Japan’s high-concept plan to seal off the world’s worst running, open sore is running into trouble.  The plan is to contain leakage from the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant by freezing the soil around it and creating an underground ice wall.  However…

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is admitting that initial attempts to control runoff from the contaminated water tanks are failing.

“We have yet to form the ice stopper because we can't make the temperature low enough to freeze water,” said a TEPCO spokesman.

The project is already behind schedule and over budget.  But engineers are studying ways to add more underground pipes through which coolant will be continuously pumped.

Meanwhile. Fukushima’s radioactive output is spreading.  China is building a marine environment inspection and early-warning system in the Western Pacific Ocean, with sensors that can monitor conditions from the surface down to 1,000 meters – and they detected Cesium 134 at several observation stations.