Japan regulators OK costly ice wall at Fukushima plant (Update)
Source: Associated Press
Japanese regulators on Wednesday approved the use of a giant refrigeration system to create an unprecedented underground frozen barrier around buildings at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant in an attempt to contain leaking radioactive water.
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The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said it plans to turn on the ice wall on Thursday, starting with the portion near the sea to prevent more contaminated water from escaping into the Pacific Ocean. The system will be started up in phases to allow close monitoring and adjustment.
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The 35 billion yen ($312 million) government-funded project, proposed by construction giant Kajima Corp., is more than a year behind schedule because of technical uncertainties. Some experts are still skeptical of the technology and question whether it's worth the huge cost.
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At a meeting Wednesday of the nuclear agency, Chairman Shunichi Tanaka cautioned against high expectations because the success of the project depends in part on nature. "It would be best to think that natural phenomena don't work the way you would expect," he later told reporters.
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Asked at the meeting if the ice wall is worth the cost, TEPCO accident response official Toshihiro Imai replied, "Its effect is still unknown, because the expected outcome is based on simulations."
Read more: http://phys.org/news/2016-03-japan-costly-ice-wall-fukushima.html
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)they can create the wall, and it is still of dubious value in making things safer as they claim.
There has to be a real estate swindler from new york city involved in this. It just sounds too familiar.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)The Libby Dam in Montana has a huge refrigeration complex to freeze the hillside that abuts one end of the dam, so it stops slipping away, with obvious implications for dam failure.
They can certainly build the wall. (It will cost a lot in energy as well, however)
The unknown is, will it prevent the contamination from reaching the sea, or will it just find another path?
Unknown.
So, feasible/possible to build, but maybe ineffective for the desired goal.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)FBaggins
(26,760 posts)Yen... not dollars.
colorado_ufo
(5,737 posts)It is the idea that I had to contain the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, especially to freeze around the pipe that was spewing the oil.
I guess I get a chance to see if it might have worked. However, the two scenarios are different, so who knows.
truthisfreedom
(23,157 posts)Doesn't require constant energy.