Tepco can’t even investigate why ALPS stopped purifying contaminated water / Too radioactive to study

Following up this article.. 21 tanks and 1km of pipe must be decontaminated due to the system failure of ALPS / Not known when to reboot ALPS [URL]

Tepco cannot even investigate what caused the system problem in multiple nuclide removing system ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System).

The system has shut down 3 times within 10 days. This is about the first shut down.

Tepco found that one of the 3 systems did not purify the contaminated water on 3/18/2014. Before they notice this problem, they already contaminated 21 tanks and 1km length of the pipes.

They assume the problem was in a filter of this system. However, they can’t investigate the part due to the excessively high level of radiation.

Tepco states they need to decontaminate the part but they haven’t even been able to start cleaning the filter.

Tepco’s spokes man commented they are in the process of preparation but it’s not known when they complete the investigation.

ALPS is practically considered to be one of the national projects on contaminated water issue. Tepco’s president Hirose stated to Japanese Prime Minister Abe to complete purifying all the contaminated water by the end of March in 2015.

The current contaminated water volume is approx. 450,000 m3. ALPS is required to process 1,960 m3/day of contaminated water from this summer. However ALPS hasn’t been in the full operation since early 2013. The cause of this latest trouble hasn’t even been identified either. There is a possibility that ALPS is only an imaginary technology to swerve the domestic / international criticisms for a short term.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/tepconews/library/movie-01j.html

Iori Mochizuki

Downplay it in the beginning, and quietly add more information so nobody notices it. All for not letting the cattle escape. This is their strategy.

_____

Column of the Day: Your Geiger counter is less useful than common sense

Français :

Tepco ne peut pas rechercher pourquoi ALPS s’est arrêté de filtrer les eaux extrêmement radioactives : c’est trop radioactif pour l’étudier

Article lié : 21 citernes et 1 km de tuyaux doivent être décontaminés à cause de la panne de ALPS : Date de redémarrage de ALPS inconnue

Tepco ne peut même pas rechercher ce qui a posé problème au système de filtration multi-nucléide ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System).
Ce système a été arrêté 3 fois en 10 jours. Ceci concerne le premier arrêt.
Tepco a trouvé le 18 mars 2014 que l’un des 3 systèmes ne filtrait plus rien. Ils avaient déjà pollué 21 citernes et 1 km de tuyauteries quand ils s’en sont rendus compte.
Ils supposent que le problème se situe dans l’un des filtres de ce système. Cependant, ils ne peuvent aller explorer cet endroit à cause de sa trop grande radioactivité.
Tepco affirme qu’ils doivent décontaminer cette partie mais ils n’ont pas même été capables de commencer à nettoyer le filtre.
Le porte-parole de Tepco a déclaré qu’ils sont en train de le préparer mais on ne sait pas quand ils vont finir leurs investigations.

ALPS est quasiment considéré comme étant le premier des projets de retraitement des eaux extrêmement radioactives. M. Hirose, le président de Tepco a affirmé à M. Abe, le premier ministre japonais que la filtration des eaux extrêmement radioactives seraient terminée pour fin mars 2015.
Le volume actuel des eaux extrêmement radioactives est d’environ 450 000 m³ (=45 000 Hl). ALPS doit traiter 1 960 m³/jour (196 Hl/j) d’eau extrêmement radioactive à partir de cet été. Or ALPS n’a jamais été totalement opérationnel depuis le début de 2013. La cause du dernier problème n’a pas encore été même identifiée non plus. Il est possible que ALPS soit une technique parfaitement imaginaire pour se dérober aux critiques intérieures/ internationales à court terme.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/tepconews/library/movie-01j.html

Le minimiser au début et ajouter tranquillement de nouvelles information pour que personne ne le remarque. Tout pour que le troupeau ne s’échappe pas. C’est leur stratégie.

2 Comments

Just Some Guy says:

April 4, 2014 at 7:22 pm

The biggest problem with ALPS is that it was not designed to filter the water found at Fukushima, that TEPCO is attempting to filter.

There are 2 sections to the ALPS unit, ‘pretreatment facilities’ and ‘adsorption towers.’

The pretreatment facilities consist of 2 precipitation units, one uses Iron and the other uses Carbonate.
Any mention of ‘slurry’ when speaking of the ALPS unit is the waste collected from these units.

The adsorption tower units are constructed of 16 towers. 14 of these are described as ‘adsorbent replacement type’ and the other 2 as ‘column type.’ The waste from these units is considered ‘spent adsorbent.’ Each adsorbent tower contains an adsorbent mixture that targets individual radioactive ions. The advantage of this system is each filter tank could be designed to make the most effective use of the filters. In this way each tower could be emptied and refilled as needed. This allowed each tower to have a different lifetime with respect to the ion that was being filtered. So the tanks did not need to all be changed out together, instead they get changed out only when needed. Creating

The plan was that the adsorbent would capture the vast majority of the radionuclides in their ionic form. This could create a dense, essentially dry, low volume package. This could then be stored far more easily than the water tanks which currently hold the radioactive material. There would be just a small amount of the liquid slurry mixture that would be need to be stored.

The precipitation units have material that will join with and then help the suspended solids fall out of the water. The goal to be leaving the solids mixed with water, forming the slurry. The thicker the mixture, the better the results. A problem of the precipitation units is that they do not filter by element, but by physical make-up of the material. So unlike the adsorbent, lower half-life radioactive material can not be separated from the material that stays radioactive for a longer time. Every thing is grouped together and must be treated as if it contains the most contaminated material.

Unfortunately, it seems that about 95% of the radioactive material is in a form such that it is removed by the ‘pretreatment’ precipitation tanks. This leaves much larger than expected levels of slurry. The quantity of water that remains is such that the slurry needs to be processed again, using another system, in order for it to be able to fit into the designed waste storage space. For the next few 100,000 years of its radioactive life.

For reason or reasons unknown, the ALPS is not designed to efficiently deal with the wastewater at Fukushima. This seems like a fairly basic part of the system design. Testing the wastewater and asking the question, “What are we trying to do with this system.” was not part of the design.

As a result, it will never, in its current configuration, be able to meet the needs of the power station. This is why the system seems to fail so often. The current ‘solution’ when the system requires servicing, is to push the water harder and wait for something to break. What finally happened is that the system became clogged to the point where the water out of the system is still highly radioactive.

To solve a problem, you must address the cause and not the symptoms. Clicking your heels together 3 times and saying, ” I wish I was not in Fukushima anymore.” simply will not work.
1. Bill Duff says:
  
  April 5, 2014 at 10:48 am
  
  Well organized ALPS Summary,
  
  Source?

Comments are closed.

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Tepco can’t even investigate why ALPS stopped purifying contaminated water / Too radioactive to study

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