A 2011 earthquake is still causing problems. The quake triggered a tsunami, damaging equipment at Japan’s Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. The plant has leaked radioactive water ever since. Yesterday the plant’s operator switched on a giant refrigeration system. Officials hope to create an underground ice wall around the damaged reactors.
The cores of three damaged reactors melted during the accident. They must be cooled constantly with water to keep them from overheating. The cooling water becomes radioactive. It leaks out of the building basements, where it mixes with groundwater.
So far nothing has been able to control the seeping water. Nearly 800,000 tons have been pumped out over the past five years. The stored water in huge tanks occupies almost every corner of the Fukushima plant.
For the ice wall, engineers installed 1,550 underground refrigeration pipes. The pipes will create a barrier of frozen soil around the damaged reactor buildings. Hopefully, this will control groundwater’s flowing into the area and prevent radioactive water from seeping out.
The pipes are 100 feet deep—the equivalent of a 10-story building. Engineers say coolant in the pipes will freeze the surrounding soil to -22 Fahrenheit, creating the ice wall over several months.
The wall is a last-ditch effort to make the area safe.
