New Fukushima robotic work

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BrainEater

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A new sampling effort is underway at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/09/10...kushima-nuclear-plant-it-could-take-a-century
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There's several posts here about how electrically based robots don't like air melting radiation any more than organic life does.

From the pictures I've seen, it looks like it's 95% mechanical. It's designed to go through a pipe and retrieve a 3 gram sample. 880 tons to go.
Quite literally back to the blacksmith age, not much really survives that kind of radiation flux.
It's very slow, the process is expected to take 2 weeks.

I'm very interested in this new robot, I definitely feel it will advance mechanics, and robotics at the same time.
 
BrainEater said:
A new sampling effort is underway at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/09/10...kushima-nuclear-plant-it-could-take-a-century
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There's several posts here about how electrically based robots don't like air melting radiation any more than organic life does.

From the pictures I've seen, it looks like it's 95% mechanical. It's designed to go through a pipe and retrieve a 3 gram sample. 880 tons to go.
Quite literally back to the blacksmith age, not much really survives that kind of radiation flux.
It's very slow, the process is expected to take 2 weeks.

I'm very interested in this new robot, I definitely feel it will advance mechanics, and robotics at the same time.
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It can take up to 100 years to decommission the plants? Sheesh.
 
uOpt said:
That was pretty clear from the beginning. In fact it is pretty likely that it never gets decommissioned given that political fitness of a country (or the planet) goes up and down over time.
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The people who will finish the job haven't been born yet. Probably the same for their parents.:sick:
 
I remember this disaster vividly, scary shit. The robot part is pretty cool though.
 
techie81 said:
I remember this disaster vividly, scary shit. The robot part is pretty cool though.
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I still talk about this in my physics classes. All of this because of an idiotic decision to put back up generators in the basement of a coastal area... SMH

Honestly that is the biggest issue I have with nuclear power, it apparently is just too easy to make a catastrophically bad decision
 
philb2 said:
And lots of people died, drowned or washed out to sea. Scarier.
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Only one person* died due to the power plant accident though, and that was some time later due to the radiation exposure.

*there were some other deaths due to disruption of medical service though possibly related to loss of electricity
 
sfsuphysics said:
I still talk about this in my physics classes. All of this because of an idiotic decision to put back up generators in the basement of a coastal area... SMH

Honestly that is the biggest issue I have with nuclear power, it apparently is just too easy to make a catastrophically bad decision
Click to expand...
Nuclear power is one of the cleanest, safest, efficient, sources of power around. Poor decisions were made that resulted in the disaster BUT a well-engineered, well ran nuclear generator is the way to go.
 
Nuclear incident death are more spectacular than slow death due to coal power plant and others alternative, but much smaller in quantity, humans are not good at this, it took a lot of a plane travel are safer than the car ride to the airport propaganda for those reasons
 
Shoganai said:
It can take up to 100 years to decommission the plants? Sheesh.
Click to expand...

Radiation nasties have a range of half-lifes. The short half-life stuff will kill you quickly, but uses itself up quickly too. The long half-life stuff has a low activity level, so it's relatively fine as long as there's not a ton of it. The medium half-life stuff is the real problem --- exposure will harm you, and the rate of exposure decreases very slowly, so a contaminated site like this needs exclusion for a long time before it will be reasonable to have humans there to clean up the site. Containment work that needs to happen in the intervening 100 years is possible, but requires a lot of safeguards and rotation to manage exposure levels.

This is why nuclear is so hard to build. A fossil fuel plant typically difusses its death through emissions, and even a large scale disaster at a generator or extraction site doesn't leave a long term monument to failure. When a nuclear plant disaster occurs, there's a legacy of cleanup that will extend into the forseable future; who wants to be in charge of that?
 
philb2 said:
And lots of people died, drowned or washed out to sea. Scarier.
Click to expand...

I remember reading a fantastic mathematical breakdown of the quake and tsunami by a prof at U of T. If I find it anywhere I will link it, the amount of water moving around and how much that water moved around was absolutely staggering.
 
techie81 said:
Nuclear power is one of the cleanest, safest, efficient, sources of power around. Poor decisions were made that resulted in the disaster BUT a well-engineered, well ran nuclear generator is the way to go.
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I agree strongly. Im in favor of new nuclear reactors in the US. Germany made a big mistake a few years ago to shut down their reactors. Big mistake.

Only real worry now is the reactor in Ukraine that is occupied by Russian troops. Putin is crazy and I could see him threatening to blow that reactor, or actually doing it.
 
And most people don't know, we got lucky with that tsunami. We almost had two nuclear sites go up, but they were able to save the second site from not going up.
 
techie81 said:
Nuclear power is one of the cleanest, safest, efficient, sources of power around. Poor decisions were made that resulted in the disaster BUT a well-engineered, well ran nuclear generator is the way to go.
Click to expand...

