Posted on 09/03/2013 7:28:37 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
How Japan's ice barrier will seal off Fukushima's nuclear ruins
Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
4 hours ago
Video: The Japanese government said that it will spend nearly a half a billion dollars to build a giant wall of ice underground to try to stop the flow of radioactive water from leaking into the ocean. NBC’s Brian Williams reports.
Japan’s government gave the go-ahead on Tuesday to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to create a underground barrier of frozen earth around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. It's a seemingly crazy idea that's based on solid engineering — but this wall of ice would have to be built on an unprecedented scale, and would require tremendous energy to stay frosty.
The plan calls for burying refrigeration pipes to a depth of 100 feet, every yard or so, for almost a mile around the radioactive site. Those pipes would freeze the ground to keep water from flowing in or out — and any new water that comes in contact with it would freeze as well, making the wall even stronger. The job is scheduled to take 18 months, but once the barrier is fully in place, 10 feet of ice would seal off Fukushima's contaminated soil.
Ice-barrier technology has been used at conventional construction sites for decades. It’s even been demonstrated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the only place in the world to date where such a barrier was built to contain radioactive waste.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
P!
Robert Van Winkle will head up design and construction.
If there’s a problem, yo he’ll solve it.
Sounds like a plan. (maybe)
Turn off the lights and he’ll glow.
When are they going to dismantle, seperate and dispose of the fuel rods and reactor cores? This could take years, and the energy costs won't be trivial.
The Russians used concrete at Chernobyl, which is already crumbling. Just encapsulating the entire plant doesn't seem to be a solution...
I can’t see it working at all. Fools’ folly.
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