Posted on 03/12/2016 11:03:59 AM PST by Rockitz
The robots sent in to find highly radioactive fuel at Fukushima's nuclear reactors have “died”; a subterranean "ice wall" around the crippled plant meant to stop groundwater from becoming contaminated has yet to be finished. And authorities still don’t know how to dispose of highly radioactive water stored in an ever mounting number of tanks around the site.
Five years ago, one of the worst earthquakes in history triggered a 10-meter high tsunami that crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station causing multiple meltdowns. Nearly 19,000 people were killed or left missing and 160,000 lost their homes and livelihoods in the quake and tsunami.
Today, the radiation at the Fukushima plant is still so powerful it has proven impossible to get into its bowels to find and remove the extremely dangerous blobs of melted fuel rods, weighing hundreds of tonnes. Five robots sent into the reactors have failed to return.
The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) 9501.t, has made some progress, such as removing hundreds of spent fuel roads in one damaged building. But the technology needed to establish the location of the melted fuel rods in the other three reactors at the plant has not been developed.
“It is extremely difficult to access the inside of the nuclear plant," Naohiro Masuda, Tepco's head of decommissioning said in an interview. "The biggest obstacle is the radiation.”
The fuel rods melted through their containment vessels in the reactors, and no one knows exactly where they are now. This part of the plant is so dangerous to humans, Tepco has been developing robots, which can swim under water and negotiate obstacles in damaged tunnels and piping to search for the melted fuel rods.
But as soon as they get close to the reactors, the radiation destroys their wiring ...
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
They should nuke the place and vaporize the problem.
How “hot” is the melted core.At Chernobyl the so-called elephant’s foot of solidified core was emitting 10,000 R/hr.
Yeeeaaaaahhh.
No.
We should have taken this fiasco over at the onset. The Japanese are a proud people who reject outside help.(I’m sure Obozo bowed and scraped to them and let them to their own devices) But they are damaging a good chunk of the friggin world.....it could get to affect much more than Japan.
* "...the technology needed to establish the location of the melted fuel rods in the other three reactors at the plant has not been developed." [unbelievable that this wasn't anticipated!]
* "...as soon as [the robots] get close to the reactors, the radiation destroys their wiring and renders them useless" [does radiation destroy insulation on the wires? or embrittle the metal conductor?]
* "Each robot has to be custom-built for each building. 'It takes two years to develop a single-function robot'" [and then they are destroyed quickly by radiation -- I can't believe the world's nuclear operators didn't solve this problem DECADES ago and anticipate such a disaster]
“It’s Not A Fit Night Out For Man or Robot”
But anything described as slowly becoming the worst nuclear accident of all time sells more newspaper ads, so...
whether it is or is not, it is.
(another zen moment courtesy of your friendly journalist reality masters, lol)
Although 6 died performing containment efforts.
But Chernobyl didn’t affect the ocean.
“And authorities still don’t know how to dispose of highly radioactive water stored in an ever mounting number of tanks around the site”
Put it on a ship, sail around remote ocean centers, slowly release and disperse to dilute. Sink ship in a deep trench.
When last I looked, "Rad-Hard" chips could withstand 107 rads.
Note that at post #3, Farmer Dean posted: "How “hot” is the melted core? At Chernobyl the so-called elephant’s foot of solidified core was emitting 10,000 R/hr."
The best electronics would last 100 hours, 4 days or so tops.
The six robots received super powers and have developed intelligence. We’ll hear from them again.
Who would ever had thought that building a nuke plant on an earthquake fault would have been a problem?
“We should have taken this fiasco over at the onset.”
So just send in the FBI and tell Japan we are taking over the case? And taking over of course, means we get to pay.
Sounds like the beginning of a great sci-fi movie, doesn’t it? ;o)
Boron sops up neutrons and disrupts chain reactions.
"Twenty Mule Team Borax, if it can help clean up a nuclear accident, think of what it can do for your laundry!"
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