Fukushima reactor cooling to be accelerated

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says a new cooling system is now working well so it will accelerate the cooling of the plant''s reactors in August. The system, which recycles decontaminated radioactive wastewater, suffered a series of problems at its launch in late June. But Tokyo Electric Power Company says it has been working almost as planned since the start of this month, NHK World Radio Japan reported. The utility says that with radioactive water still leaking from 3 reactors, it had to limit the amount of wastewater used in the system. The leaks mean that the level of toxic water already accumulated is not decreasing. The utility says if the water decontaminator keeps working properly, the water level will drop over one meter below the risk of overflowing by next month. That in turn would allow it to ease restrictions on the amount of water used to cool the reactors. But the company is still concerned about the extent of damage to the reactor containment vessels. Injecting more water into the damaged vessels could release more radioactive steam into the environment.