Concrete fails to plug leak at Fukushima nuclear plant

Concrete fails to plug leak at Fukushima nuclear plant

An operator at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says highly radioactive water from a pit near a reactor continues to leak into the ocean. Tepco officials plan to explore using a polymer in another attempt to stop the flow.

Members of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force spray water onto the wharf of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Workers pumped concrete into a leaking pit holding power cables near reactor No. 2 Saturday in an attempt to stop a leak of radioactive water. (Japan Ministry of Defense via Bloomberg / March 31, 2011)

Reporting from Tokyo—
The operator of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant said Saturday that highly radioactive water was leaking from a pit near a reactor into the ocean, which may partially explain the high levels of radioactivity that have been found in seawater off the coast.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it had detected an 8-inch crack in the concrete pit holding power cables near reactor No. 2 and was working to seal the fracture. Tepco said the water was coming directly from the reactor and the radiation level was 1,000 millisieverts an hour. The annual limit of radiation exposure allowed for Fukushima workers is 250 millisieverts.

Workers pumped concrete into the shaft Saturday, but by the end of the day, the flow of water into the ocean had not diminished. Engineers speculated that the water was preventing the concrete from setting, allowing it to all be washed away.

Tepco officials said that on Sunday morning they would explore using a polymer -- a type of quick-setting plastic -- in an attempt to plug the leak.

After spraying thousands of tons of water on the reactors at Fukushima over the last three weeks to keep the facility from overheating and releasing dangerous amounts of radiation over a wide area, the utility is faced with the problem of great volumes of contaminated water.

Source: LA Times

So basically we have no fix as of yet, and once again I feel tired of reading any news that has to do with such a big disaster since this is starting to sound eerily similar to the Gulf oil spill and the crap they kept spewing at us as 'news' when it was the same old thing and we kept getting the run around.

reply to post by highlyoriginal


I think the entire thing has just been one massive FAIL really

As bad as it is, why do I get the feeling that the worst is still yet to come?

reply to post by IamAbeliever


clairvoyance. from what i have read on this site, one of the best

As ignorant as I am regarding nuclear plants when I first
heard they were going to try this I knew it wouldn't work.
Concrete has to dry and of course constant water on
it isn't going to let it do this. I read the US send a huge
crane like concrete pump to Fukushima, I doubt that
it has arrvied yet so they probably used another.

Now what's next - they are going to have to do
better than this.

is there a live video feed of this yet like there was for the gulf oil spill? if so anyone know the link? and if not there should be so everyone can see what is going on in real time!

reply to post by highlyoriginal


i suggest they spray Corexit over the crack. that stuff did wonders in the Gulf.

This is a little OT.. But could anyone have picked a better name for a nuclear plant that goes bad?

Fukushima.


Sorry just a little

We just had our basement reinsulated with some kind
of new insulation - I have no idea what its called but
it sealed every crack and believe me water will not
get in or out. Perhaps there is a similar substance
that can take the high temps. Just a thought -
this is getting so bad - what will they try to do next.

Originally posted by crazydaisy
As ignorant as I am regarding nuclear plants when I first
heard they were going to try this I knew it wouldn't work.
Concrete has to dry and of course constant water on
it isn't going to let it do this.

I think concrete can set in water and it doesn't really have to dry, it has to "set", but I suspect it's not just the water but the fact that the water is FLOWING that's the problem. So the flowing water washes the concrete away before it sets.

A quick-setting polymer might work better since it might start to set before it's washed away by the water flow, but you can imagine how hard that stuff is to work with, it might set before they finish applying it, if their mix is a little off.

Actually cement can dry uderwater quite well.
It is just because there uis a current that it wont set up.
If they can stick something like screen in behind the cement itll do the job.
The whole ting should be renamed cirque de soliel because theyve been pussy footing aroun the fact that it is all Kaput and has been right from the git go.
The initial pump failure brought on inevitable consequences, and no amount of appologising will ever make up for it.
They seem to be stuck with tryng to pump water for a couple of years 24/7 to keep the blown reactors cooled.
They need to get some kind of dome over the whole plant area, so that radiation cannot escape it.
But they will need to keep the water comming for a long time yet.
So, they cannot entomb, and they cannot keep pumping water from the ocean, and letting it drain back.
Seems like too many rocks and too many hard places to be at once.
Its no wonder the management is on disaster overload....they need help.
And LOTs of it.
We need to put the word out fr volunteer atomic workers world wide to fight this situation.
Japan has only so many techs and they are needed eslewhere too.
The UN or some other body simple has to take over for the good of the whole world.

You can easily produce a quick set concrete for underwater applications. The problem here, I suspect, is that those underwater concretes use calcium and/or potash additives to force it to setup and cure quicker underwater. Both of these substances are radiation magnets and I would guess they ultimately get locked up by the isotopes in the water, neutralizing any benefit they would add to the setting of the concrete. Another issue I suspect is arising is that the radiation in the water would eventually cause the concrete to settle more tightly, allow for fewer voids, and be a lot harder if it was just in a still pond rather than a flowing body.

Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes for us to start hearing the term "junk shot" thrown around again as if this was another BP disaster? I say that because it might actually work here. Add some fiberous material to the concrete that would clog the crack and give the low porosity concrete mixture something to cling to, and they'd likely seal this crack.

Originally posted by burdman30ott6
Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes for us to start hearing the term "junk shot" thrown around again as if this was another BP disaster? I say that because it might actually work here. Add some fiberous material to the concrete that would clog the crack and give the low porosity concrete mixture something to cling to, and they'd likely seal this crack.

I honestly think you have the right idea there.

Thing is, how come a bunch of people on some forums can at least come up with ideas that have yet to at least been brought up?

How much can it hurt to try something that may not work? At this point, nothing is a guarantee or 'highly likely' to work but common! We need something hopeful, not this crap that I posted in the OP that even the average person would say is not going to work.

Why aren't we all working together to get this disaster under control? It seems it's one after another, lesson not learned each time -- when will we be prepared rather than suffer the consequences of those who try to say we're safe from these types of situations?

reply to post by highlyoriginal


Call in an oilwell service company and have fraq trucks literally on a conveyor belt dump tons of sand onto the area while the cement crews pump saltwater and quick dry cement into the area? Geez... no real suggestions here. Bunker busters and frozen nitrogen? .... probably not..


Hope this gets taken care of very soon. I have no real ideas outside of those. wish I did.

It's weird how all this sounds just like the BP oil drilling mishap. . .what's weirder is that even I would simply just call this a "mishap".

Perhaps we'll learn about magical radiation absorbing unicorns that will fix it all, just like they made all that oil disappear!

By saying this, however, I am not discrediting the possibility of unicorns.

At this point I would be willing to bet there isn't a crack to be plugged..this is all dog and pony show to make everyone think they are getting things under control