ALPS functional again

January 10, 2014

TEPCO restarts water treatment system at Fukushima

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20140110_38.html 

Tokyo Electric Power Company has restarted a system to treat radioactive wastewater at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

TEPCO put the ALPS system back online on Friday.
A crane to transfer containers that store removed radioactive materials had stopped working on Tuesday.

One of the crane's 4 motors had broken down, but the utility confirmed that the crane works with just the remaining motors.

The company says it will replace the faulty motor and look into the cause of the breakdown.

ALPS is said to be able to remove almost all radioactive substances from wastewater.

TEPCO has been running the system on a test basis and hopes to start full operation in April.

Tackling the huge amount of water is a key step in dealing with the aftermath of the March 2011 accident.

But ALPS has been hit by a series of troubles and it remains unknown whether the system can operate reliably.

Jan. 10, 2014 - Updated 10:46 UTC