Liquid glass successfully plugs radioactive leak at Fukushima nuke plant (lots of great photos)

dailymail. ^ | 12:14 PM on 6th April 2011 | By Daily Mail Reporter

[dennisw]

Engineers have used liquid glass to stem the highly radioactive water leaking into the sea from a crippled Japanese nuclear power plant in breakthrough in the battle to contain the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

However Tokyo Electric Power still needs to pump contaminated water into the sea because of lack of storage space.

A Tepco spokesman said: 'The leaks were slowed yesterday after we injected mixture of liquid glass and a hardening agent and it has now stopped.'

Engineers had been desperately struggling to plug the leak and had tried using sawdust, newspapers and concrete to stem the flow of the highly-contaminated water.

The liquid glass was injected into the ground beneath the leaking storage pit yesterday and stopped the escape after solidifying the earth.

The report, dated March 26, reveals how a build up of salt is blocking the flow of fresh water meant to cool the damaged cores, making flow 'severely restricted' in reactor Number 1, and to a lesser extent in Numbers 2 and 3.

Experts said some may have been washed away by the switch to the use of fresh water.

David A Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who worked on similar General Electric reactors to the kind used in Japan, told the New York Times: 'I thought they were, not out of the woods, but at least at the edge of the woods.

'This paints very different picture, and suggests that things are a lot worse. They could still have more damage in a big way if some of these things don’t work out for them.

'Even the best juggler in the world can get too many balls up in the air. They’ve got a lot of nasty things to negotiate in the future, and one missed step could make the situation much, much worse.'

[FReepaholic]

...My own country disgusts me. I am so embarrassed to be called an American. We make Sodom & Gomorrah look like a monastery. God hasn’t figured out yet what our punishment is going to be...

Maybe it will be an earthquake followed by a tsunami that destroys a nuclear plant that then spews radiation over our country....oh wait, that was in your little future prime minister's country.

[dynoman]

I think this “liquid glass” is sodium silicate. It was used to kill the engines in the clunker car program by pouring it in the crankcase and can be used as stop leak with water in an automotive cooling system.

[utherdoul]

well considering the Japanese birth rate Japanese culture won’t be around that much longer. Its a real shame.

[SIRTRIS]

Na or K silicate is also widely used as a binding agent for stick electrodes to encapsulate ferro metallics to each other.

[B4Ranch]

>>well considering the Japanese birth rate Japanese culture won’t be around that much longer. Its a real shame.<<

Today they live like Saltine crackers. If they don’t cut their birth rate the next option is to live like bread crumbs. Give them thirty or forty years for some of the elders to fertilize the soil. Don’t worry, they’ll get around to making babies as if it was the normal thing to do.