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Japan Readies Robot For Work At Crippled Nuclear Reactor
angry tapir writes "A Japanese robotics lab has developed a new emergency response prototype that will soon be put to work at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northern Japan. The robot, called 'Rosemary,' is about the size of a lawn mower and has four extended treaded feet that swivel up and down to help it climb over obstacles."
It issues press releases that say "everything is under control, nothing to see here, move along". When pressed, it says "what radiation?".
I see that it can carry about 130lb. I don't see anything about mechanized welding, or drilling, or any other kind of pipe fitting or other heavy work that would be useful in a damaged machine that one is trying to stabilize. What is the real purpose of this robot? If it's to test the tech to see if they can produce it domestically instead of relying on American robots, then that's cool, but it's not exactly something earth-shattering when there have already been robots exploring the ruins and taking samples. If there's some greater purpose or more industrial use then I would like to know what that purpose is.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"global environmental catastrophe"
them's fightin' words.
gonna need a rundown of the effects this will have.
the linked article is quite the troll, too. peppered with terms like "it is my belief", or "probably". it's an interesting opinion, but i call shenanigans on any authority the writer claims (and he claims a lot - talking about TMI like it's at all relevant).
To be fair, since March 2011 there has been a lot of catastrophic articles about "what if a meltdown?" (there was a meltdown) "what if another earthquakes?" (there has been a lot of 7+ aftershocks not far from Fukushima). As of today, while the situation is bad, it stays far from the cataclysmic future that was predicted in March/April 2011.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Spent nuclear fuel rods isn't the real danger. The real danger is the iron used in the steel construction of the pool. When that steel hits the ocean water of the next tsunami (which is all but guaranteed to happen in the next 20 days), it will slowly dissolve and raise the iron content of the Pacific ocean to a level above what life can survive. I'm talking a huge global catastrophy of dead fish, whales, plankton, seaweeds, etc, becuase of elevated levels of iron. All the biological material will then float to the top of the ocean where it will collect, and since fish are full of oils, it is only a matter of time before lightning or some sailer tossing his cigarette initiates a conflagration that consumes all the world's oxygen in a huge fire. 7 Billion people dead, suffocated to death, because the Japanese are negligent about their nuclear facility.
Fearmongering from idiots. Am I doing it right?
Apparently the robot is insisting on proof that the radiation won't make him sterile.
eh that wasn't bad, the only tragic thing here is that the spent nuclear fuel actually can catch fire and liberate contaminants years after it's been used, thanks to decay heat and its proximity to similar chunks of self-heating waste.
if there's another quake that shakes unit 3's or 4's spent fuel pools to the extent that water drains out faster than it can be replaced (very high likelihood), there will in fact be a major environmental catastrophe. that's a given based on how the reactor buildings were designed.
yeah it sucks, but that's what you get for choosing a uranium fuel cycle instead of a thorium one. gotta have that sweet plutonium for bombs after all.
You forgot to add that this will ALL happen by 23rd of Dec, 2012 during the rare alignment of the galactic cores and the "unknown" 4th neutrino type which were triggered by the multi-Chernobyl radiation beams emanating from Fukushima that hit the sun.. OUR SUN!! These neutrinos, when reacting with water, act like a microwave. But they ignore people and oceans and other surface water because..... 4th neutrino type only boils water in the mantle! and the polar shift. There must be a polar shift that will flip the earth by 67.257 degrees *exactly* because conservation of momentum laws shall not apply. And Africa will rise 2km!
Haven't you people seen the 2012 documentary???!!??
jesus. on one side we have tepco and the iaea (both of whom have enormous vested interests in maintaining the reputation of nuclear power as being 100% A++++++++ safe would buy again!!), and on the other we have people claiming that the cores are currently melting through the earth into borneo and spawning lizard people.
as of right now, all that matters if that if a major quake hits, the fuel pools could very well collapse, and the sky shine caused by fractured and burning fuel rods will make further work at the site extremely difficult (i.e. deadly). sure, you can pretend that is never going to happen and is impossible, but unfortunately it's not. spent fuel will heat itself to combustion if not continuously cooled (otherwise why would you keep it in a continuously cooled pool.. duh) and the area is extremely prone to earthquakes.
hopefully tepco can build some haphazard crane apparatus and remove the spent fuel before something bad happens, but if not.. well.. sucks to be japanese!
