Fixing Fukushima's Water Problem 111
Lasrick writes "This is an excellent analysis of exactly what the problems are at Fukushima, and what risks are posed to the public. From the article: 'The operator of Fukushima Daiichi, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), has worked hard and has indeed contained most of the significant contamination carried by water used to cool the plant’s damaged reactor cores. Still, a series of events—including significant leakage from tanks built to hold radioactive water—has eroded public confidence. To address the water challenges, an improved water management plan should be created to deal with all levels of contamination, from slightly contaminated groundwater to highly radioactive cooling water flowing out of the damaged cores. This plan needs to build on the many good Tepco efforts of the past two years, but it should also incorporate new technologies that improve water cleanup performance and increase processing capacities. Importantly, this plan needs to include a new level of transparency for and outreach to the Japanese public, so citizens can understand and have confidence in the ultimate solution to the Fukushima water problem, which will almost certainly require the release of water—treated so it conforms to Japanese and international radioactivity standards—into the sea.'"
It's Japan, so you *know* they're gonna use robots (Score:2, Redundant)
Just get on with it guys, you know you want to.
Treatment (Score:1)
Re:Treatment (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe they mean water with radioactive material dissolved in it. So you could remove the radioactive material by precipitating it out or RO membranes or something.
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Do you believe they meant heavy water?
Do you think I don't know what that is?
What are you attempting to communicate with your post?
Re:Heavy Water? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's nice. It's also irrelevant. The Fukushima reactor did not use heavy water. The problem here is coolant/moderator ordinary light water that is heavily contaminated with dissolved radioactive materials.
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Even after filtering out dissolved radioactive material you'll have a little left in the form of tritium, but it's not a huge deal as long as it isn't too concentrated. It has a relatively short half-life (~12 years) and will soon after not be an issue. There probably isn't much tritium in there in the first place anyway.
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RO treatment has the risk of concentrating very radioactive water
into astoundingly radioactive filter cartridges. These cartridges
could then not be handled.
One remedy I have not seen is transport by diluting the
very radioactive water to a point that it is largely self shielding
and then transport those tanks to a place where arrays of
cartridges have been installed in large banks inside a "solid
rock" bunker. Then filter the water, clamp seal and back fill the array
of cartridges with sand or another mass
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They are already using zeolite cartridges to filter radioactive cesium out of contaminated water at Fukushima. One system is called "SARRY", there are others from various manufacturers including Areva. Handling the used cartridges is done by a remote crane system, not very complex engineering. The zeolite is jacketed in a steel container which blocks nearly all of the radiation from the cesium they collect, a few grammes at most per cylinder.
Japan has a better solution to dealing with nuclear waste than Yuc
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If the water molecules themselves were radioactive then you would be right, however AIUI the majority of radioactivity in the wastewater from a contaminanted nuclear site like chernobyl or fukushima or even sellafield comes from disolved contaminents not from the water itself and those contaminants can be seperated from water.
you still have to store the crap you take out of the water and probablly come contaminated membranes but that is likely much easier than storing massive ammounts of water.
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The water itself is not radioactive, it's the stuff dissolved in the water that's the problem. Remove the solute and you have harmless non-radioactive water.
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1) if they're going to release it into the sea anyway, then they could just release the highly-radioactive water and let is dilute into the ocean
2) why don't they just let the tanks evaporate over time? surely the heavy metals would stay in the remaining liquid portion, and the volume of water would steadily decrease. Soon you have a manageable amount of super radioactive water. Thoughts?
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"slightly contaminated groundwater" (Score:2, Insightful)
This summary is hot garbage or a Tepco advertisement/PR damage control measure. They are beyond incompetent.
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Sigh, read it again and try to comprehend before posting.
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Says the AC.
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This summary is hot garbage or a Tepco advertisement/PR damage control measure. They are beyond incompetent.
