This is not a leak; it is a river
Officials recently acknowledged that an estimated 300 tons of radiation contaminated water, which is continuously pumped into the reactors in an effort to cool them, pour into the sea every day. The plant has been leaking radiation ever since it was crippled by a massive tsunami caused by an offshore earthquake in March, 2011, that knocked out its cooling systems and led three of the four reactors to melt down. Since then, the plant's oprators, Tokyo Electric Power, or TEPCO, has been unable to repair the walls and floor of the underground enclosures in which the reactors are situated because it’s still too dangerous for a human to work there for extended periods.
Underground
ice wall is Japan's latest hope for stemming Fukushima leaks
10
August, 2013
More
than two years after a tsunami-induced meltdown, Japan's Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear plant is still spewing contaminated water into a sea
that once teemed with fishing boats but now seems eerily deserted,
and the latest hope for stopping the poisonous flow is an underground
ice barrier that's never been tried.
Officials recently acknowledged that an estimated 300 tons of radiation contaminated water, which is continuously pumped into the reactors in an effort to cool them, pour into the sea every day. The plant has been leaking radiation ever since it was crippled by a massive tsunami caused by an offshore earthquake in March, 2011, that knocked out its cooling systems and led three of the four reactors to melt down. Since then, the plant's oprators, Tokyo Electric Power, or TEPCO, has been unable to repair the walls and floor of the underground enclosures in which the reactors are situated because it’s still too dangerous for a human to work there for extended periods.
TEPCO
has built an underground barrier to try to contain contaminated
groundwater from reaching the sea. But despite the barrier, water can
still go around or over it when heavy rains cause water to wash down
from the hill where the damaged plant looms. Much of the water used
is recycled through huge reservoirs dug underground but some of the
water still seeps into the land, and then the sea nearby.
“There
is no precedent in the world to create a water-shielding wall with
frozen soil on such a large scale.”
-
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga
The
public is growing frustrated with the company's failure to contain
and clean up the mess.
“TEPCO’s
actions are reactive and slow,” Kiyoshi Takasaka, a member of a
committee of nuclear experts advising Fukushima prefecture, told the
Japanese media. Other members of the committee complain that TEPCO
hasn't got a convincing containment plan.
The
latest idea for stopping the flow of contaminated water into the sea
is to freeze the soil around the reactor buildings to create a
mile-long barrier to stop more groundwater from becoming radioactive,
a plan that could cost upwards of $400 million.
“There
is no precedent in the world to create a water-shielding wall with
frozen soil on such a large scale. To build that, I think the state
has to move a step further to support its realization,” Chief
Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.
While
the politicians ponder whether the underground ice wall can stop the
radiation leak, the grim reality is that the land and seas around the
Fukushima plant continue to be polluted more.
The
Japanese government recently allowed international media to travel
inside the uninhabited zone around the plant, on the nation's
northeastern coast.
Villages appear frozen in time, deserted, with
everything left as it was when residents were evacuated. The crippled
nuclear plant, whose reactors have still not cooled, is situated on a
hill overlooking what were once beautiful beaches now littered with
vehicles and debris from the tsunami.
Former
residents are allowed to visit sometimes their former homes, but
can't stay long and face a vigorous radiation checking procedure
every time they leave. The sea, was once famous across Japan for the
fish it provided, is bereft of fishing boats.
Recent
tests of water from wells in the area show that radioactivity is
still hundreds of times above safe drinking levels.
Minoru
Takata, director of the Radiation Biology Center at Kyoto University,
told The Wall Street Journal that the radioactive water doesn’t
pose an immediate health threat unless a person goes near the damaged
reactors. But over the longer term, he’s worried that the leakage
could cause higher rates of cancer in Japan. Scientists in Japan and
the United States says the leaks into the Pacific Ocean pose little
threat to Americans.
Despite
the ongoing problem and public anger, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
supports restarting nuclear plants idled following the Fukushima
disaster. Abe, who has been a strong defender of Japan's nuclear
program, has been trying to kick start Japan's stagnant economy and
the nuclear plants are a key to reducing expensive energy imports.
If
the government can solve the leakage problem at the crippled nuclear
plant, it may give the politicians enough support to allow them to
switch on the country's nuclear reactors again. But by taking over
the problem at Fukushima it has now become his government's problem
and its future could hang on whether the ice wall works
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