(Fukushima) Circulation cooling system hits another snag

[kristopher]

Circulation cooling system hits another snag

The newly installed reactor-cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has suffered another problem, as its water treatment equipment has stopped.

The system that decontaminates and re-uses radioactive water from the facilities is believed to be the key to the stable cooling of the reactors.

But Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says the decontamination equipment stopped automatically on Thursday afternoon when the alarm went off.

TEPCO says the problem turned out to be a malfunction of a gas exhaust on a French-made device that removes radioactive material from the water.

The utility says ...

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_30.html

[madokie]

1. Will they ever get this under control?

You seem to be staying on top of this catastrophe so whats your take on that

rec'd

[kristopher]

3. I guess it would depend on what you mean by "under control".

As far as I'm concerned,the horse has left the barn and the damage that has been done is a sample of how we cannot "control" the failures of nuclear energy technology.

If you are speaking more specifically of the Rube Goldberg-esque, slapdash, Keystone Cops band-aid of a water treatment system, I have to say that I have no idea. It certainly isn't working as they hoped. The failure noted in the OP just one in a long and continuing series of failures, shutdowns and restarts so it isn't clear WTF is actually happening at this point.
This is the latest: "on June 29, TEPCO announced that as of the day before about 121,000 tons of highly radioactive water was present at the No. 1 through No. 4 reactors at the plant, up 16,000 tons from the end of May. TEPCO said that moving forward, the new water purification system will cleanse 3,000 tons of radioactive water a week. The calculation is based on the system operating at 80 percent capacity. Actual utilization was only about 55 percent from June 17 to June 28."

Given their demonstrated willingness to hide negative news, and the warnings we've heard previously about limited space for contaminated water storage I'm not sure we can have any confidence in their ability to contain the contaminated water. I would not be surprised at all to learn that they have been or are planning to dump overflow into the ocean.

You might want to read the rest of the Asahi article I just quoted from:
TEPCO denies new leak at Fukushima plant
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106300191.html

[SpoonFed]

2. It should be refered to as a "cooling system"...

when it actually starts cooling something. Same with the water filtration... it should be called a "radioisotope removal system", when it starts actually removing something.