Desperate Tepco to drop ice and dry ice to help “frozen wall” be frozen

Following up this article..

Preceding “frozen” water wall not frozen over 2 months – Video [URL]

On 7/7/2014, Tepco admitted the preceding “frozen” water wall hasn’t gotten frozen over 2 months after the operation.

They installed the coolant packers at 2 locations of underground trench of the seaside of Reactor2 in the end of April and June but neither of them have been frozen.

As the reason, Tepco comments the water flow is preventing it from frozen. Tepco plans to install additional packers and grout and announces they can still complete freezing the wall by the end of September.

On 7/23/2014, Tepco announced they are going to drop ice and dry ice to the unfrozen “frozen wall”.

It’s becoming nearly 3 months, but the preceding frozen wall hasn’t gotten frozen as planned.

Japanese government and Tepco have only 3 measures against contaminated water. Frozen water wall is one of them. They need it to be successfully working so the government of Japan can look like they are controlling the situation.

From Tepco’s report submitted to NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority), they are already prepared to drop 2 t of ice and 1 t of dry ice for 3 days starting on 7/24/2014.

Depending on the temperature, they are going to drop 5.4 t of ice per day from the end of July. They expect to complete the frozen wall by mid August.

There is a possibility that the retained contaminated water may overflow if they drop ice and dry ice. Also it is not clear how it is supposed to reinforce the frozen water.

However there are not many options left for Tepco.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2014/images/handouts_140723_06-j.pdf

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