Holy fuck, Slashdot keeps letting these fucking spam comments through. God damnit Slashdot, put a spam filter or something. In fact whenever I post as AC my comment may never be seen, but this shit gets through? Holy shit.
The robot, called 'Rosemary,' is about the size of a lawn mower and has four extended treaded feet that swivel up and down to help it climb over obstacles.
But after a few hours in the Fukushima Daiichi EZ-Bake-Nuclear Oven, it will morph into this critter: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cc/Mechagodzilla.jpg.
Call it Rosilla. Maybe a real life Roseanne Barr can battle it, while crushing paper houses, and being attacked by plastic model tanks, with fire crackers on their gun barrels?
So what do they do with the highly radioactive robot Rosemary after it crawls out of the reactor? Can they de-radioactivize it, or something like that? Or does it get buried in a concrete coffin for future generations to deal with?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The guy is a professional troll (actual name Mark Stephens). Literally, he writes stupid shit designed to inflame people. He's wrong all the time (he predicted big Y2K problems on account of Windows NT), he's a liar (claimed to have a PhD from Stanford, was in fact a TA) and so on.
Don't give his dumb ass the ad revenue from links.
Just as a simple counterpoint, his data about earthquakes is totally fucked. This was the biggest quake on record in Japan, previous winner was an 8.6 in 1707. Also, while quakes happen over there all the time, they don't all happen in the same spot. For example in 2003 there was a pretty big one in Hokkaido, an 8.3, that only caused one death. However if you look at a map you find that Hokkaido is quite a distance from Tohoku where the last quake was off of. So even if a quake happens in 10 years (like he has any idea if that will happen) there's no saying if it happens in the same place.
Guy is a moronic troll that has made a good living of it for years. Stop feeding him.
The WHO even said that nobody died or got sick as a direct cause of the disaster last year when 3 out of 6 reactors exploded.
So as long as we pretend there is nothing to be worried about, we can all live our lives happily every after.
Ignorance is bliss, especially if your government is the Japanese one....
I think what some people forget is that the plant was hit with the worst natural disaster, short of a meteor strike, that it could be. A 9.0 quake, which are exceedingly rare (and remember the scale is logarithmic) and a massive tsunami. Then there were a number of fuckups in the response, like not having the right kind of generator on hand. All that, and it still didn't "do a Chernobyl."
None of that is to say it is perfectly safe, but it should provide some perspective on the thing.
These statistics assume that the very probable big earthquakes that will hit Japan in the foreseeable future will actually damage the Fukushima site in such a way that Cesium 137 in significant quantities will become either airborne or diluted in sea water. Sure, there is a risk, especially for "minor" radiation leaks, but a catastrophe scenario in which all the 85 chernobyls worth of Cesium 137 will actually be released in the wild is extremely unlikely unless Godzilla will come to the site, eat all the Cesium and starts farting.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
there is a 90 percent chance of a large earthquake in the minimum three year...[snip]...magical thinking
So your saying that specific area is levelled by a major earthquake and a tsunami every 3yrs or so? Doesn't it strike you as odd that the Japs would have to rebuild every 3yrs or so with the full knowledge that they will have to do it all over again in another 3yrs? It is not remarkable that Fukushima Daiichi was built 41yrs ago, so by your calculations had already survived a dozen such events before it fell apart?
The incident was a catastrophe, with or without the nuclear reactors, there's no need for hyperbolic "what ifs" based on what are clearly dubious claims.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Priorities:
1. Keep the damaged reactors in cold shutdown.
2. Maintain and enhance water treatment.
3. Fix the leaks in the containments.
4. Decontaminate the site.
5. Remove fuel from spent fuel pools.
These have to be performed in order. In order to remove fuel from the spent fuel pools you will need to have people rebuild and operate the cranes to move the fuel. To do that, the site has to be decontaminated enough to allow humans to work in the reactor buildings which requires the first three priorities to be met.
