The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant halted on Monday its new, glitch-prone system that is key to cooling down damaged reactors due to a water leakage, a setback in its efforts to avoid dumping highly contaminated water into the ocean. Managing huge amounts of radioactive water, accumulated from efforts to cool down reactors damaged by a massive quake and tsunami in March, has been a major challenge for Tokyo Electric Power Co , and officials have said it could spill into the Pacific Ocean soon unless the system got under way. Tokyo Electric (Tepco) hopes that the system, which removes radioactive materials from contaminated water and recycles it as a coolant for reactors, would help it reach its goal of bringing the plant to stability by next January. The system, using technology from French nuclear group Areva and US company Kurion, started running on Monday afternoon after having encountered multiple setbacks in test runs in the recent weeks.
