Despite a series of highly publicized glitches, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said its new purification unit will significantly reduce radiation levels in contaminated water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Despite a series of highly publicized glitches, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said its new purification unit will significantly reduce radiation levels in contaminated water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
TEPCO said June 24 that equipment made by Areva SA, a French nuclear engineering company, was able to reduce radiation levels to around 1/10,000th of original levels in trial runs.
TEPCO said that this performance would allow it to cut overall radiation levels of highly contaminated water in the entire compound to its target of 1/10,000th and 1/1,000,000th of original levels.
The water purification system at the plant uses equipment made by Areva, U.S. firm Kurion Inc., and others.
The utility said Kurion's equipment to adsorb cesium slashed the amount of radioactivity to only 1/100th of the hoped-for level although it was operating properly.
However, the less-than stellar performance may have been the result of operating errors in the previous test runs that allowed the presence of highly radioactive water residue on the equipment during the latest test, TEPCO said.
Kurion's equipment was supposed to cut radiation levels to 1/1,000th to 1/10,000th.
The water purification system needs to process more than 110,000 tons of radioactive water that has accumulated in turbine buildings and elsewhere on the complex during the continuing injection of water to cool reactors.