One item to note: even though the former NRC Chairman at one point claimed that the spent fuel pools were dry, he was incorrect. There has been no damage to any of the fuel assemblies due to lack of cooling. All damage that has occurred (which hasn't caused any apparent significant radioactive releases) was due to debris falling into the pools.
Really, the priority still has to be on the reactors. I can understand the feeling that since a catastrophic earthquake recently devastated the site, that it can happen again. This is a gambler's fallacy. And even if it wasn't, the removal of spent fuel is not as trivial as you make it out to be. It has to cool down to the point where it doesn't exceed the rating of a dry cask. The timeline for that is typically around 10 years. So the most 'unstable' part of the fuel load (as you put it) can't be removed right now. An appropriate compensatory action would be to enhance the structural integrity of the spent fuel pools and provide additional redundant cooling capability. But again, this will require decontamination.
And despite the things that you probably said in your TL;DR post more people die from basically any other form of energy generation than have or likely will die from either Fukushima Daiichi or Chernobyl.
Banqiao dam? Coal mine accidents? Toxic chemicals from solar panels? No, but the real problem is 2 japanese workers who were hospitalized for 1 day for mild radiation exposure and a population that might have cancer levels slightly above "margin of error" compared to control.
Hooray for perspective!
For many, Cringely ( Mark Stephens ) is synonymous with the Tech industry in the United States. He's had a loyal following since the late 80's!
Here's his Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely
Here's his IMDB page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely
Presidential Task Force:
Given the confusion over his almost-but-not-quite-PHD etc. I decided to check up on his claim to have worked on the Presidential Commission.. wondering if he might have elaborated a bit.. but yes, there's his name ( Mark C. Stephens ) on page 166 under "Public's Right To Information Task Force" under the "Office of the Director of Technical Staff"
http://www.threemileisland.org/downloads//188.pdf
does it use vacuum tubes?
You forgot to say that it will cause all PCs to be infected with a strange, all-powerful virus that can only be removed with MyCleanPC.
Must have cost a bit to refit it so it's mouth didn't move sensuously.
as of right now, all that matters if that if a major quake hits, the fuel pools could very well collapse
We already had the largest quake that particular area is likely to see for the next few centuries and these fuel pools didn't collapse. It's one thing to claim uncertainty when we don't have evidence available one way or another. And another to claim uncertainty in the face of a solid demonstration to the contrary.
There is another huge earthquake well overdue on the three fault line which underlie Tokyo, not so far from Fukushima.
You can get a little safer than where it is now, but not much more. The pools are already designed to handle vast earthquakes and more importantly, they have shown that they can indeed handle such earthquakes. Why move the fuel rods, when they're already in a good spot?
Stop being scared stupid, and think about it.
So what? How big is this "huge" quake? Odds are good that it'll be about the size of a large aftershock to a 9.0 magnitude earthquake.
Well, unless you can find another planet for the huge earthquake it will not be larger than 9.5
source
'The amount of Cesium 137 in the fuel rods at Fukushima Daiichi is the equivalent of 85 Chernobyls.,,If a big earthquake happens before that fuel is gone there will be global environmental catastrophe with many deaths...
you mean 85 x 50 = ~4000 people will die? .. EVERY YEAR.
This is LESS than deaths from vehicle accidents in Japan
I dont see anyone banning cars, but OH NOES EVUL NUCULAR ENERGY lets ban it!117one
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
To be fair, since March 2011 there has been a lot of catastrophic articles about "what if a meltdown?" (there was a meltdown) "what if another earthquakes?" (there has been a lot of 7+ aftershocks not far from Fukushima). As of today, while the situation is bad, it stays far from the cataclysmic future that was predicted in March/April 2011.
