The 4 trillion yen ( $ 35 billion ) neat - up at Fukushima is n’t go swimmingly . The former nuclear power station is chop-chop turning into a robot burial site due to recurrent nonstarter with the remote - controlled probe sent at heart .
Three reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant experienced nuclear meltdown following an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 . Six years on , Tokyo Electric Power Company ( Tepco ) are still trying to find and slay the 544 t ( 600 US slews ) of melted atomic fuel rod that are lost among the debris of the radioactive ruin . However , the remote control - controlled robot tax with this dangerous endeavor are break down time and again .
Naohiro Masuda , head of Tepco ’s decommissioning programme , said last week that the repeated robot failure are becoming an effect that needs to be solved , consort to theAssociated Press . He also exhort for more creativity and ingenuity when it come to the next - coevals of clean - up bots .
" We should think out of the box so we can examine the bottom of the core and how liquid fuel debris spread out , ” Masuda tell reporters .
Toshiba ’s scorpion - like automaton ( above ) was sent into reactor 2 in February , but was unable to reach its desired terminus due to its path being block . It was then expose to more than five times its anticipated radiation photograph limit in just two hours . Although it did bring off to get temperature readings and radiation levels , it was unfit to entrance images showing the core or the location of the atomic rods .
Two other expensive probes met an untimely end in the exponent plant after catch stuck and being crave of fuel .
“ The road map for removing the fuel is going to be long , 2020 and beyond , ” Jacopo Buongiorno , a prof of nuclear science and engine room at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , toldBloomberg . “ The re - solidify fuel is probably wedge to the vas wall and vessel internal structures . So the debris have to be cut , best , put into a sealed and shielded container and then extracted from the containment vessel . All done by robot . ”
One matter ’s for certain , the woes of the Fukushima Daiichi atomic flora and the headaches of Tepco are far from over .
