EXCLUSIVE: Water-Injecting Trucks at Fukushima N-Plant Outlive Use

Tokyo, March 10 (Jiji Press)–Concrete pumping trucks that played a crucial role in cooling spent nuclear fuel during the 2011 meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have outlived their use 15 years on. Some of the trucks, which have arms over 50 meters long and were nicknamed “giraffe” and “elephant,” are still being maintained for possible emergencies, but their roles are effectively coming to an end thanks to progress in plant decommissioning work. The Fukushima plant’s No. 1 to No. 4 reactors lost power after a massive tsunami struck the facility in the wake of a huge earthquake on March 11, 2011. This left the plant operator unable to cool the reactors or spent fuel pools, raising the risk of fuel being exposed out of the water and releasing large amounts of radioactive materials. There were efforts to spray and release water from Self-Defense Forces helicopters and firetrucks, but the plant needed a way to inject water stably over a long time. TEPCO sought the help of construction companies in and outside Japan that owned high-pressure pumping trucks for transporting liquid concrete at high-altitude construction sites such as tall buildings. The company received a total of six trucks and began using them at the meltdown-stricken plant from March 22, helping avoid crises by directly injecting water into the spent fuel pools of the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors, which had suffered hydrogen explosions. Water injection using the trucks continued until June that year, when preparations were completed to feed water using pipes in the reactor buildings instead. An accident investigation report released by TEPCO described the use of pumping trucks as “an extremely important crossroad for preventing the scale of the disaster from escalating.” Three of the six trucks are out of service due to breakdowns, and a TEPCO official said that they may eventually be scrapped. But the company is continuing monthly inspections of the remaining three trucks to prepare for possible failures in the water injection system. The trucks are effectively no longer useful, as TEPCO has completed removing spent fuel from the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors and a large cover was fitted onto the No. 1 reactor this January as part of fuel removal work, effectively preventing water from being injected from outside. The No. 2 reactor did not suffer an explosion damaging the reactor building, so a pumping truck cannot be used for it. “We may find some way to use (the trucks) to give depth to our emergency response,” a TEPCO official said. “While our policy for using them has not been decided yet, we will discuss it in the future.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]