There has been a ton of scientific publications predicting deaths in thousands (official WHO predicted minimum 4000) in 1986 after Chernobyl. Turns out people didnt die en masse, in fact cancer levels stayed at a global average level.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Use robots?
How fleshist of you! Sending in peaceful, sentient machines to dangerous areas. You think you're better than them? Huh?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I think what some people forget is that the plant was hit with the worst natural disaster, short of a meteor strike, that it could be.
I think what you're forgetting is that a lot of people didn't think what happened could happen. Now you're making a totally unsupported declarative statement about the same thing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why did this person get labeled troll? I'm personally for nuclear power (although i think we should at the very least be reprocessing and looking at Thorium reactors) and i found the article he linked to quite interesting. One could argue if those figures are correct that Japan doesn't have time to waste when it comes to cleaning up the mess and I would argue with Japan sitting next to the ring of fire if they build any new reactors they should be smaller and easier to shut down and get out of there in case of catastrophic earthquakes, maybe something along the lines of the small pebble reactor designs.
But no matter which side you are on in the nuclear debate, and I'm of the mind there is simply no truly viable alternative with our ever growing power needs, the article he linked to is an interesting take on the probability of another major earthquake and what the damage will be if it happens. Its a good read and certainly not worthy of a troll label IMHO.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Fukushima diaries coming to a theatre near you.
I am sure if whales and dolphins could talk they would say to the Japanese in a Samuel Jackson voice; "Karma mother fuckers, have some!"
Take the Red Pill.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!
"global environmental catastrophe"
them's fightin' words.
gonna need a rundown of the effects this will have.
Simply the existence of radioactive material in the environment would be enough - it would mean large areas of land, water tables and ocean would be off limits and would put severe limits on local industries - especially farming and fishing.
The actual risk to human life or destruction of nature would probably be minimal if managed properly. Still be a massive pain in the butt.
Best estimates put any earthquake centered around Tokyo at magnitude-7 - the effect felt at Fukushima would be negligible.
I know, right? They can filter for too many caps, but not for this constant, endless bullshit?
Any post with the text 'mycleanpc' in it should be automatically rejected and the IP address that attempts to post it blocked from posting for a 24 hour cooling off period. Most trolls have short attention spans and will quickly lose interest.
They need the space in the reactor building pools to take the damaged rods and debris from reactors 1 through 3. In the case of reactor 4 the spent fuel pool is pretty much full of fuel rod assemblies, some of which were due to be transferred to the site's longer-term storage pond some time last year but without a working crane this didn't happen.
The next step in the TEPCO plan is to build a weather shield over reactor 4 similar to the one they put over reactor 1. They can then rebuild the crane system on reactor 4 and start emptying the spent fuel pond.
Cancer rates near Chernobyl did not stay at average. Cancers of the throat and especially thyroid suddenly became very common for quite a few years in the surrounding areas, as did birth problems (premature, miscarriage, defects).
And does the WHO estimate include the 50% of the liquidators who cleaned it up who are now dead? And the other 50% who are now crippled old men as they turn 45 and 50?
You know why they said that? Because no one has been, and no one will be, exposed to a dose of radiation that has acute effects. A total of half a dozen people working directly at the site have been exposed to an amount of radiation (200-400mSv) associated with the first detectable increase in risk for cancer.
...the robot replied, "Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they're making me clean up dangerous radioactive waste."
Your logic is astounding - this means that you can build a reactor with no protection from Tsunami or earthquake because it will be decommissioned by the time the next event happens! All because they already had one.
Those predictions are only based on educated guesses, and there is no reason why they couldn't have an identical quake with similar destructive power a couple months apart.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Cancer rates near Chernobyl did not stay at average. Cancers of the throat and especially thyroid suddenly became very common for quite a few years in the surrounding areas, as did birth problems (premature, miscarriage, defects).
And does the WHO estimate include the 50% of the liquidators who cleaned it up who are now dead? And the other 50% who are now crippled old men as they turn 45 and 50?
