TEPCO is set to begin its massive water decontamination operation as soon as they fix their leaks.
The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant said Thursday that water was found leaking from a newly installed radioactive water treatment system during its trial run, hampering the firm's plan to fully operate it from Friday.
It's a race against time to avoid a massive spill of radioactive water into the sea since they are projected to run out of their current storage space on June 20th. This is a key hurdle. What comes next will be the decisions on radioactive sludge disposal.
The amount of sludge that will be produced is massive. While the water treatment system they will be using will be capable of reducing cesium in contaminated water to around a 100,000th of its original level, the sludge produced in the process will be highly radioactive.
But while contaminated water is treated, the system developed by Areva is expected to produce about 2,000 cubic meters of radioactive sludge by the end of this year. The sludge is likely to be highly radioactive with 100 million becquerels per cubic centimeter. In addition, about two to four 2.3-meter-tall (7' & 6.55")* cesium-absorbing containers are expected to be needed each day, but the roadmap does not take into account work to dispose of the containers.
"Massive amounts of extremely high levels of radioactive waste will be produced and our work to deal with the crisis at the No. 1 Nuclear Plant will enter unknown territory. It could affect the roadmap," said a senior official of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The Mainichi Daily News - TEPCO starts up water treatment system, but massive radioactive waste feared
*italics diarist addition
TEPCO's roadmap (pdf) makes absolutely no mention of this sludge, its management or ultimate disposal. The Japanese government announced today that they will allow some of this sludge to be buried at waste disposal sites.
A government task force on nuclear emergency said Thursday it has decided to allow sludge containing 8,000 becquerels per kilogram or less of radioactive cesium to be buried in waste disposal sites only if residential houses are not built there in the future.
It also said sludge containing over 8,000 to 100,000 becquerels per kg of cesium could be buried after evaluating its safety individually, while sludge measuring more than 100,000 becquerels per kg should be kept under shielding but its final disposal manner is undecided
(snip)
The task force said the decision targets 13 prefectures, including Fukushima, Tokyo and Shizuoka..
Mainichi - Gov't allows part of radioactive tainted sludge to be buried
That's a projected 2,000 cubic meters of radioactive sludge that will have to be disposed of through the end of the year. How long this will continue is really anyone's guess at this point. I keep wondering what else we're going to find out about that's not on that TEPCO roadmap.