Japan mulls huge sheet for nuclear plant.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/asia-pacific/2011/04/20114454422691143.html
Japan's government has asked the operator of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant to consider wrapping a giant sheet around the facility to contain further radioactive leaks.
The proposal calls for building framed structures around the 45-meter-high reactor buildings and then wrapping them with the sheeting, sources told Kyodo news agency on Monday.
If all of the four damaged reactors were wrapped in this manner, it would take up to two months and cost about 80bn yen ($950m), the sources said. It is not clear what kind of material would be used for the sheeting.
Atomic energy experts are sceptical about the feasibility of the plan that was proposed by a general construction firm.
They stress the risk that such sheeting would be torn apart by heat emanating from nuclear reactors, and that it would also hamper restoration work, including the spraying of water onto the reactors.
Snip
I'm not a nuclear engineer, I'm not an engineer, I don't even play an engineer on TV, but this seems one of more hare-brained ideas to come down the pike in long time. The Japanese look like they are grasping at straws to find a fix for Fukushima.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/asia-pacific/2011/04/20114454422691143.html
Japan's government has asked the operator of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant to consider wrapping a giant sheet around the facility to contain further radioactive leaks.
The proposal calls for building framed structures around the 45-meter-high reactor buildings and then wrapping them with the sheeting, sources told Kyodo news agency on Monday.
If all of the four damaged reactors were wrapped in this manner, it would take up to two months and cost about 80bn yen ($950m), the sources said. It is not clear what kind of material would be used for the sheeting.
Atomic energy experts are sceptical about the feasibility of the plan that was proposed by a general construction firm.
They stress the risk that such sheeting would be torn apart by heat emanating from nuclear reactors, and that it would also hamper restoration work, including the spraying of water onto the reactors.
Snip
I'm not a nuclear engineer, I'm not an engineer, I don't even play an engineer on TV, but this seems one of more hare-brained ideas to come down the pike in long time. The Japanese look like they are grasping at straws to find a fix for Fukushima.
1 comment:
It's a hare-brained scheme, partly because it would do nothing to prevent radioactive materials leaching into the ground within that structure. As the article mentions, there would be an additional hazard of the pile overheating again.
Still, it sounds like one of those things that politicians (people who run most government agencies are politicians) pass on to others to say "no" to. Even in normal times, people in government have to deal with those.
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