Future business opportunities seen in Fukushima cleanup

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is eager to sell Japan’s nuclear plants and technology overseas. He boasts that Japan can offer the world’s highest safety standards that reflect lessons learned from Fukushima.

AKA "The laugh of the day"

Broken Window Fallacy..

Pointed out by economists over 100 years ago. Breaking stuff DOES NOT create economic opportunity. It ruins them.

Yep, I'm sure the criminal and despotic see many opportunities to make cash out of the disaster. Many Government /representative of us, will make large amounts of cash out of this disaster. The cycle continues, wheels of governance are greased with public money. A putrid example of the state in action.

AKA "The laugh of the day"

Hah, I agree. The Japanese haven't even shown they have learned the lessons for themselves, how do they expect others to believe they have learned from it?

Somehow, with their decades-long history of an unending series of screw-ups, cover-ups and more screw-ups at nuclear power plants, I don't see the Japanese Nuclear energy companies are the ones we want developing tools and technology to use to decommission nuclear power plants around the world. Bad idea, this one.

Some universities wanted to develop robots back in the late 1990s and early 2000s in anticipation of such events, but the 'nuclear village' did not want to frighten people over doubts on nuclear safety, and those universities found funding withdrawn.

The utilities had also expected to extend NPP life from the original 40 years to 50 and 60 years, through 'pencil sharpening' or alteration of safety standards, tolerances and limits of wear, and although they were supposed to invest and save funds for decommissioning reactors after their life, the amounts that have been set aside do not cover the real costs.

Finally, they need the nuclear gypsies or gamma sponges, the labourers who do the dirty, dangerous, decommissioning work that robots are unable to accomplish, who are worked up to and beyond their 'safe absorption' limits, or they'll have to seek these people from overseas, as they did for a shroud replacement at Fukushima, as their limits were higher than those of Japanese.

Seen by who??? The amazing seers who said that an accident was a 1 in a million chance?

IRID has received 780 proposals for funding from around the world for ideas and technologies related to the treatment and management of contaminated water,

Chernobyl (contain to lessen contamination )

as well as 220 others about retrieving the three melted cores.

insanity to possibly expose melted cores to the atmosphere.

I would have thought they would have developed the technology to get inside the previously inpenetrable areas by now - it has been three years after all, and if any country can make vast strides in robotics, Japan can.

@fukuppy - they've made some new designs in robots, and tools to go with them such as metal saws and lifting gear capable of 150kg lifts, but getting up and down the stairs in a badly designed, plant with rubble and girders scattered everywhere has posed problems. Some of the new models can survive up to 100 trips in a highly irradiated environment, but became radioactive themselves, and so need special handling, such as re-charging their batteries by themselves. Biggest issue is control, as some of the robots are marooned inside the plants due to cables getting stuck, and no way of freeing them, unless other robots can get in, as people can't. Retracting cable spools, and support 'bots are under test.

"Future business opportunities seen in Fukushima cleanup" ... by Yakuza cronies

then

"Reconstruction comtracts up for grabs" - will be the next headline - "... for Yakuza cronies"

Nothing ever changes

The scene of Fukushima is sorrowful and empty like a ghost town. How can any contractor find necessary resource there to work? You must find manpower, if you can, material, all equip and even food from outside to work there, I'm so pessimistic anout it, anyway JP government might be able to do it if they propose something like 10 times profit contract~

The UK NDA is looking at periods of between 60~80 years to decommission a reactor that was shut down with no problems @ costs that vary from JPYen 800,000,000 to JPYen 3,000,000,000 at today's price - (discounted to present value calculation), assuming no future or undiscovered problems. Data from the NDA website.

TEPCO does not really have a clue how long it will take to decommission Fukushima Daichi NPPs 1~4, or the real cost. It's just guesswork.

evacuate the area, and fence it off for the next 100 years

retrieving the three melted cores

Is the Ukraine trying to retrieve their melted core at Chernobyl???........ No.... Well Imagine that...

Surely the companies that have experience in cleaning up other nuclear facilities will be bidding. It is worth reading about the methods and time frames they used, the expenses, the shortened periods, labor sources,etc. How are the facilities now after the clean ups around the world? Some have become "wildlife reserves" and have housing projects adjacent to formerly contaminated land.