Monday, April 18, 2011

Tepco expected to cool in three months Fukushima reactor

Tokyo. .- Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said today that the steady cooling of the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima plant will be restored in three months, but the total shutdown of these units will take six to nine months. The honorary president of TEPCO, Tsunehisa Katsumata, today unveiled its plan to end the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant, three of whose reactors were left without cooling by the devastating tsunami of 11 March.

The plan has two phases, the first three months in which it is expected that nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools stably recover from its cooling system. In a second stage, six to nine months, these reactors will be completely stabilized, taken to a point of "cooling down" or complete shutdown, according to the program released today by TEPCO.

The Japanese company also provides cover for the three reactors buildings damaged in a period of six to nine months. Katsumata apologized for the crisis caused by the nuclear accident in Fukushima, which reached the highest level of 7, the same as that of Chernobyl in 1986, said his company is trying to "prevent worsening" the situation.

TEPCO hopes to have ready in summer a cool new system for units 1, 2 and 3, who suffered the accident, and both drain contaminated water. This is a new cooling system that will filter polluted water and will launch these units once clean, to prevent the accumulation of radioactive water in the reactor buildings, as has happened so far.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident was caused by the devastating tsunami of March 11 on the northeast coast of Japan, which left 13,756 dead and 14,141 missing and left without cooling the reactor of the plant.

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