I was going to go with bat-$hit crazy but then I saw he was part of the industry and his dismissive attitude is part of the problem. Japan should spend the $6 billion Olympic bid on cleanup. Too bad they didn't go $10.5 trillion in debt by modernizing their nuclear infrastructure.
completely eroded public confidence (Score:1)
Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, going with theoretical solutions (for 200 Alex), I'd whip up a pneumatic robot (all fluidic pressure, no electronics), and strap on a chemical laser + fiber optic lines + lens system. That should ensure that stray radiation will not damage any electronics, as it won't have any, though it will be a one way trip for the bot (still going to be highly radioactive), and watching the cables will be an issue (better pay the extra money to make sure they're braided). Then I'd send it into the reactor core, to cut up / out the still active reactor rods, and bring them to a designated midway point piece by piece.
No human is going to survive in that core, even if they'd volunteer for the mission...nor would any electronic-based machine. The first will be cooked from the inside out, the second will get so many errors as it gets closer to the core from radiation hitting its processors that it will do more damage than good.
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As counter-intuitive as this may sound, gases are indeed fluids (for a given value of fluid).
That is not counter-intuitive. It does, however, depend on understanding the difference between a fluid and a liquid.
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Erm, I think fluids cover liquids and gases and apparently some plastic solids [wikipedia.org] - who knew?
So:
pneumatic [wikipedia.org] = gas
hydraulic [wikipedia.org] = liquid
would be more accurate.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
A few issues. Firstly, cutting anything produces dust, and in this case the dust is highly radioactive. Controlling it is non-trivial and one of the reasons why they are extremely cautious operating in that area. If something collapsed while cutting in that area it could be disastrous.
Secondly it isn't clear if using a laser would be safe in the cores. There is likely some hydrogen and certainly a lot of flammable material around. Without electronics it would be hard to detect or measure too.
Finally even once the core is dissected what would you do with it? The current plan is to wait for it to become a little safer to 20 or 30 years times before even starting to look at moving it to another area for storage. The storage pools on-site are already in pretty bad shape and leaking, so you would have to take that extremely dangerous material somewhere else. Of course, no-where else wants it and Japan currently does not have any way of dealing with it.
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The cutting is occurring under water; I'm sure that the Japanese, depending on their level of desperation, can build a test scenario to replicate the conditions in the reactor, and make adjustments before sending anything in.
Again, the core itself is under water...you might need to move some debris to get around things, at which point multiple robots, or perhaps, multiple robots with winches / more powerful / disposable tools might be useful. If it requires two of them to remove a girder to get to the sunke
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...snip....
As the core is dissected, I'd direct the robots to place each piece in a lead-lined storage pod; this needs to be done as each piece is cut off, so as to not create further metldowns;
.....snip.....
Lead lined???
Enough lead to act as a shield would not have the needed thermal profile.
You are working with meltdown temperatures that compromise
Zircaloy or steel used in modern construction. So not lead which
has a low melting point.
Yes cut off bits of reactor rods (and stuff) could be dropped into stainless
tubes, crimped tight, perhaps welded and then slipped
into a multi layered shielded transport container to manage the
thermal load as well as protect from external damage and internal
leakage.
One pending so
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"Enough lead to act as a shield would not have the needed thermal profile."
My solution would need to be adapted accordingly. The goal with the lead pods was not, in of themselves, to provide a permanent means of storage, but to allow the robot, while working within the reactor, to safely contain pieces of the fuel rods...because cutting fuel rods, with a laser, into thousands of pieces, then attempting to pick up those pieces later on would, in all likelihood, end badly...as the cut fuel rods / pieces, pres
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Still here. Note that in spite of nearly incredible incompetence from all concerned, still nobody dead.
Now if they would kindly bring in some competent management they can have it all over and done with.
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Still here. Note that in spite of nearly incredible incompetence from all concerned, still nobody dead.
Yet. It will be some time before the increased mortality from this incident is known.
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If there is any.
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And even that is necessarily based on the unproven theory that there is no threshold for risk.
Many have died (Score:2)
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And the tsunami (not earthquake) had nothing whatsoever to do with the evacuation?