But can you get a well-run nuclear reactor?

The build-up to Fukushima shows lots of violations by the owning company, sloppiness by the government agencies and outright corruption. Same for Three Miles Island. And that was in the U.S.

Given the lifetime of a reactor up until it is fully built back you would have to trust that governmental oversight is uninterrupted awesome for 80 years in a row. That seems outside the human experience so far.
 
LukeTbk said:
Not sure France had a significant incident in the last 40 years, they have 56 reactors.
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Fair enough, and they are not in an earthquake or tsunami zone.

But let me ask this: if the countries with stable governments build lots of reactors, how do we argue that countries with messy government (or none) should refrain from doing so? Or would you be fine with that?
 
With how complicated and costly they are (I think) I am not sure if government less country could manage that kind of project even if they wanted, it require a level of coordination (and the fuel point below) that does not make that really possible. I have no issue with Bangladesh building 2 or Armania has one running since the 70s. And if it happen it would be quite the latest, much smaller and much safer type if what you describe would ever happen, probably with some China company (they seem to make pretty much the best, safest and latest affair) being in charge of everything.
 
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uOpt said:
Fair enough, and they are not in an earthquake or tsunami zone.

But let me ask this: if the countries with stable governments build lots of reactors, how do we argue that countries with messy government (or none) should refrain from doing so? Or would you be fine with that?
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this is a complicated question, but a simplified answer is fuel procurement. It takes substantial resources to build one to be certain, but you cant exactly Amazon Prime the fuel needed, which is fairly significant, about 25 tons of uranium a year for 1 GW output, roughly 1 ton of that is U235. Most countries do not have the raw resources, and getting it is highly regulated... theoretically
 
Wouldn't Russia be happy to provide fuel (or refine ore) for anybody who asks? Especially in return for political favors?

I'm not seeing the argument that fuel availability would keep bogus states from using fission plants.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I still talk about this in my physics classes. All of this because of an idiotic decision to put back up generators in the basement of a coastal area... SMH

Honestly that is the biggest issue I have with nuclear power, it apparently is just too easy to make a catastrophically bad decision
Click to expand...
The industry in general is basically take a bunch of 6/10s, train them that they are 11s, then release the monkeys.
If the designs weren't triple redundant and lessons learned from prior failures incorporated worldwide into operating plants it would literally kill us all.
 
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LukeTbk said:
Not sure France had a significant incident in the last 40 years, they have 56 reactors.
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Sure. But France has a tradition of a powerful, centralized, highly educated bureaucracy for which the smartest people compete to get jobs. Kind of the opposite of some other countries,
 
This is a great overview of the robots being used in December 2022:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZJiVQ61MpQ


philb2 said:
And lots of people died, drowned or washed out to sea. Scarier.
Click to expand...
Don't forget that it brought up whatever this sea creature was:

View: https://youtu.be/C25RTDXFNWY?t=143


sfsuphysics said:
Only one person* died due to the power plant accident though, and that was some time later due to the radiation exposure.
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It was this poor bastard, one of the worst and prolonged deaths I have ever heard of:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1FbwooXssQ
 
techie81 said:
Nuclear power is one of the cleanest, safest, efficient, sources of power around. Poor decisions were made that resulted in the disaster BUT a well-engineered, well ran nuclear generator is the way to go.
Click to expand...
I hear this all the time. I would counter that lately everyone is incompetent and you only have to drop the ball once…
 
I think it might be easier to sample plasma from the sun, than the way they are doing it.

The only way it's going to work is precision directional drilling.
Just pipes.
No electronics/fiberoptics/electrics....
Oil wells have no cameras !
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Corium is a new solid created by humanity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_(nuclear_reactor)
Quite literally the most dangerous substance ever.

They've got some problems in Fukushima.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I wonder if burying the whole place in concrete wouldn't be a better alternative
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Probably would make things worse. Weight of the concrete could weaken the underlying soil so more seawater could get in,and get contaminated. Tough problem.
 
philb2 said:
Probably would make things worse. Weight of the concrete could weaken the underlying soil so more seawater could get in,and get contaminated. Tough problem.
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Is seawater seeping in from the soil? Then sure I guess. Honestly wall the whole area off and call it an environmental dead zone, build massive sea walls so that future waves don't wash it away, and leave it be.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I still talk about this in my physics classes. All of this because of an idiotic decision to put back up generators in the basement of a coastal area... SMH

Honestly that is the biggest issue I have with nuclear power, it apparently is just too easy to make a catastrophically bad decision
Click to expand...

