Mission Impossible

Cleanup of the Fukushima nuclear plant, after three of four reactors went into meltdown, following an earthquake, tsunami and flooding in March 2011 is posing unprecedented engineering challenges, reports the Economist. Decommissioning could take more than four decades as engineers scramble to invent new technology and methods for handling the massive cleanup: They constructed a frozen wall of coolant around the plant to shield against another earthquake and are also developing a robot to remove more than 100 tons of ruined nuclear fuel. “Solutions create new problems,” reports the Economist. “Water is pumped in to keep melted uranium at the bottom of reactors one, two and three from overheating. A purification system… is struggling to keep up with the flow of contaminated water being produced.” Many anticipate that TEPCO, the company in charge of the plant, will want to dump the 370,000 tons of water into the Pacific Ocean. The Economist wryly points out that TEPCO made a profit last year and is not bearing true costs of the massive cleanup. – YaleGlobal