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Thursday, 7 April 2011

Cleaning up Japan's Radioactive Water Could Take Decades

No one is sure how to safely dispose of millions of gallons of highly radioactive water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. 'There is nothing like this, on this scale, that we have ever attempted to do before,' a U.S. expert says. For nearly four weeks, Japanese emergency crews have been spraying water on the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, a desperate attempt to avert the calamity of a full meltdown.


Now, that improvised solution to one nuclear nightmare is spawning another: what to do with the millions of gallons of water that has become highly radioactive as it washes through the plant. The water being used to try to cool the reactors and the dangerous spent fuel rods is leaking through fissures inside the plant, seeping down through tunnels and passageways to the lowest levels, where it is accumulating into a sea of lethal waste. No one is sure how to get rid of it safely....Read More...