Smoke alert at Tokai II
10 October 2008
Smoke filled a room in a waste-processing facility at Tokai II nuclear power plant this morning. Engineers from Japan Atomic Power Company (Japco) are currently trying to find the cause.
The purpose of the waste plant is to reduce the volume of mildly radioactive scrap metal by melting it down and mixing with cement for disposal as low-level waste.
The metals are raised to high temperatures in a furnace with the gases they emit captured in a flue unit. The melted metal is poured into a skip, which moved into a cooling area. After a time, the skip is transferred into a metal drum and cement is mixed with the hot metal. Once the drum has cooled, it is ready for disposal.
At 6.35am it was found that a skip waiting in the cooling area was emitting smoke, Japco said, and at 6.46am this was reported to the plant's specialist fire fighters. The fire crew arrived at 6.55am and the skip was left alone until the smoke cleared at 9.56am. The negative atmospheric pressure maintained as routine in the cooling room ensured that no smoke escaped into the rest of the facility, or indeed the external environment. The cause of the smoking is now under investigation.
The waste plant sits about 15 metres from a 1100 MWe boiling water reactor, which was unaffected and continues to operate normally.