Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority has approved the start of tests on impervious underground “frozen walls” at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear station site, the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (Jaif) said.
Tepco has been working on the walls as one way to deal with contaminated water coming from the reactors. The walls are intended to stop the inflow of groundwater coming from the mountainside to the west of the reactor buildings. The walls are being built by drilling holes and inserting freezer pipes designed to freeze soil and prevent the flow of groundwater through the soil. More than 1,500 pipes are being installed beneath the ground in an area that stretches some 1.5km. Coolant will be injected into the pipes to freeze the surrounding soil.