Robot issue delays fuel removal from Fukushima nuclear plant

Delay, delay and more delay, a human can do it much faster.

an estimated 880 tons of ****highly radioactive nuclear fuel in the three damaged reactors melted and fell to the bottom of their primary containment vessels, 

Do you think a human could work in the containment vessels?

sakurasuki

Delay, delay and more delay, a human can do it much faster.

Really - why don't you take a dive in those reactor vessels and show everybody how fast can it be done? Not in the mood today?

Everyone thinks they know much better than the specialist engineers working on it, but when asked to prove it they all magically dissapear

And they want to build new reactors and keep the dilapidated old ones still running??

just plain insanity!

And they want to build new reactors and keep the dilapidated old ones still running??

just plain insanity!

Thanks to global warming, nuclear energy is here to stay--at least until a better alternative is found. Japan really ought to invest in safer, cleaner nuke technology with truly independent monitoring.

Can they not reuse the radioactive water to cool the reactor and avoid increasing the number of tanks needed for storage?

You don't quite understand. Underground water flows into the basement of the reactors and becomes highly contaminated. Some of that water flows into the ocean.

In the beginning, the groundwater was about 400 tons per day. After actions taken by TEPCO now about 100 tons per day.

Water is needed to cool the spent fuel in the pools. Not much problem there.

Reactors 1-3 have fuel rods inside the reactor vessel and about 800 tons of molten fuel. This is highly radioactive and must be constantly cooled with clean water. The containment vessels made from steel and concrete have holes and leaks with the water flowing out and into the basement.

That becomes mixed with the groundwater.

That water is pumped out daily and then cleaned. Some of the cleaned water is used again for cooling the molten fuel. TEPCO ends up with more water than it needs and then stored in tanks.

There are many articles explaining but here is one.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schema-for-cooling-water-recycling-sketch-drawn-from-information-given-in-11-Molten_fig2_265136982

Japan really ought to invest in safer, cleaner nuke technology with truly independent monitoring

And that is exactly what Japan is about to do

Decommissioning of the plant is expected to complete in 30 to 40 years?

And then there is issue in the development of remote-controlled robotic arm (Damn Robot couldn't think well) - which would take one more year. I assume the requirements were screwed up for their development for more than a year now.

With this pace, the cost of decommissioning is going to eat up every thing they earned so far from the plant.

Is there a way of removing the radioactive material by introducing other elements which can chemically bind with the material to be removed . . . ?

The total of running nuclear power plants including decommissioning cost easily outweighs the development of other renewable energy sources in a long run, but we always come back to using nuclear power for some reason.

The continuing need to cool the fuel remaining in the reactors has resulted in massive amounts of treated but still radioactive used cooling water that is being stored in about 1,000 tanks on the grounds of the plant.

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Can they not reuse the radioactive water to cool the reactor and avoid increasing the number of tanks needed for storage ?

Is nothing going according to plan in Fukushima?

How come all news about the plant are always about new problems and never about good things happening?

Where is Japan going to keep the thousands of tons of radioactive material in the future?

Robot issue delays fuel removal from Fukushima nuclear plant

Delay, delay and more delay, a human can do it much faster.