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The tsunami happened first. In fact, it caused the nuclear problem. (not to mention killing 10,000 people).
Solar and wind power don't fare terribly well either when hit by hurricane winds or swamped in a tsunami.
I agree completely that the plant was mis-managed before and after the tsunami. The sea wall was too low and they didn't have anything like an adequate emergency plan. But it hasn't killed anyone.
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People sometimes wonder about civil defense decisions not to evacuate in the face of a hurricane. Usually it comes down to anticipated deaths as a result of the evacuation itself. Hospitals and nursing home patients, elderly people who can't drive all can easily fall victim to the vicissitudes of an evacuation. So, shelter-in-place orders go out and instead firs
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Of course many of the evacuees fled in terror before the accident because a giant wall of water was going to crush their house and carry it out to sea. Unfortunately 18,500 didn't run soon enough.
Later, there were evacuations of people further inland, but not in a panic. The death rate at that time was comparable to that of people staying home in a safe area.Remember, any place that size in any populated area will normally see quite a number of deaths on any given day from disease, accidents, and old age.
Th
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You seem to have this odd vision that the tsunami was a harmless bit of water and then the nuclear plant spewed boiling lava over people. You seem truly desperate to count every stubbed toe in Japan as an epic tragedy that was somehow caused by the nuclear plant.
Look at that data and kindly subtract out tsunami evacuees and deduct the stress caused by loss of family to the tsunami. Considering that the starting number is in the low hundreds, you'll be somewhere in the double digits by the time you're done.
Y
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Nuclear accidents kill just like natural disasters. However, they are entirely preventable.
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The water will be safe LONG before that. The worst of the stuff in the water has a 30 year half life.
However, simple distillation (noting that simple is a relative term when dealing with radiation at that level) would be a better choice since that would greatly reduce the volume of waste to store.
Re:cement filled barrels? (Score:4, Interesting)
The water will be safe LONG before that. The worst of the stuff in the water has a 30 year half life.
However, simple distillation (noting that simple is a relative term when dealing with radiation at that level) would be a better choice since that would greatly reduce the volume of waste to store.
So, now you want to cook water with radioactive materials in it? Considering TEPCO's safety record with radioactive steam, I know exactly what would happen here. Perhaps there are non-heating ways to distill the water, though.
However some of that radioactive material is tritium, which is nearly impossible to separate from regular water. (Yes, gas vapor centrifuges can probably do it, but not for the amount of water they have to deal with.) Tritium has a half-life of 12ish years, so letting it sit around for a while is still the best way to go.
The real issue is that TEPCO cannot even sit on radioactive material without messing it up, much less run a reactor or cleaning system with moving parts.
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Actually, at this point all I want TEPCO to do is pay for it. I'd rather leave the actual handling to someone more competent.
It would still be a good idea to separate it so the more dangerous waste is in stable solid form, then we can worry about getting rid of the tritium or just using it appropriately (it is quite useful for emergency lighting).
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Actually, at this point all I want TEPCO to do is pay for it. I'd rather leave the actual handling to someone more competent.
I don't trust Japan's NRA (Nuclear Regulatory Authority) not to mess that up. The agency was formed in response to Fukushima because the old NSC was so full of revolving-door cronyism that it had to be reformed after allowing the disaster. I have no faith that this new agency is simply a new name on the same corruption.
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The water will be safe LONG before that. The worst of the stuff in the water has a 30 year half life.
However, simple distillation (noting that simple is a relative term when dealing with radiation at that level) would be a better choice since that would greatly reduce the volume of waste to store.
So, now you want to cook water with radioactive materials in it?
The real issue is that TEPCO cannot even sit on radioactive material without messing it up, much less run a reactor or cleaning system with moving parts.
Caution this stuff is self heating. You could let
it boil water and then vent water vapor but the more you
concentrate the waste the more trouble you have
with the thermal load which then compromises storage
tanks.
