Japan: Tepco begins transferring radioactive water to waste facility

[News_Editor]

Japan: Tepco begins transferring radioactive water to waste facility

2011-04-19 20:33:01 GMT+7 (ICT)

TOKYO (BNO NEWS) -- The Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) on Tuesday announced that it started transferring high level radioactive wastewater to a storage and treatment facility.

Tepco, which operates the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, began transferring the water, which registered radiation levels over 1,000 millisieverts per hour, from its No. 2 reactor turbine building to the plant's Centralized Radiation Waste Treatment Facility.

The operation began after measures to prevent leakage were implemented inside the facility buildings, and once the transfer of the estimated 25,000 tons of contaminated water is completed, Tepco expects the wastewater to be stably stored.

In all, less than 70,000 tons of high level radioactive water has currently accumulated within the plant's facilities, Tepco said.

Last week, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency upgraded the severity level of the nuclear crisis to level 7 in an international scale, matching 1986's Chernobyl crisis.

According to the International Nuclear Event Scale, the release of over tens of thousands of terabecquerels of radioactive iodine 131 corresponds to a level 7 accident. While one terabecquerel equals 1 trillion becquerels, the plant's No. 1 to No. 3 nuclear reactors is estimated to have released between 370,000 and 630,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials into the environment.

Furthermore, Tepco has admitted that the radiation leakage could eventually surpass that from the former Soviet nuclear plant.

The nuclear station was damaged after the powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11 in which more than 27,000 people have been reported killed or missing in northeastern Japan.

The disasters disabled the cooling systems of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Radioactive elements leaked into the sea and were later found in water, air and food products in some parts of Japan.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-04-19

[surayu]

" the release of over tens of thousands of terabecquerels of radioactive iodine ..."

Does that means that we are all going to become more intelligent or i am just mixing up something?

[Greyman]

" the release of over tens of thousands of terabecquerels of radioactive iodine ..."

Does that means that we are all going to become more intelligent or i am just mixing up something?

Maybe they have found some prehistoric tree dwelling rodents.

If the spokesman for this company, held a press conference at 1pm. declaring it is daylight, I would go outside to check.