Latest news
Historic storage pond supports Fukushima Power Plant
The Pile Fuel Storage Pond (PFSP) is supporting the recovery operations at the Fukushima Power Plant which was badly damaged by the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year.
This week the Pile Fuel Storage Pond team has arranged for ten drums of ion exchange medium to be transferred to the Fukushima plant to allow the early commencement of water clean up activities at the site.
Steve Cottam, Head of Programme Acceleration for the pile fuel Storage Pond Programme remarked: “Its great to see that the things that we are doing within the Programme can be readily deployed elsewhere to have such a positive impact in the clean up of other nuclear facilities around the world, particularly in this case whereby the clean up after such a tragic event will be a massive challenge”
The Pile Fuel Storage Pond programme uses the material in its Local Effluent Treatment Plant where it is used to clean pond water and manage discharges as part of the facility clean up programme.
The medium known as IONSIV IE-911 is used to remove radioactive caesium from liquid streams and is usually only manufactured from a company called UOP LLC. The factory which is based in Alabama USA requires a long lead time as it has to be specially set up to produce this material.
Representatives of UOP contacted Sellafield Ltd to ask if we would ‘loan’ some of the stock of the material for hold to support the Pile Fuel Storage Pond clean up programme to support the Fukushima works, on the basis that it could be replaced in October this year.
Given the importance of the recovery works both Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) have agreed to the release of the material on behalf of the programme and have accelerated the transportation logistics to deliver the material to the Japanese plant in under a week.
