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How To Take Apart Fukushima's 3 Melted-Down Reactors
the_newsbeagle writes "In Japan, workers have spent nearly three years on the clean-up and decommissioning of the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. They only have 37 years to go. Taking apart the plant's three melted-down reactors is expected to take 40 years and cost $15 billion. The plant's owner, TEPCO, admits that its engineers don't yet know how they'll pull off this monumental task. An in-depth examination of the decommissioning process explains the challenges, such as working amid the radioactive rubble, stopping up the leaks that spill radioactive water throughout the site, and handling the blobs of melted nuclear fuel. Many of the tasks will be accomplished by newly invented robots that can go where humans fear to tread."
I figure a small 50-20 kiloton atomic bomb should do the trick...
Since they have a 40 year timeframe, they should just keep it contained for another decade or two and wait for superior robots to take over the task rather than relying on today's limited robots.
Before even finishing the summary my first thought was that this will result in some significant activity in the robotics industry.
Tunnel 100 ft. below the reactor and build a huge leak-proof chamber. Use controlled detonation to collapse the reactor, building, and all into this chamber. Fill it with water and close/seal it off. Build something cool on top.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
the Japanese Miracle yet?
Some tasks are difficult because of the assorted parameters that you have to adhere to while doing them. In this case, relatively low tolerance for irradiation of workers and human morbidity and mortality are probably major inconveniences.
This being so, it seems only logical to employ TEPCO management as decommisioning operators. It's not like they were good for whatever their existing job descriptions are, and we can safely value their radiation exposure as unimportant, or even a benefit.
I wonder where they got that estimate. At worst it should take them less than five years. What they're really saying is that they've got no clue, no plan, and no place to put the radioactive materials once they've got it sealed up.
Estimated time until the last of the responsible parties retires and no longer has even a nominal obligation to give a fuck?
Bury underknee and plant Nuke to sunk contamanation to the centre of the Planet. Or Rocket to the Moon.
Step One: Find someone born on Krypton......
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Probably from TMI. Read the timeline on the link below for more information:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/...
Note that the reactor stayed covered in place for about 4 years, and the catastrophe was not anywhere near as bad as Fukushima. Can't even imagine how long it will be until Chernobol is cleaned up.
Most of the worst stuff has been moved to the Idaho National Laboratory, where it sits in long term storage (and will until someone figures out if they want to recycle the fuel or bury it). I imagine the actual reactor site is pretty safe today but will require monitoring for an indefinite time.
just keep piling more fuel on it until it gets hot enough to melt rock, it melts down to, errr, China, creating a volcano, build geothermal plant to extract power from volcano.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
He'll stomp a mud hole in any nuclear reactors.
Yeah, like that last time when Chernobyl exploded and all life on Earth became extinct. You just couldn't resist the hyperbole could you?
"Beta particles" aren't "fallout".
You quite literally have no idea of basic physics, let alone nuclear engineering, do you?
If they don't know how they'll do it, how do they know it'll take 40 years and 15 billion dollars?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Build an enclosure covering both the top of the hole and the power plant.
Set off series of small explosives to reduce the power plant to small sized rubble. The enclosure should be able to contain the debris and be airtight. They could spray gasoline on the debris and burn them repeatedly to weaken the structures before setting off these small explosives. The explosives will be set using remote controlled vehicles.
User remote controlled bulldozers to push the rubble into the hole
Back fill the hole with the tilings.
Cover it with a concrete slab some 30 meters thick.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
How do you disassemble the Fukushima site? Very carefully...
I for one look forward to our radioactive robot overlords.
Seriously, if the Japanese are very good at something, it is finding a reason to build robots. Maybe the fallout will be better robots.
Printing $65 billion a month is the only reason the US hasn't had a Economic collapse.
The US is technically bankrupt if it was run as a business.
Back in 2010 the FDIC even had a negative balance sheet.
The US in financial terms can't rescue a little girl's lemonade stand except
by printing more funny money.
The only reason it is working now is due to the faith of all the ppl on the treadmill.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Too soon for a new wave of Tokyo-eating monsters? ..in the movies, I mean.
Everything you said was fucking stupid. Please kill yourself.
Encase it in a concrete sarcophagus like Chernobyl, with a slot on the top to insert commentators who tell us nuclear power is cheap and safe
It's not faith. It's necessity.
Drill a long way down....set off a nuke. It creates a huge cavern with fused walls. Then drill down into the cavern and drain the waste into it.
Note: Need to order that heavy duty spudger to pry the top off.
Have gnu, will travel.
There flatly is no such thing as a "leak-proof, earthquake-proof chamber". I don't mean it's hard. I don't mean it does not exist today. I don't mean it will be expensive. I mean it does not exist because it cannot exist.
First of all, any wall or barrier can be breached. You can build something pretty good that will last a century or three. However for high level radioactive waste you need something that will last for tens to hundreds of thousands of years. And you don't ever want to have to go in to perform a needed repair job, say five thousand years into the life of a radioactive tomb.
Second, water is your enemy. Water is the universal solvent that the alchemists were looking for. It will dissolve nearly anything, then it will find and migrate through any crack or hole. Actually there's no intentional sequencing, but cracks and holes are likely to take a while to form. There's lots of time for the water to dissolve lots of nasty stuff.
All these issues came out when the U.S. looked for a high level radioactive waste repository. Making something that will last for the requisite amount of time is a serious challenge. Now add that you cannot choose the site of the vault, and the site is already contaminated, and ground water is known to be present in large quantities. Well let's just say you are scr*wed.
The closest prior example I know of is Chernobyl. They simply wrapped the whole complex in a huge concrete shell. It was hastily built, it has holes in it, and they think that a second, exterior shell will soon be needed. The existing shell is deteriorating. I'll bet that many of the construction workers who built it will get cancer because of their radiation exposure during the construction.
Under the best of circumstances bots only do what they are programmed to do. I see a big problem with this proposal. Power generation is going to have to be on site. Hydraulic systems leak under stress, electrical systems short out, and people experience fatigue. Combine all of that with radiation damage and disease, $15 billion isn't going to be enough. Beamed energy systems would negate long electric cables while tele-presence would allow for faster emergency response.
I talked about the problem of highly radioactive water spewing from Fukushima back in April 2011:
The radioactivity released at Chernobyl escaped upward into the air. This made it easier to get a handle on the magnitude of the total amount of radioactivity released. The release at the light water reactors at Fukushima is for the most part traveling downward, to basements, tunnels, ground water, and the ocean. This makes it extremely difficult to get a handle on the total amount of radioactivity that has been released. They really don't know [if] the bulk of it is in the thousands of tons they have already discovered or if that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Of course I was called an alarmist and other things for bringing this up back then.
Clearly what they had discovered by April 1 2011 was just the tip of the iceberg. As I had predicted, it is the radioactive water that is the main cause for concern.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
What happens if Japan experiences a significant geological event before that? Isn't 40 years a terrible long time for russian roulette?
...and waste-free! No danger here. Fukushima is the first and last nuclear accident ever. Please change the channel until you find something that makes you feel good.
Remember kids, nuclear waste is non-polluting! /sacrasm
Who wrote this script, anyway?
Install beta ... they'll dismantle themselves due to the shame.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
But hey, the plants weren't designed to be able to disassemble them ? Really ?
http://www.abqjournal.com/3567...
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.