Japanese Ice Wall To Stop Reactor Leaks

minstrelmike writes "Japan is planning to install a two-mile, subterranean ice wall around the Fukushima nuclear plant. 'The ice wall would freeze the ground to a depth of up to 30 meters (100 feet) through a system of pipes carrying a coolant as cold as minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit). That would block contaminated water from escaping from the facility's immediate surroundings, as well as keep underground water from entering the reactor and turbine buildings, where much of the radioactive water has collected.' The technology they're using has not been used to that extent before, nor for more than a couple years. An underground water expert said, 'the frozen wall won't be ready for another two years, which means contaminated water would continue to leak out.' But at least they have a $470 million plan ready to present to the Olympic committee choosing between Madrid, Istanbul or Tokyo."

Comments

The Wall?

[PlastikMissle]

Will there be a semi-monastic order of warriors pledged to man it and protect the realms of men?

This needs to be taken out of their hands

[JudgeFurious]

I don't understand why so many nations are trying to reach a consensus on military action in Syria over a chemical weapon attack that may or may not have been done by the regime there but nobody has suggested multi-national cooperation to take over the mess in Fukushima. Japan has failed miserably at dealing with this crisis and continues to do so. It's time to tell them to get the fuck out of the way and bring world-wide resources to bear on this. The UN should be bringing countries together to solve problems like this.

*Sigh*

[Overzeetop]

Turn in your geek card.

Re:minus 40 degrees Celsius != (minus 40 Fahrenhei

[mcl630]

-40 Celsius IS equal to -40 Fahrenheit.

Wrong wall.

[MRe_nl]

We don't need no radiation
We don't need no Tepcontrol
No dark sarcasm in the controlroom
Tepco leave them rods alone
Hey! Tepco! leave the rods alone!

Re:Wrong wall.

[Iniamyen]

All in all, it's just another ice cube in the wall

The short;

[MRe_nl]

The prohibition on armed forces is written into Article 9 the Japanese Constitution of 1947, which states that Japan forever swears off war as a mechanism of foreign policy to resolve disputes. This was an article that was pressed in in order to ensure that Japan could never rise up militarily again - the Pacific campaign was incredibly brutal, and the Americans didn't see the worst of it (the Chinese and Koreans were treated worse). To this day China and both Korea's are still angry with Japan for what they perceive as a failure to sufficiently apologize for what the Japanese did earlier this century, and they would massively oppose any move by Japan towards returning to that state (i.e., getting a real military instead of the Self-Defense Forces they currently have).

Plus, the majority of the Japanese population supports Article 9 - the long-term suffering of the Japanese population via Allied air raids (read about the Tokyo firebombings that killed more people directly than the A-bomb attacks) punctuated by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has provided an inherent anti-war sentiment in subsequent generations of Japanese people.

In short, the US cannot decide for Japan whether to allow them to have an actual military - the US does not have the legal power to do so, and no one involved wants to eliminate this situation. (copy pasted from Yahoo)

The long;

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/89apr/defend.htm