Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) approved the construction of an underground ice wall at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The NRA said in GlobalPost that the ice wall would not have a “significant negative impact” on the stability of the subsoil nor the subterranean watercourses. However, there are still some parts of the project that must be defined, such as the exact measurement of the level of radioactive water that has accumulated. It is believed that about 300 tons a day of the water flows into the Pacific Ocean.
The ice wall is directed at keeping radioactive water accumulating inside reactor buildings on site from leaking into the sea, according to the article. The ice wall is to be built by inserting a series of thin pipelines at a depth of 98-feet, through which a coolant will be injected that will freeze the groundwater in contact with the pipelines to a depth of about 100-feet, the article said. The ice wall is designed to be 1 mile long and surround units 1 through 4.
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