Fukushima

Soil around Fukushima to be frozen to stop groundwater leaking in

The Japanese government has ordered the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant to freeze the soil around its crippled reactor buildings to stop groundwater seeping in and becoming contaminated.

Mark Willacy

ABC,

31 May, 2013

Every day another 400 tonnes of groundwater forces its way into the plant, becomes contaminated with radioactivity and needs to be stored onsite.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) already has a quarter of a million tonnes of radioactive water stored in tanks at Fukushima.

Fearing the nuclear plant is running out of space to store contaminated water, the Japanese government has ordered TEPCO to take the drastic step.

The government hopes these frozen walls of soil will stop huge amounts of groundwater leaking into the buildings and it wants the system to be in place within two years.

According to a report compiled by a government panel on Thursday, there are no previous examples of using walls created from frozen soil to isolate groundwater being used for longer than a few years.

This means the project at the Fukushima plant poses "an unprecedented challenge in the world".

Cement-like grout to be injected into Fukushima reactor?

ENEnews,

31 May, 2013

Tepco Handout, May 30, 2013 (Summary translation of page 26 by Fukushima Diary): [...] the committee of experts suggested Tepco to fill the torus room with grout. [...] Tepco plans to conduct the feasibility study with United States Department of Energy this year. [...] They assume it takes 1.5 years to make planning, and 2 years to inject the grout material. [...] The committee points out the benefit of using grout is it doesn’t directly touch the molten fuel. However, it hasn’t been confirmed that the fractured molten fuel is not really in the torus rooms.

Department of Energy: Grouting—Grout is a promising option to stop water leakage that’s occurring between reactor and turbine buildings at Fukushima Daiichi’s reactor units, and could be a key step toward facilitating decommissioning of units 1-4. SRNL has extensive experience in grout development and also has operating experience with grouting components reactors and other facilities.

Reuters: The company may resort to pouring a cement-like material into the rectors’ suppression chambers to plug leaks it has not been able to locate, Suzuki said. “One approach we are considering is putting grout, like cement,” he said. “In other words, filling it in. That would block all the holes.”

See also: "Too many holes" in Fukushima reactors? May have to fill up suppression chambers with cement -Tepco