Tepco eyes cold shutdown for Fukushima nuclear plant this year

The Japanese government and Tepco said that they are now aiming to bring the Fukushima Daiichi plant to a cold shutdown within this year, instead of by January as initially planned.

Tepco also said that radiation leakage from the reactors has to be under control and that the public's exposure to radiation should be largely minimised.

 Japan's Nuclear Disaster Minister Goshi Hosono revealed in parliament that the government wants to lift an advisory placed within a 20 to 30 km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear, which had required residents to stay indoors or evacuate during emergencies.

Declaring a cold shutdown will have repercussions well beyond the plant as it is one of the criteria the government said must be met before it begins allowing residents evacuated from the area around the facility to return home.

Tepco said that the Daiichi reactors were emitting about 200 million becquerels of radiation per hour as of mid-September, about one four-millionths of the amount seen in the days after the March 11 disaster.

It said this translates to about 0.4 millisievert per year of radiation measured at the fringes of the plant, below the 1 millisievert legal limit.

To further limit the spread of radiation Tepco has been building a giant structure to cover the No 1 reactor. It will also equip all three reactors with devices that would filter out radioactive substances from the gasses they emit.

Reuters.