WHO report is about those 170K workers, and in fact they were able to only (you can almost feel the sadness of the person writing it, sadness that people didnt die like it was predicted) account for average cancer rates (0.5% leukemia, etc).
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
yeah, the polar opposite opinions shit me to tears.
just saying the linked article is in the "sky is falling" camp, which i grow tired of.
i also grow tired of the "nothing to see here" camp.
i'm just saying the truth is always somewhere in between. i'd much rather everything be okay, but i know it's not peachy (and TEPCO isn't really saying it is, either. they use bucketloads of saving-face-speak, but from the beginning i've been able to read between the lines without much difficulty - things are bad, but don't panic is the message).
i'm sure the Japanese of all people are aware of the risk of earthquakes. i'm sure their list of priorities makes some kind of sense. that Cringely guy is pretty much implying they don't have a clue what they're doing and that at the eleventh hour they're going to call up the Americans to please save them. this is kinda insulting - maybe in a business setting that would be the case, but we're talking much higher stakes here, and people do tend to rise to these occasions.
do i have every confidence? of course not. but i don't think we should be donning brown trousers just yet either.
And can you predict for 100% that the next huge earthquake will be in the next 5, 10, 50, 100 years? Current we can only do possibility estimates, that in X years an earthquake in the strength of Y might come in the chance of Z%.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
and there is no reason why they couldn't have an identical quake with similar destructive power a couple months apart.
Sure, there is. Where's the energy for that second quake going to come from?
And can you predict for 100% that the next huge earthquake will be in the next 5, 10, 50, 100 years? Current we can only do possibility estimates, that in X years an earthquake in the strength of Y might come in the chance of Z%.
And I have seen 50 year floods that came two years apart.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Sure, there is. Where's the energy for that second quake going to come from?
The same place the other quake came from. Can you state with 100 percent surety that all the energy in the first quake was spent, and that it was starting again at zero.
Do you know the if the rate of movement has remained the same as prior to the last earthquake? Are all variables the same? If the predictions are for an earthquake of X magnitude every X years, is that a lock?
You are trying to play statistical games with a greater degree of confidence than the statisticians would be comfortable with.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If you are implying that thorium cycle somehow solves the problem of spent fuels, think again.
I wish people like you would stop with this bulldust! I keep hearing it every time Chenobyl is mentioned. The church I used to go to (in Sydney), used to (and probably still does) take children from near Chenobyl who are suffering from cancer and gives them a nice holiday in Sydney for a few months. And there was far more than the 'global average levels' of cancer sufferers. The ones they take are usually terminal, they aren't going to live to be too old. Also, one of my mothers doctors used to practise medicine near there (she went there years after the meltdown), and she says it's a lot worse than the Government choses to admit. The doctor herself got cancer whilst there. According to her, everyone there is sick, and she attributes the main factor to the higher than normal radiation in the area which has been caused by (and still being caused by) Chenobyl. After having seen the number of cancer suffering kids that my church looks after and hearing the testimony of the patients themselves and a Doctor paractising in the area, I'd say a minimum of 4000 is way below the reality.
You still cannot predict it.
So anyone who tells you, it can predicted is lying.
But, that of course, that does not mean to ignore it and not build to the worst possible thing that can happen. Or ignore all scientists that tell you, you should do it ...
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
Can you state with 100 percent surety that all the energy in the first quake was spent, and that it was starting again at zero.
Sure, that's what an earthquake is by definition. An expending of built-up potential energy.
You are trying to play statistical games with a greater degree of confidence than the statisticians would be comfortable with.
Physics is not statistics. This is where your problem lies. Earthquakes dissipate energy which doesn't magically return. Further, we have a fair idea how much builds up on a particular fault. This not only tells us the rate at which earthquakes can happen, but also how much energy can build up on those faults. The Japanese quake was big enough that it used up most of the potential energy built up on that fault segment. We'll have to wait for that potential energy to build up again before we'll have another such quake.
