What do you do with 560,000 cubic meters of rubble?

 April 8, 2014

Fukushima plant to create 560,000 cubic meters of rubble by mid-2020s

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201404080066 

By SHUNSUKE KIMURA/ Staff Writer

IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture--Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, announced April 7 that the crippled plant will likely generate a massive 560,000 cubic meters of radiation-contaminated debris by fiscal 2027.

The daunting size of the rubble amounts to half the volume of Tokyo Dome, an iconic indoor stadium in central Tokyo, the utility reported during a meeting with the central government to discuss the plant’s decommissioning and contaminated water problem, held in Iwaki.

The amount will be more than double the 250,000 cubic meters of solid waste materials that the utility has accumulated at the plant since the accident triggered by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, through fiscal 2013, according to the government and TEPCO.

TEPCO plans to reuse or recycle materials of low contamination levels, but it will still require a storage facility to accommodate debris of 160,000 cubic meters, company officials said. The amount is more than 200 times the volume that a 25-meter swimming pool can hold.

The total amount of contaminated rubble and debris will more than double by fiscal 2027 because there is a large portion of concrete rubble that was generated from explosions of reactor buildings and remains untouched.

Trees in the plant compound that were cleared to make space for storage tanks for the ever-increasing volume of contaminated water will be also accounted for as contaminated waste materials, TEPCO officials said.

TEPCO plans to scrap water storage tanks that are no longer in use, metals with low contamination levels and concrete rubble and use them, for example, as materials for roadbeds in the plant compound.

Removing the melted nuclear fuel from inside the reactors, one of the most critical tasks in the decommissioning process, will have started by fiscal 2027.

See also :

April 7, 2014 

More storage space needed for Daiichi debris

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20140408_05.html 

The people in charge of decommissioning the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant say they don't have enough storage space for all the debris.

Engineers at the Tokyo Electric Power Company discussed the problem with government officials on Monday.

They estimate that the decommissioning work will produce 560,000 cubic meters of debris over the next 13 years.

They plan to burn wood and other combustibles. They will crush low radiation rubble and use it to pave roads in the plant's compound. They estimate this will reduce the volume of debris to 220,000 cubic meters.

Workers are building storage facilities at the plant. But the engineers say they'll need 160,000 cubic meters more storage space. That's enough to fill more than 200 swimming pools.

- Updated 23:07 UTC