It is increasing obvious that the material needs to be sealed tight
and a thermal solution put in place.
Each locality in the site needs attention. Storage pools
are not thermally stable. Damaged reactor cores need
to be unloaded as much as possible. It is impossible to
unload melted/ slagged rods
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It's not a very long time for tritium. It's even shorter if they harvest the valuable tritium for industrial use.
Re:cement filled barrels? (Score:4, Interesting)
Cement might not be the best option, but I agree that's something along the right lines.
I was actually thinking gelatin, or some other coagulant, which would entrap the contaminants preventing further leakage without preventing future recovery and processing (you can re-melt gelatin). If the goal is to halt the leaking, something along those lines seems like a potential solution.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Jell-O brand would like to warn the gelatin loving populace out there that "Gell-O" is not part of the Jell-O brand family, and especially not to trust the "Happy Midday Glow Lime" flavor, as it is actually highly radioactive.
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FWIW, that advert is guaranteed to confirm Yanks' stereotype of "English" children as all having upperclass "British" accents and enduring lousy weather. All that's missing is rotten teeth.
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You mean something like zeolite, the material the engineers at Fukushima have been using for about two years or so to extract radioactive cesium and some other problematic isotopes from contaminated water before it is recycled throguh the reactor cores to cool them? The first small-capacity cesium-absorption units were supplied by Areva in France (part of the international effort to contain radioactive pollution on the site that according to pundits here and elsewhere hasn't been happening up till now becau
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No, zeolite is essentially filtering medium, similar to activated charcoal.
I'm talking about actually coagulating the contaminated water to prevent it from leaking out. Then you could scoop it out and re-liquefy it for processing.
=Smidge=
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How do you plan to pump this coagulated sludge? The most contaminated water on the Fukushima site is being recirculated through the reactor cores to cool them; some of this coolant did escape a leaky pipe in April last year, dumping significant quantities of radioactive material into the sea. The water in most of the tanks on the site is only slightly radioactive by comparison and the recent headline-grabbing leak from such a tank (the water had already been through one filtering system and was in store wai
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Tritium is not a major issues. It is a very short lived beta emitter.
Where are you going to find this much concrete? You are look at hoover dams worth of the stuff quite likely.
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why not let the water evaporate? this would be the best solution I think.
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Because there is so much of, and in that area will evaporation occur faster than rainfall? I never add water to my pool, it fills via rain faster than it evaporates.
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then pump it through one of those simpson tower coolers. just tumbling about in spray form will help evaporate it. also it's heated by its own decay so I don't see the problem here. you must be east coast so for you its academic, but for us in CA it's a tangible concern that our ocean water will become unsafe. there's a lot of beach communities here.
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I am east coast, but even if you dumped the all the fuel from that reactor in the ocean your beaches would not be unsafe. If you think otherwise I want to see some citations.
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I am east coast, but even if you dumped the all the fuel from that reactor in the ocean your beaches would not be unsafe.[1] If you think otherwise I want to see some citations.
[1] your ass
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No, I just lazily assumed even dilution.
Do you have a better method?
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http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4186673&cid=44807489 [slashdot.org]
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That post just has some random claims about your beaches. No actual evidence that it could be.
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yes but the author of the post is an industry expert who knows what he's talking about.
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So then show your work if you are an industry expert.
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STOP STALKING ME! I'll report you to slashdot mods.
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Replying to a comment you made to me is not stalking. Report away, you loony.
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it doesn't take an industry expert to see that dilution is not the solution to pollution. i say that the japanese made this mess, let's not externalize the burdens! make them clean it up or suffer the effects. not my problem, not in my back yard.
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Sure, but that does not mean that this could possibly contaminate the pacific enough to harm your local beaches.
Hopefully, you realize responding to your comment directed to me is not stalking. So you backed away from claiming you're an expert now?
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I don't have to justify myself to you. my words speak for themselves. that is the strength of the internet - it is about ideas, not people. in your case, it's also about trolls.
