How the Fukushima Ice Barrier Will Block Radioactive Groundwater

Japan is thinking of stemming the flow of contaminated water with a wall of ice... Using pipes and coolant they want to build a mile long wall of frozen earth. This method is being contemplated as a method of mitigation and experts in the field think it will work. It is nice to see people finally coming up with a solution to stop the stem of radioactive water...

The freeze wall would be a more definitive approach to managing groundwater. As proposed by Kajima in April and endorsed in May by a Nuclear Regulation Authority expert panel, it would run 1.4 kilometers and encircle the site’s four destroyed reactors. Vertical pipes are to be drilled or driven into the ground at one-meter intervals, creating what looks like an array of sub-soil fence posts. Fourteen 400-kilowatt refrigeration plants would pump -20 °C to -40 °C coolant down each pipe to absorb heat from the ground, producing an expanding cylinder of frozen earth.

www.technologyreview.com...

Wow that's actually a great idea! When I worked at Boart Longyear we drilled holes at a Shell site in Colorado, because they were trying that to minimize the side effects of fracking.

I suppose every little helps.

But what happens if another earthquake strikes those 100's of containers, each holding 300 tonnes of radioactive water?

reply to post by Mister_Bit


Thats the good thing about ice.. It is self healing. It the ice fractures water will come through and freeze the ice again. Even without power it would take months to defrost..

Good idea but with HUGELY excessive radioactivity levels near the plant, who would what to work on such a mammoth construction project for so long...?

PDUK

Well I wouldn't call it a cure, just a really good band-aid. It would atleast buy some time for them to get some type of grasp on the situation.

Isn't it ironic that the power necessary to run these things uses energy produced by nuclear power plants ?

I wonder how long the core will stay hot and how long cooling will be needed. Do they even have a clue as to the precise position of the core material ?

Do you think they'll eat fresh sushi while on break for lunch? Where will they get it imported from? Exactly who determined the "safe" zone of eating fish from the region?
My kids are health nuts (the geeks). They won't even eat anything out of the Pacific Ocean now.
The poor people that will volunteer to do that work for pay should get some life insurance.
They're gonna need it.

Do they even have a clue as to the precise position of the core material ?

lol they dont know anything, remember you are talking about the same people that thought it would be a great idea to build a nuclear power plant on an active fault line, on a coast and at sea level. Massive earthquakes and tsunami assault the coast every century, yet these idiots didnt hesitate building nuclear reactors.
not too bright there

reply to post by iwontrun


Yes it is just a band aid but a band aid is better than nothing... Personally I do not think we should be using nuclear energy what so ever. It is evident that when it becomes a monster we do not have the ability to control it..

I don't think it will work. It sounds like an enormously expensive project with an enormously long list of things that can go wrong. Even if it works as expected, it will not stop the cores from radiating, but rather stop groundwater from flowing into and out of the area where the cores should be.

But.... yes, that is something at least. I don't see how it can make things worse, and with the support of experts on the ground, I say good try. Maybe it'll prove me wrong and work like a dream. I hope so.

If it works, it will do so at great expense to the people of Japan... I hope no one goes hungry trying to pay for this, although I can see where excessive groundwater radiation would be pretty bad as well.

Gonna be watching this with crossed fingers...

TheRedneck

reply to post by jazzguy

lol they dont know anything, remember you are talking about the same people that thought it would be a great idea to build a nuclear power plant on an active fault line, on a coast and at sea level. Massive earthquakes and tsunami assault the coast every century, yet these idiots didnt hesitate building nuclear reactors. not too bright there

The whole of japan is tectonically unstable.. What choice do they have...

This ice barrier is way too little, way too late. with a frost line at 18" and ambient temps above freezing, it amounts to a bandaid on a 44 magnum bullet wound. these saturated cores are in the earth, and as the constant melting ice minimally controls the expansion of disbursing radiation in one direction, the concentration of this posion will go the other. and around this non effective ice barrier. Sorry, this is just a ploy to make the masses feel good about the worst disaster in history. For this to even have a chance at all, it should have been implimented while the cores were still in the primary containment vessel, and 3 highly active cores are long gone from their control. If they tell you that this is only for the leaking contaminated cooling water, that may help, but not solve anything. These people are only trying to save their asses, but only till the truth gets out after the situation is so bad even the sheep know somethings bad.

That sounds like a ridiculously huge project.

There has to be an easier way right?

OK hold the discussion.

Lots of people are acting like this is a unique solution specifically for this problem using untried technology.

Thats is simply not so!

"For 40 years, Arctic Foundations, Inc. has provided its customers and teaming partners rapid, well-conceived solutions to geotechnical problems through the application of their proprietary ground freezing technology."

Arctic foundations web site

This technology is well tried and tested by hundreds of companies worldwide for at least 40 years. (Mind you so is nuclear power.....)

When I did a building course 20 years ago we even studied it then and given the advantages (small bore piling, able to be used in restricted space sites) we would expect the Japanese to be good at this: as it works well in large cities with little space for big diggers and huge piling rigs.

reply to post by UltraMind

One of the advantages of an Internet forum is that people can share information that may not be well known. You just did so, and thank you.

I am familiar with the thermopiles (aka Peltier Junctions) described, but my experience with smaller units is they are not very efficient at cooling. In addition to moving the heat away from the cool side, they also have to move the heat generated from the flow of electricity, which is high current / low voltage. They do work in the electric coolers sold for cars and trucks, but their lifespan record has not been exactly stellar in my experience. That could be from poor design.

They do work fairly good for generating small voltages from heat differentials and for heating... just not as efficient for cooling. They were tried for a while as coolers for computer CPUs, but if they are still being used for that purpose, I haven't seen it lately.

I'll give the company the benefit of the doubt; I'm actually somewhat relieved if someone other than TEPCO is involved. Here's to hoping this works.

TheRedneck

reply to post by purplemer


GOOD LUCK

To 1 subjectively every bit counts...
How many hours can one worker per day work within safe health boundaries...
So the int.worker only works one or more day maybe every 6 months @ global set wage (no greed) the clarity may provide more or less then hypothesized.

NAMASTE*******

its good to see that there is something being at least concepted to deal with it..its a start but not a final solution by any means..this may stop the leakage and thats it.

reply to post by purplemer


I can only say that I hope this works!

The World is already screwed enough.