Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Fukushima Ice Wall Failing and Post-Typhoon Webcam Update



The ice wall is failing. This is no surprise but it is quite unfortunate:

EDITORIAL: Is Fukushima ice wall project still viable despite early failure? The Asahi Shimbun, August 30, 2016, http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201608300031.html

A government-backed, large-scale project to reduce the amount of contaminated water produced daily at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has become bogged down.  The project involves creating a frozen wall of soil around reactor buildings at the plant to stop the flow of groundwater into the facilities.

...But the project has failed to produce the expected results. The work to build a frozen soil wall around the No. 1 to No. 4 reactor buildings was completed in June. Nearly three months on, however, there remain unfrozen parts through which groundwater enters the facilities.

The total daily amount of groundwater, which becomes contaminated with radioactive materials within the reactor buildings, has remained unchanged at about 400 cubic meters.

I imagine that the recent typhoon that came through the area (see here) has not helped the contaminated water problem:
10,000 tons of toxic water pools in Fukushima nuclear plant trenches. The Mainichi, August 23, 2016 (Mainichi Japan), http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160823/p2g/00m/0dm/074000c
For the last couple of days there has been a patch of flickering red on the large crane visible from cam 4:







It was still visible last night but is finally gone. I hope it was simply a reflection.