Japanese Ice Wall To Stop Reactor Leaks

minstrelmike writes "Japan is planning to install a two-mile, subterranean ice wall around the Fukushima nuclear plant. 'The ice wall would freeze the ground to a depth of up to 30 meters (100 feet) through a system of pipes carrying a coolant as cold as minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit). That would block contaminated water from escaping from the facility's immediate surroundings, as well as keep underground water from entering the reactor and turbine buildings, where much of the radioactive water has collected.' The technology they're using has not been used to that extent before, nor for more than a couple years. An underground water expert said, 'the frozen wall won't be ready for another two years, which means contaminated water would continue to leak out.' But at least they have a $470 million plan ready to present to the Olympic committee choosing between Madrid, Istanbul or Tokyo."

This needs to be taken out of their hands

[JudgeFurious]

I don't understand why so many nations are trying to reach a consensus on military action in Syria over a chemical weapon attack that may or may not have been done by the regime there but nobody has suggested multi-national cooperation to take over the mess in Fukushima. Japan has failed miserably at dealing with this crisis and continues to do so. It's time to tell them to get the fuck out of the way and bring world-wide resources to bear on this. The UN should be bringing countries together to solve problems like this.

Re:minus 40 degrees Celsius != (minus 40 Fahrenhei

[mcl630]

-40 Celsius IS equal to -40 Fahrenheit.

Re:This needs to be taken out of their hands

[MightyYar]

Because one has killed over 100,000 people and seems to be escalating towards massacre while the other might have killed a person or two and could go on to... possibly prevent people from moving back in to a small city for a while - all effects localized in a single country.

Scale. If Japanese radiation starts affecting Russian food safety or something, then you might go to the UN to let more monkeys in to fuck the football.

Re:The Wall?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, good, it only took 18 minutes for a generic whackjob kook to derp in and try to commandeer a discussion about JAPAN and the radiation leaked by the Fukushima reactors into whatever bullshit UNITED STATES political leaning you follow and so desperately need to tell the world about. Fuck off.

Re:Ice Wall, Godzilla, Radiation, Earthquakes

[noh8rz10]

thank goodness for this ice wall. I was afraid they would pursue a pie-in-the-sky undependable solution! Cave of steel would have been my second choice, followed by Bespin like floating city.

Re:Ice Wall, Godzilla, Radiation, Earthquakes

[Valdrax]

Whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

Well, it could lose power.

I mean, sure, there's a quite a bit longer time to failure once the power is lost compared to the reactor cooling system (i.e. the time it would take for underground super-chilled ice to melt), but seriously what is it with Tepco and safety systems that rely on the thing they're protecting working right?

Re:This needs to be taken out of their hands

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"Russian crack team that saved Chernobyl"

Chernobyl was not...exactly a triumph of reactor design or reactor operation; but the ensuing stabilization effort was actually pretty aggressive (albeit in a 'they had unprotected conscripts attempt to mostly extinguish a melted-down nuclear reactor and then construct a new containment building right on top of it with roughly the same attention to occupational safety and health that made the old penal battalions so exciting' sense).

Re:Misleading title

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

They both leak: the integrity of the reactor vessel is Not So Good these days; but it's still overheating so they are pumping water in and pumping whatever doesn't leak into the ground into the holding tanks, which are also leaking.

The tanks are more of a tragifarce, since they've got that 'You run nuclear fucking reactors and you weren't able to build some water storage tanks that don't leak within an alarmingly short time after construction???' thing going on, and the radiation levels of the leaking material are high enough that just sending in the welders isn't necessarily doable.

The reactor leakage is the more serious problem; because those are hot enough, thermally and in the radiation sense, that just fixing the leaks is not really on the table; but not pumping substantial amounts of water, which will promptly be contaminated and partially escape, isn't really optional.

Re:This needs to be taken out of their hands

[danbert8]

This. Russia may have made a lot of mistakes that led up to Chernobyl, but many men gave their lives (or at least severely curtailed them) in order to prevent what could have been a lot worse.

Re:Best solution?

[whit3]

Frozen ground is only waterproof if there are no holes. Frost heaves tend to break up the ground and make holes.

Actually, a frozen region in the soil is a good container, because water that starts to
  leak through... freezes solid and plugs the leak.

Frost heave is caused by thermal gradient, and
transports water to the coldest spot (which is
the container wall, safely underground) then freezes it.
So, no problem there!