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JEFFREY BROWN: So, Arjun Makhijani, explain this idea of the ice wall. It sounds strange. How exactly would it work, and how much has it been tried before?
ARJUN MAKHIJANI: Well, I don't know that an ice wall like this has been tried before.
It's like building a dam underground, but with ice, by freezing all the poor water in the soil, all soil has -- so there's water coming in from uphill, through the side and going into the ocean, all underground. It's an aquifer. Some of that water contacts the molten fuel and is becoming contaminated.
And they hope to build -- to freeze the soil, basically, with a giant freezing machine, just like your freezer at home, put cooling coils in the soil, lots and lots of them. It takes an enormous amount of electricity and they would freeze it. Of course, it contains the water behind it like a dam, but eventually it's going to overtop the dam, as it did before.
They had another wall that they built. They chemically impregnated the soil to kind of solidify it. And that is what is overflowing into the sea 300 tons a day. So...
JEFFREY BROWN: Well, so it has been done before, but not on this scale, you think? So is it an -- how would you describe it? Is it an experiment? Is it a kind of stab at something?
ARJUN MAKHIJANI: It is an experiment.
JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.
ARJUN MAKHIJANI: And I think it's a risky experiment, because if the power fails, you know, just like if your -- when the power goes out with your refrigerator, everything will de-freeze in -- defrost in the freezer.
So, if this ice melts suddenly and it's blocking an enormous amount of contaminated water behind it, then you have got a problem. At the same time, you know, the tanks are themselves something of a threat, if there's another earthquake and this highly contaminated water gets into the ocean. And so they have a got a very -- couple of very, very serious problems of containing the water.
Originally posted by the owlbear
...and Tokyo Olympics tickets go on sale when?
I might go. Watch some people run around, check out the mutated countryside, buy six hundred pound radish that screams when you touch it...perfect choice, IOC. Ice wall, ha!!! I think those scientists have been watching a few too many cartoons.
However, nuclear expert John Large is sceptical:
"The problem with ice walls is that you can crack and fissure the clay, which provides migration routes for the water and the radioactivity through the ice wall, so it's not at all certain."
He also points to the fact that the ice wall presents a technical challenge for future generations as it will have to be maintained at minus 40 degrees for 200-300 years.
That's a load of poopoo. There is no technology, nor any precedence, for how to deal with this.
MichiganSwampBuck
Humans have the science and technology to solve this problem fairly quickly, but the people in charge of the situation can't seriously consider the best solutions due to cost. They would be losing money faster than they are dumping radioactive water into the ocean right now.
If they can make money with a band-aid approach they will, regardless of the potential risks involved - the bottom line.