A robot begins removal of melted fuel from the Fukushima nuclear plant. It could take a century

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Updated 11:14 PM CDT, September 9, 2024

TOKYO (AP) — A long robot entered a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant on Tuesday, beginning a two-week, high-stakes mission to retrieve for the first time a tiny amount of melted fuel debris from the bottom.

The robot’s trip into the Unit 2 reactor is a crucial initial step for what comes next — a daunting, decades-long process to decommission the plant and deal with large amounts of highly radioactive melted fuel inside three reactors that were damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Specialists hope the robot will help them learn more about the status of the cores and the fuel debris.

Here is an explanation of how the robot works, its mission, significance and what lies ahead as the most challenging phase of the reactor cleanup begins.



Read more: https://apnews.com/article/japan-fukushima-reactor-melted-fuel-robot-9ffc309fb072580bee0161e8a24c8490

[Brainfodder]

1. Did we just find Orangupyoursopolis!

He can yell at himself alone and show off his real genius and have him do some experiments to make up for shitting on mankind?

[underpants]

2. A century? That sounds like an incredibly tedious process.

Two weeks per .1 ounce.

[progree]

3. "the melted fuel needs to be removed and relocated to a safer place for long-term storage as soon as possible"

While the melted fuel debris has been kept cool and has stabilized, the aging of the reactors poses potential safety risks, and the melted fuel needs to be removed and relocated to a safer place for long-term storage as soon as possible, experts say.

Removal of the melted fuel was initially planned to start in late 2021 but has been delayed by technical issues, underscoring the difficulty of the process. The government says decommissioning is expected to take 30-40 years, while some experts say it could take as long as 100 years.

This is what passes for ASAP, I guess.

[Wonder Why]

11. One cannot interpolate the removal rate from the first tentative attempts to remove material by robot. As time

goes on, there will quickly be more robots to do the work if this one is successful, and, year by year, the efforts and the robots will get more and more sophisticated. Necessity is the mother of invention as has been said for thousands of years. Just look at the changing role of drone warfare in two years by the Ukrainians. All different types with all kinds of weapons from grenades to mines to thermite bombs to the tactics of use.

[progree]

13. That's not what they are doing

One cannot interpolate the removal rate from the first tentative attempts to remove material by robot.

I don't think they have idiots making these time estimates.

I see some post above pointing out that it's a 0.1 ounce snip, as if that's the rate going forward

Two weeks per .1 ounce.

From the article:

TEPCO, which manages the plant, says an estimated 880 tons of molten fuel debris remains in the three reactors, but some experts say the amount could be larger.

880 tons is 28,160,000 ounces. At 0.1 ounces in 2 weeks that's 2.6 ounces/year. At that rate, it would take about 10.8 millions years (108,000 centuries). So they obviously aren't extrapolating from that.

[slightlv]

15. Have they actually found some place for long term storage?

Hopefully its not just continuing to dump stuff in the ocean!

[Ray Bruns]

4. Did the robot look something like this?

https://m.

[Think. Again.]

5. So when this plant went offline...

...there must have been a huge decrease in electrical generation and yet it didn't seem to have too much of an effect.

Am I wrong about that?

Or maybe we really don't need as much energy as we've gotten used to wastefully producing?

[NickB79]

7. Japan drastically ramped up natural gas and coal use afterwards

https://www.energymonitor.ai/market-design/a-decade-after-fukushima-japan-still-struggles-with-its-energy-future/

The abrupt nuclear shutdowns after Fukushima led to rolling blackouts that highlighted the fragility of the country’s power system, with a monopolistic structure favouring large utilities. It saw older oil-fired plants resuscitated with generation from them rising six percentage points from 2010, to 14%. Natural gas output rose a similar amount year-on-year to 35% of the power mix in 2011, according to GlobalData.

This trend has continued. In 2010, fossil fuels generated around 60% of Japan’s power, soaring to 88% in 2012, Kikuma says. As of 2019, that share stood at 72%, he adds. Existing fossil fuel plants have increased their output and new plants have come online. “Japan is still building coal plants,” Kikuma says, adding that these are “pipeline projects from a long time ago”.

[Think. Again.]

9. Thanks!

[Kid Berwyn]

6. Good luck!

It's been 13 years since the triple meltdown caused by earthquake and tsunami knocked out the "fail-safe" cooling systems. Previous TEPCO robots have gone in to look at the remnants under the three melted down reactors only to stay there, conked out and fried by the incredibly high radiation levels.



