Construction started!

(Japanese article is here.)

Construction of our power plant have finally started!

Ground works began - quite obviously - with bringing in the equipment and materials.

This is picture from August 18, the morning of the first day of construction - a machine is standing lonely in the middle of the field waiting for the work to start. 

So what exactly is going on? With this machine, workmen dig up holes in the ground and place metal pipes vertically inside them. They fix position of the pipes temporarily with diagonal and horizontal pipes. The long vertical pipes are pillars that will support the whole framework. They are 4 meters long, of which 1 meter is under the ground.

After several pipes are raised and their position fixed, concrete is cast into the holes. More precisely,  the lower 20 cm of the underground part of the pipe are covered with soil, the next 50 cm with concrete, and the upper 30 cm again with soil.

Once this is done, the pipe is fully fixed and the temporary diagonal pipes can be removed.

Temporarily fixed pipe：

This is the view after casting the concrete:

And finally the concrete layer is covered with soil (= This pillar's foundation is completed):

So that's how construction is progressing right now. With more than 50 pillars altogether, it'll take some time to finish.The workmen are doing great job in 35 degree heat!

This is the progress after four days of work:

View from the opposite side:

Let's hope the rest of construction will be as smooth as it's been so far!