Robots find high radiation in Japan power plant

Robots sent into two buildings at Japan’s crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station detected radiation still too toxic for humans as the plant operator set out a plan to end the crisis in six to nine months.

According to the Bloomberg, measurements show one hour inside the No. 3 reactor building would expose humans to more than one-fifth of the radiation Japan has said is the most workers can endure in a year, the atomic safety agency said yesterday.

People haven’t been in the buildings since a 15-meter (49-foot) surge following a magnitude-9 quake on March 11 knocked out cooling equipment, sparking the worst disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

A sustained drop in radiation at the tsunami-damaged plant could be achieved within three months, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said in a statement laying out its plans.

Following that, a cold shutdown, where core reactor temperatures fall below 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit), may be achieved within six months, it said.

The six-to-nine month timeframe “seems mind-bogglingly long given the urgency,” said Michael Friedlander, a nuclear engineer who is chief risk officer at APG Asset Management in Hong Kong.

The utility should aim to have the crisis in hand in two to three months, he said. “They’re managing expectations and don’t want to make a commitment they can’t deliver on.”

In the next three months, Tepco, as the utility is known, plans to fill the reactor containment vessels at the No. 1 and No. 3 units with water, the company said in its April 17 statement. The utility will seal the vessel of the No. 2 reactor, which is likely damaged, before flooding it.

“If we flood the damaged vessel, the leak of contaminated water will increase,” Tepco Vice President Sakae Muto told reporters in Tokyo April 17. “We will continue injecting water with care and monitor the volume of water leaked.”

The water pumped so far has overflowed into basements and trenches, with some of it leaking into the ocean.

“It is vitally important that Tepco succeeds in shifting the cooling process to a closed loop system,” said Philip White, international liaison officer at the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo.

“In the current situation, where water poured in one end leaks out the other, there is the constant danger that highly radioactive water will run off into the sea,” he added.