TEPCO and Nuke Inc continue to lie, implying the containment vessels prevented the spread of radioactive materials. They leave out that the containment vessels themselves were compromised when pressure caused by "hydrogen gas build-up" caused them to explode. And while Fukushima Unit 1 and 2 meltdown and explosions were bad, Unit 3 is worse. That reactor used plutonium mixed-oxide fuel. Plutonium is one of the worst things in the world to breathe in.

[slightlv]

16. Man is not happy living in paradise.

He has to do something to screw it up. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and gained the ability to think and reason on their own. Our greedy bastards are addicted to money and power, at the expense of everything else. No matter their own children and grandchildren's future.

I used to truly believe that the Christian view that everyone is born corrupted and evil was a really wrong way to believe. That everyone is born in innocence, and that innocence is eventually stripped away and corrupted by the world. Some days, it's hard to hang on to that thought.

This was man trying to best Nature... and that never comes out right. Nature will always win. But man's greed took the tragedy and compounded it time after time. I realize that nuclear energy is seen as a "clean" energy, but I worry when I hear men are building nuclear reactors along fault lines in CA. I mean, in my own innocence of the subject, I consider that to be the height of audacity... of tempting Nature. And totally and completely stupid. Especially with as many shortcuts that are bound to happen in building because of cost overruns.

There are a few things I guess I'm a Luddite about. Genetically modified foods and seeds, nuclear power. These are a few of my least favorite things...

[Kid Berwyn]

17. "We've been lied to."

What you wrote is profound, accurate and deep. Thank you, slightlv. I had several friends who worked at the nuclear power station at San Onofre in Southern California in the 80s. Great people. However, many had serious health problems.

Astronaut shares the profound 'big lie' he realized after seeing the Earth from space

This change in perspective could change humanity.

by Tod Perry
Upworthy, July 7, 2024

Excerpt...

“When I looked out the window of the International Space Station, I saw the paparazzi-like flashes of lightning storms, I saw dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them. And I saw the unbelievable thinness of our planet's atmosphere. In that moment, I was hit with the sobering realization that that paper-thin layer keeps every living thing on our planet alive,” Garan said in the video.

“I saw an iridescent biosphere teeming with life,” he continues. “I didn't see the economy. But since our human-made systems treat everything, including the very life-support systems of our planet, as the wholly owned subsidiary of the global economy, it's obvious from the vantage point of space that we're living a lie.”

It was at that moment he realized that humanity needs to reevaluate its priorities.

“We need to move from thinking economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy. That's when we're going to continue our evolutionary process,” he added.

Source: https://www.upworthy.com/astronaut-shares-big-lie-space-rp4

"Look at THAT, you son of a bitch!"

[slightlv]

18. We look at that big blue ball

and marvel at the miracle. They look at it and see resources to be taken,hoarded, and monetized. More's the pity. I will always consider it a miracle. Hail the Great Goddess.. Gaia. Our mother, our home, our life, our soul.

[timoteus]

8. And how much

will General Electric pay for all the damage and cleanup? Nothing at all. Piss poor reactor design.

[Hekate]

10. Kick Rec Bookmark

[NNadir]

12. Removing the melted fuel is a very bad idea.

Despite the big hullabaloo radiation releases from the Fukushima reactors are not causing huge health risks. It would be much smarter to do very little other than seal them off for a few decades until the majority of the fission products harmlessly decay, open them up, recover the uranium and transuranium actinides and valuable fission products and be done with it.

Any money spent on "cleaning up" Fukushima to a standard we apply to nothing else in terms of risk is wasted and is better spent building new reactors.

[Envirogal]

19. Delusional

Sure, make more of the problem with more reactors and ignoring the risks the existing site poses. Shameful to downplay this tragic poisoning event by saying there is “hullabaloo” around it.

Nuclear energy plants have too many risks and costs in an ever heating world that needs COLD water to cool it down while also being so vulnerable to the accelerating realities of natural disasters.

And then there is the nuclear waste that the industry still hasn’t figured out how to sustainably deal with.

[manicdem]

14. Lots of difficulty

I can see why everything is tedious. It must be a wreck in there like trying to get through a partly demolished building. Then dealing with molten lava. Also the high radiation level scrambles the electronics and sensors.