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In your case it is about unjustified claims. Asking for a citation is not trolling, kiddo.
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you are stalking me by modding down all my posts on other threads. low class.
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I have not had mod points in over a year, numbnuts. I never meta moderate now that they changed how that works.
"Eroded ... public confidence" (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh. Ya think, TEPCO shitheads?
It isn't precisely the phrasing I would use. Every shred of public confidence was lost on 2011-3-11 and the few days following, and nothing done since has restored a single iota of it.
Most of the Contaminated Water. (Score:3, Interesting)
So they are protecting us from over 60% of the contaminated water. Well good job then, 60% is a passing grade, so I guess this means they are doing a good job.
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Well good job then, 60% is a passing grade, so I guess this means they are doing a good job.
If at first you don't succeed, redefine the standard for success!
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So they are protecting us from over 60% of the contaminated water.
Emphasis on "us". I think I recall reading that "Fukushima's Water Problem" is destined to become California's water problem in 2014.
How to restore public confidence in TEPCO? (Score:5, Insightful)
As I recall, the traditional way involved wearing a white robe and holding a knife in your hand while your trusted second stood behind you with his sword drawn, ready to finish the job.
The modern way seems to involve holding a press conference in which you say "Gosh, we don't know how that went wrong. It certainly wasn't our fault. I hope it doesn't happen again. Again." while your trusted second brings you a coffee.
I'm sure that one of those approaches will suffice to restore TEPCO's spotless public image.
Or not! (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact they don't know where the core is!
It could be in the lower parts of the building, but most likely much of it has melted down far into the ground. How far, nobody knows. It may be in the water table. There is sporadic evidence of ongoing fission at the sites.
They neither have it under control, nor contained.
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Japan Nuclear Expert: “We don’t even know at this point where the melted down core is” under Reactors No. 1, 2 or 3
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/forum/218/japan-nuclear-expert-%E2%80%9Cwe-don%E2%80%99t-even-know-point-where-melted-down-core-is%E2%80%9D-under-reactors-n
How to fix Fukushima (Score:2)
Amazing (Score:2)
20/20 hindsight is often terribly embarrassing... (Score:4, Insightful)
...and Fukushima is a perfect example.
In the months following the incident, the press was hyping the accident to ethereal levels.
In the years following the incident, the US nuclear industry groups busily developed counter propaganda, using official measurements and downplaying risks ("1% greater chance of dying from cancer for 77 people") and the like. Carefully written op-ed and science pieces appeared all over the press from the Smart Serious People in the room, to soothe a worried public, that their superior assessment of the situation proved the concerns of pollution would become cautionary tales of hysteria.
The Japanese government deliberately withheld information until after the election, and now the pollution levels emanating form the plant render many the carefully written, I-told-you-it-was-hysteria explanations, riddled in Smug by the Serious Persons seem pretty silly, if not entertaining, to read.
If anything can be drawn from all this, it is, "It ain't over till it's over..."
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And if it turns out that your present impression of how bad the problem is is wrong, will you be apologizing for having been so smug and superior right here?
(But wait... how would you ever know? If an exper
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1% greater chance of dying from cancer for 77 people
Even that's exaggerated. There are an estimated ~2000 people who face an elevated risk of thyroid cancer. Even with that elevated risk, there is never expected to be a statistically measurable increase in the actual development of thyroid cancer.
And thyroid cancer is treatable. It has a 97% survival rate. Those people are going to be screened annually. They're probably going to be just fine.
Fuckushima (Score:1)
I thought I read, "Fucking Fukushima's Water Problem." Angsty submissions today!
An International Solution (Score:2)
The possibility of negligence from nonfeasance should be the one thing to allow the Japanese Government to save face. I don't think Japan should feel any shame in receiving help by all governments who share the pacific.
The engineering effort of this boggles the mind and many sorts of expertise will need to be brought to bare to resolve it as quickly as possible AND produce a long term solution. This is well beyond TEPCO's ability and will require resources that transcend their capabilities after all their