News From The Easter Bunny: TEPCO's Fukushima Ice Wall
Hey buddy, wanna buy a watch? If you've forgotten about Fukushima because American media is filled with Trump and Clinton, the Easter Bunny just brought out the last best hope to save Japan, Far-East Asia, and the Pacific Ocean from the ongoing creation by the stricken plant of radioactive material. See below.
TEPCO - now there is a clown posse - posted some details of their infamous Ice Wall plan. Remember that none of Fukushima's problems have been solved. All TEPCO does is play the shell game with the ever-growing radioactive water on the site. They're shuttling the radioactive water around the site in containers like it's the Chicago stockyards.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/decommision/planaction/landwardwall/index-e.html
t is actually a frozen soil wall around the four crippled reactor units, intended to block the flow of groundwater and prevent its mixing with contaminated water.
The principal benefit of the frozen barrier compared with a physical barrier is that it avoids the challenges of building a wall around such underground obstacles as pipes, and creates a seamless barrier. Its effectiveness was demonstrated in tests held in March through April of 2014, when it maintained the ground temperature below 0 degrees Celsius.
The barrier is being funded by the government, with construction being undertaken by Kajima Corporation, one of the few entities that has developed the necessary technology, which it has used at numerous construction sites, especially tunnels, to block water penetration. The refrigerant is environmentally safe and the chilled brine will flow through the pipes to a depth of 30 meters, freezing the surrounding soil and forming a barrier around the reactor facilities. The circumference of the wall is approximately 1500 meters.
The wall is also designed to withstand even long-term interruptions of electricity, maintaining its effectiveness for approximately two months after the loss of power. It is one of several measures TEPCO is undertaking to reduce the amount of water that becomes contaminated on the site, thereby reducing storage needs and protecting the environment.
Installation of facilities required for 'ICE WALL' Construction was completed on February 9, 2016.
Activation was on March 31 of the same year.
No firm timetable has been announced, but it is expected that the entire process will unfold over a period of months.
Why is this important? Apart from the self-evident, it is perhaps helpful for folks here on c99 peeing themselves over the "threat" of an all-ready imploding Clinton to focus on some real problems.
Peace be with us, if we protest the crap out of every and any nuclear facilities and plans everywhere.
Comments
None of this will work, long term.
Any more than steel barrels in a cave somewhere.
How does it fare against earthquakes?
Tsunamis?
People keep coming up with more and more complicated, gee-whiz shit to keep nukes, and nuclear waste, under control. Problem is, the stuff is going to outlive all of these tech-intensive methods.
And the steel barrels don't work so well, either.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
True dat, Bisbo. "I see a bad moon arising." And this is while
the lights are still on. Imagine how these lunatics are gonna "manage" the nuclear material (that no one has ever safely disposed anywhere, for 71 years now - shudder) when the lights start flickering real soon?
The planet will rest for an epoch, digest all our radioactive waste and pollution, and somewhere two living cells will merge and Gaia will start anew and rejoin the universe.
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
It is not
the end of the world, just the end of us as you said, the ruination will then allow the Earth to digest and redistribute all the mess, and bury it once more, then some aeon or so from now, the cycle will renew, and another civilization will emerge, Gaia will be back in the life game, and hopefully, the new species will be wiser and smarter than us.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
It’d be neat if the new species were of cephalopod lineage.
Communication by using an individual’s entire skin surface as a high-resolution full color display.
Thank you, Lenzabi. There is some comfort in that thought.
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
Sea level rise to the rescue!
The entire plant will be under water within a century or two, so it's not like we have to maintain this ice corral forever. And as an added bonus, if reality continues to outpace our worst case predictions for melting ice sheets we will be off the hook for "cleanup" much sooner than we now think possible!
The fact that our aging fleet of NPPs keeps getting recertified for operating licenses decades beyond their original design lifetimes is hard to understand, and even harder to accept.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
Too right, O49. That does paint the picture rather vividly.
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
One place this essay parallels the HRC ones
..... is that over on TOP, any opposition to nuclear power is auto-branded "anti-science", disrespected, and anyone with the intestinal fortitude to discuss it anyway is likely to find him/herself drinking Bojo-lais with a quickness.
Never mind that Fukushima (and Three Mile Island, and Detroit Fermi, and Chernobyl, and...... and...... and......) actually happened. Never mind the fact we still don't have reliable means to deal with history's most dangerous detritus (and never will). Never mind that in the final analysis, heavy-metal fission is nothing else than JAFC (Just Another Fucking Coal, something else in limited supply that we have to dig out of the ground, will run out soon, and will leave us all manner of problems and pollution to attend to, and are therefore no solution at all).
I realize that I'm preaching to the choir here. But I do want to express my gratitude that we can, in fact, discuss these very real issues here. We sure as fuck can't at TOP. So thank you, c99p!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
TY thanatok. Hooray for c99!!! Watch Indian Point carefully:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/whats-the-most-at-risk-us-nuclear-power-plant/
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
bunny
You sure it was the Easter Bunny that brought you this news? An Ice Wall to restrain nuclear reactor wastes for 10,000 years?
You sure that rabbit wasn't the Ether Bunny?
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
this goes to the core of the engineering malfunction in us
we talk about evolution. bah. humbug. we've alllowed the outdated evolutionary models to remain in control while the more evolved among us went on to have families and weekends, little league . . . until something snapped.
back to the main point: people built these plants, believing it would come (the solution to decommissioning these monsters). yeah don't worry because in 40 years (the original span) they'll have figured it out. fucking really?
anyway, Fukushima (along with honey bees et al) is one of my go-to rants, when people get all "OMG ISIS" or some other minor non species threatening scare du jour.
it's one of my rants when people tell me what a good guy Obama is and that he is one of the most successful presidents evah. again, fucking really? you see this disaster unfold ever fucking day, you know it's killed 1/3 of an ocean and you prance around talking about climate change?
what i didn't appreciate (and don't ask me why, really don't know) is him sending Caroline Kennedy there as ambassador. but it wasn't for any good reason, if you ask me.
or maybe the threat to the East is the lowness of Exxon saying: hey no glaciers? easier extraction.
“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"
Good morning, pf8, and ty for a righteous rant. I so agree.
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
also, it's important to understand why any ANY
status quo candidate that gets into the white house (and they are status quo even pro god and pro life, towing as they all do the corporate line), we are fucked.
so Hillary as president is as urgent to avoid as electing someone who has the potential to recognize the REAL and present threats (as I believe Bernie does).
“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"
Well said, pf8!
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
you should mention in your post
it was built on one of the MOST DANGEROUS FAULT LINES ON THE FUCKING PLANET.
yeah.
“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"
Hey, we got that covered here in the US and A, too.
Good morning PastorA! Have a great day.
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.