioactive water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant’s No. 2 reactor.
A robot failed on April 18 to locate a leak of radioactive water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant’s No. 2 reactor.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant’s operator, had assumed the water was leaking from hatchways in the pressure suppression chamber in the basement of the reactor building.
But a camera-equipped robot sent to the reactor on April 18 inspected the hatchways at two locations in the upper part of the pressure suppression chamber and failed to confirm any leak.
TEPCO, which is under pressure to make progress on decommissioning the reactors, is injecting 200 tons of water into the reactor every day to cool its nuclear fuel, but water contaminated with radioactive materials is flowing into the pressure suppression chamber and then leaking out of that chamber.
TEPCO will have to stop the leaks and fill the inside of the containment vessel with water before it can begin the removal of the nuclear fuel.
“We had hoped to locate the leak,” said Junichi Matsumoto, acting general director of TEPCO’s Nuclear Power and Plant Siting Division. “But it is good to know that such a survey method is possible.”
TEPCO also plans to survey the No. 3 reactor, where contaminated water is also leaking.