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Robot Squeezes Suspected Nuclear Fuel Debris in Fukushima Reactor (theverge.com)
A robot outfitted with remotely controlled pinchers poked at debris that's suspected to contain molten nuclear fuel at the bottom of one of Fukushima's nuclear reactors, World Nuclear News reports. From a report: The poking and prodding is part of the ongoing cleanup effort at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the site of a major nuclear accident in 2011. The dextrous robot was dangled into the Unit 2 reactor on February 13th, according to a news release from the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). Unit 2 is one of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant that overheated after a massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, which caused the reactor core to melt. TEPCO suspects that radioactive fuel may have melted through the bottom of the reactor vessel to fall into the containment structure surrounding it. The company has to find the radioactive debris and figure out how to remove them, so TEPCO has been sending in a series of robots to scout out the reactors. It's a dangerous journey that some of the robots haven't survived.
Poke-e-mon.
Table-ized A.I.
....for 1000, Alex.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
That's pretty much the problem, they can barely get to it, let alone remove it for burial. They are trying to avoid it becoming another huge Chernobyl-style concrete coffin because it would need to be protected from tsunami and constantly maintained (they have regular earthquakes) indefinitely.
Also "overheated" is a rather obvious attempt to avoid the word "meltdown".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Mr. Whipple will get upset.
Of course you can induce criticality that way. You can hit a small chunk of uranium with a hammer and reach criticality, at least for a moment. U-235 can reach criticality with a mass as small as 780 g under the right circumstances. And the presence of water, potentially with some amount of uranium in solution, greatly raises the risk. Of course, it would only remain critical while compressed, and so such a small criticality event would likely be a risk only to the robots, because it would be small and self-contained.
Perhaps you meant that it cannot cause a nuclear explosion (which requires not just enough material and moderation to sustain a reaction, but also for it to increase exponentially and not burn itself out in a fraction of a second).
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I'm not claiming it's a great situation, just that it's not as if the stuff is blowing around in the wind somewhere.
It is worth noting that the meltdown can be attributed to TEPCOs unwillingness to pump sea water into the reactor vessel since that would once and for all have ended the chance of a re-start. Of course, we know now that a re-start is out of the question anyway, but basically the management was not at the time willing to admit that they gambled and lost big.
The dextrous robot was dangled into the Unit 2 reactor
Maybe if they didn't make their robots out of sugar they would last longer under the heat.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The Chernobyl New Safe Confinement structure which was moved over the original concrete "sarcophagus" is not made of concrete.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
about 20 years ramping up from 0 to 2000 TWh/yr, plus 30 years at about 2200 TWh/yr = (20*2000/2) + (30*2200) = 86000
Cost of the above two cleanups divided by the amount of energy generated by nuclear power: $432 billion / 86000 billion kWh = $0.005 per kWh = 0.5 cents per kWh
I can live with paying an extra half cent per kWh to cover cleaning up after the occasional disaster every 25 years, in exchange for using a completely carbon-neutral power source which boasts the fewest deaths per amount of power generated. Why exactly are you opposed to it?
What makes you think that the "cleanup cost" of the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters is yet known in its entirety?
Also, there are not only costs for disaster clean-ups, but currently completely unknown costs for the safe storage of the nuclear waste produced. The Asse II mine alone, which was attempted to be used for nuclear waste storage during 11 years, has cost ~9 billion Euro as of today, with no end of additional costs in sight. And that was just one small site.
I'm not a nuclear apologist by any means, but it's an empty argument to say Fukushima means nuclear is impossible. Nobody would build a plant remotely like this one, or situate a modern plant anywhere like there.
I'm a huge proponent of upgrade the electric grid. This would enable renewable sources to power distant cities, but it could *coincidentally* give more flexibility in locating nuclear plants, should we decide to build more of them. And if we do we need to build what we've learned about organizations running nuclear plants (we can't rely on them doing the right thing) into the design.
I don't believe we should have a all-eggs-in-one basket approach to our energy needs. A diverse portfolio of energy sources means we can build them where the marginal risk/environmental cost is minimal.
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I'm not a nuclear apologist by any means, but it's an empty argument to say Fukushima means nuclear is impossible. Nobody would build a plant remotely like this one, or situate a modern plant anywhere like there.
Consider that there is approximately 80 of these types of reactors still in operation and that their service life is 40 years which has been extended to increase the return on investment.
The next thing to consider is that it is possible to make a reactor design that isn't an improvement over older designs. Currently the best one is EPR which...
And if we do we need to build what we've learned about organizations running nuclear plants (we can't rely on them doing the right thing) into the design.
incorporates some of the improvements the NRC commissioned the Nuclear industry to uncover. They came up with 30 improvements to Nuclear reactor design. The most significant improvement was to build them underground. What was discovered is that this makes Nuclear power more costly to build, which scares off investors. So it's not impossible to make nuclear safe, it's very expensive.
I'm a huge proponent of upgrade the electric grid. This would enable renewable sources to power distant cities, but it could *coincidentally* give more flexibility in locating nuclear plants, should we decide to build more of them.
The criteria for locating nuclear facilities is specific process based on its requirements. It is a difficult process so it is surrounded by law to exclude the general population from interfering with it. It's much easier to extend the grid to somewhere it is appropriate to build a nuclear facility.
I don't believe we should have a all-eggs-in-one basket approach to our energy needs. A diverse portfolio of energy sources means we can build them where the marginal risk/environmental cost is minimal.
Indeed. We should immediately begin a program to increase the amount of solar, wind and geothermal energy that we are producing while we can draw energy from these legacy supply methods.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I can live with paying an extra half cent per kWh to cover cleaning up
Something you wouldn't need to do if our reactors weren't 40+ years old and if the greenies hadn't handcuffed development of safer nuclear technologies for the past 50 years.
but currently completely unknown costs for the safe storage of the nuclear waste produced
1. Hyperbole claiming something we've been doing for 40 years is unknown. X.
2. Pointing to a single case to make a general claim rather than a study of industry practice. X.
3. Ignoring that the issue is mostly of political nature and that many better options for waste exist. X
4. Not reading the original links posted and making a claim that something is unknown. X
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