MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011
University Researchers: Let's Dump Contaminated Soil into the Ocean!
Scholars who participated in the Japanese Ministry of Education's radiation mapping are proposing dumping the contaminated soil removed as the result of utterly useless "decontamination" efforts into the depth of the Pacific Ocean, 2000 meters deep.
The researchers will propose their plan to the government as a practical solution to literally mountains of soil contaminated with cesium, plutonium, tellurium, radioactive silver, strontium...
Asahi Shinbun (12/5/2011) reports:
An idea has surfaced among researchers to dump the soil contaminated by the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident into the ocean, as it is difficult to secure the storage space to store the soil removed in decontamination efforts. The idea will certainly be greeted with strong criticism from the public both domestic and international, but the researchers plan to propose it to the national government as one of the practical solutions.
Decontamination is the responsibility of the national government in the areas where the annual cumulative radiation exposure would exceed 1 millisievert. The plan is to scrape off the top soil, store it in the temporary storage areas in the affected municipalities, and then transport it to an intermediary storage facility to be built somewhere in Fukushima Prefecture. It is expected that 15 to 31 million cubic meters of contaminated soil will be removed within the prefecture. If the final disposal plan remains undecided, the intermediary storage could become permanent. The government hasn't secured the land to create the intermediary storage facility.
Considering this situation, a group of researchers who participated in the soil contamination mapping by the Ministry of Education and Science, including Professor Isao Tanihata of Osaka University Research Center for Nuclear Physics and Professor Koji Nakai of Tokyo University of Science, proposed the deep sea solution in a workshop held on December 3 at Osaka University. The best method, according to the group, would be to put the contaminated soil in containers that would withstand corrosion and high water pressure, and sink the containers in the coastal water more than 2000 meters deep.
ORIGINALLY POSTED BY AREVAMIRPAL :: LAPRIMAVERA AT 12:24 PM
0 comments:
Post a Comment