Russia Spending $9 Million Refrigerating Ground Beneath Apartment Buildings In Norilsk As Soil Melts

[hatrack]

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The foundation under this apartment block on the Nansen Street in Norilsk has started to collapse. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Rising Arctic temperatures are causing permafrost to thaw, putting the world’s largest city built on frozen ground in deep trouble. Norilsk, the industrial city with 170,000 inhabitants on Russia’s Taymyr Peninsula is partly built on rock massif and partly on permafrost soil.

With shocking fast rise in temperatures inside the Arctic Circle, the thaw will have devastating impact on those buildings built on the soil. The Barents Observer has previously reported about a study predicting that urban infrastructure across the Russian Arctic could collapse within the next few decades. In Norilsk, such dramatic impact on apartment blocks is already visible. Like on the Nansen Street where the foundations to the 5-floor apartment block 106 has severe cracks and the pathway besides is really bumpy.

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Houses in Siberia are built on pillars into the permafrost. When the soil starts to thaw, the pillars start to crack. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Regional authorities this week inspected the buildings in Norilsk and looked at needs for reconstruction, the official portal of the Krasnoyarsk Krai informs. News agency TASS reports that thermal stabilisation of soils under 10 apartment buildings in Norilsk, whose foundations are under threat due to thawing permafrost, will be carried out in 2021-2024. 650 million rubles (€7,9 million) will be invested in the thermal stabilisation program.

In 2019 and 2020, soil cooling systems were installed along the contour of two houses aimed to freeze the foundations in the ground. The system consists of a network of pipes through which the refrigerant circulates.

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https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2021/10/norilsk-starts-cooling-ground-preserve-buildings-thawing-permafrost

[OneBro]

1. Hmph. What's their word for "ironic?"

Plan A: Use ozone depleting, climate changing refrigerants to slow a problem caused by climate change.