But even if we ignore that, we still have that the fuel pools weathered the earthquake and tsunamis just fine. Another "huge" earthquake isn't good enough, it's got to be a lot stronger locally than the one that just happened. Engineering isn't statistics either.
Nor is your "it could happen" scenario. There's always a nonzero chance that sufficiently bad things happen to break whatever it is that we're looking at. What makes it useful statistics is to know the likelihood of such things. That's where those "educated guesses" come in. What makes it useful engineering is to then account for those statistics in design and accident response planning. If new information comes out, then account for that by plant refits or changes in accident response.
Sure, that's what an earthquake is by definition. An expending of built-up potential energy.
The concept that an earthquake will release 100 percent of stored energy is not possible to predict, nor likely to happen The stored energy might not be released totally because of either the landmass being stopped before that happens, or the energy might just be transferred to another section as stress. In any event, your concept might be of interest to those who try to predict earthquakes, because if removes a whole lot of uncertainty - if it was true.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Physics is not statistics. This is where your problem lies. Earthquakes dissipate energy which doesn't magically return.
You really need to show exactly how all the energy is gone after the earthquake. Allow me to show how it might be, but is not a given.
Take potential energy. Have a rock on top of a 100 foot cliff that falls to a ledge 50 feet below, but not 100 feet below at the bottom of the cliff.
Does the rock dissipate all it's potential energy? Is there none left? If all the energy is dissipated, the rock will have nothing left to fall the last 50 feet. Obviously false.
So now let us take this concept and turn it on it's side.
If two landmasses are moving past each other at a rate of say 10 inches a year, after say 6 years, they should have moved 5 feet apart. (This is a large amount, but makes for easy calculation) But something has them locked together. At some amount of stress on the locked area, something breaks, and the landmasses move very quickly into a new position. A new state is reached, but no necessarily one in which there is no further stress on the landmasses. If you have 5 feet of movement by the main landmass, and the new state has been reached after 2 feet of movement, then it isn't likely that all the stress has been removed. Even then, is the new state one where the two landmasses will slip past each other more easily? This will mean a higher frequency of smaller earthquakes. Is it a stronger lock between the two landmasses now? This will mean a longer period between earthquake with much larger events.
Further, we have a fair idea how much builds up on a particular fault. This not only tells us the rate at which earthquakes can happen, but also how much energy can build up on those faults. The Japanese quake was big enough that it used up most of the potential energy built up on that fault segment. We'll have to wait for that potential energy to build up again before we'll have another such quake.
A fair idea at best....How much energy was dissipated? At what point will the fault fail again? And could you give me the physics that show with certainty that 100 percent of the energy that was stored was released? Are there no failure mechanism that would allow only a partial release? Is there a stress riser involved in the old or new state? Might another fault with stronger or weaker rock not exist? Would a stronger or weaker rock not exist somewhere under any circumstances?
I live on the eastern part of the country. Last summer, there was an earthquake in Virginia. Here, a couple hundred miles north of the quake, our bit of real estate moved somewhere between 6 inches and a foot. I watched the pergola on my patio become a trapezoid for a second or two. Other places nearby hardly felt anything. Point is, earthquake energy isn't some nice neat package, where X number of feet of strain are built up, and X is always released.
For an extremely loose definition of "just fine". As in exposed fuel rods are an okay situation.
Another "huge" earthquake isn't good enough, it's got to be a lot stronger locally than the one that just happened. Engineering isn't satistics either.
The earthquake wasn't the problem - the Tsunami was. And it is well noted that a lot of people there had the same opinion of statistics that you do. Worked out just fine, didn't it.
Under no circumstances was the engineering at Fukushima anywhere near acceptable. I'd done research, and there are many examples of Tsunami in Japan that were higher than the one encountered at Fukushima.
There is evidence as marked by debris that show without a shadow of a doubt that there was a good chance - to the point of near certainty - that a Tsunami would occur there that would top the seawalls, would you ignore it in the same way as they did? Probably is my guess. Sounds like statistics, eh? Let us do some historical stats of earthquakes in the area.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.