Open Intelligence / Energy

Der Speigel speaking with two experts in Germany about the frozen wall idea being planned for Fukushima Daiichi, did not get high marks for the project. Concerns included the long time the wall would need to stay frozen and the total size of the project. Another engineer was quoted as saying the frozen ring wall would fail if it was not also sealed from below.

[...] Much more serious is the danger that the spent fuel rod pool at the top of the nuclear plant number four will collapse in a storm or an earthquake, or in a failed attempt to carefully remove each of the 1,535 rods and safely transport them to the common storage pool 50 meters away. Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years. [...]