A lot of this comes down to reactor design and, in some cases, how much the operator/nation is willing to spend. Chornobyl happened because the Soviets went cheap on containment and used a dangerously high void coefficient. Fukushima also had some known vulnerabilities with the cooling system that you pointed out here that were never properly addressed. There are safer reactor designs that are available.
 
HockeyJon said:
A lot of this comes down to reactor design.
Click to expand...

Very much this.
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You have to understand the initial thought patterns behind the very first reactors. At first it was pure science, "self-sustaining reactions " was the goal.
The second they accomplished this, nuclear weapon design took over entirely.
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You don't want "self-sustaining" for nuclear reactors. Ever.
It should immediately shut itself off, if control is even lost for a second.
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I'm curious -= just how radioactive=- this robot is now. Neutron flux is a bitch !

edit:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149197016302232
and ;
'permanent magnets'
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168583X14008386

fiberoptics ;

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405428319300140

:dead:
 
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HockeyJon said:
A lot of this comes down to reactor design and, in some cases, how much the operator/nation is willing to spend....
Click to expand...

HockeyJon said:
There are safer reactor designs that are available.
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Sure, but we need the first point to ALWAYS be aligned with the second point, and well quite frankly we don't have that which is why there is so much anti-nuclear sentiment going on.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Sure, but we need the first point to ALWAYS be aligned with the second point, and well quite frankly we don't have that which is why there is so much anti-nuclear sentiment going on.
Click to expand...

Well the real reason there is so much nuclear sentiment going on is because people don't understand how it works. They don't understand different reactor designs, they don't understand containment structures, and they don't understand how the energy is derived. All they hear is the word "nuclear" and they think "oh, kaboom, scary, nuclear bombs, radiation, fallout, etc", because they watch too much TV and didn't bother paying attention in science class. As long as it has the word "nuclear" attached to it, these people will oppose it. They'll think they understand why they're opposed to it, but they actually don't understand why they're opposed to it.

CANDU reactors in Canada are extremely safe. China has a new design as well that looks incredibly well done in terms of reactor safety.
 
HockeyJon said:
Well the real reason there is so much nuclear sentiment going on is because people don't understand how it works. They don't understand different reactor designs, they don't understand containment structures, and they don't understand how the energy is derived. All they hear is the word "nuclear" and they think "oh, kaboom, scary, nuclear bombs, radiation, fallout, etc", because they watch too much TV and didn't bother paying attention in science class. As long as it has the word "nuclear" attached to it, these people will oppose it.
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No disagreement with the average person, but I'm not the average person, I'm very much pro-nuclear if done safely... but that's the rub, how do I know it's done safely? Shit like Fuk happens and you hear about something as simple as "they didn't want backup generators above the flood line" and it fucking blows my mind that that would be such a huge point of contention (aka cost) that they wouldn't do make it safer. How many nuclear reactors out there that are in that "welp, if they just did it this way we wouldn't have an ecological disaster in the region now..." but just have been lucky enough to not have that accident happen? I feel like the idea of talking about "extremely safe" when it comes to nuclear is a lot like someone spouting about breeder reactors being the future, meanwhile there really aren't that many of them (three if memory serves).

But even if the average person is too stupid to know how it works, there are so many of them out there and those are the ones the industry needs to convince it is safe, and each disaster becomes another nail in the coffin, Chernobyl maybe you can write off as "inferior Russian, blah blah blah" but Fukushima, I hear those Japanese know how to make quality products... whoops.
 
Yeah, and then there are countries that are less organized than Japan, the US or the USSR.

How do you expect them to only use the safe designs? And do the things to keep them safe, however easier those things might be?

My money is still on fusion.
 
Both of those designs require energy input to turn on, which is the 'inherently safe' method.
👍
We need an "all of the above approach".
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uOpt said:
Yeah, and then there are countries that are less organized than Japan, the US or the USSR.
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That's a scary aspect of nuclear power !
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Here's my thought. I say this as pro oil and gas. pro nuclear, pro-solar........All of the above.
....And I understand the near-impossibility of what I'm about to suggest.

Our planet orbits the largest fusion reactor in the neighborhood.
Spend the entire worlds budget for building gas/nuclear/coal generation for 3 years, on building an iron-clad transmission/distribution system that's truly global.
Now solar works, no batteries required !
 
BrainEater said:
Both of those designs require energy input to turn on, which is the 'inherently safe' method.
👍
We need an "all of the above approach".
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That's a scary aspect of nuclear power !
---

Here's my thought. I say this as pro oil and gas. pro nuclear, pro-solar........All of the above.
....And I understand the near-impossibility of what I'm about to suggest.

Our planet orbits the largest fusion reactor in the neighborhood.
Spend the entire worlds budget for building gas/nuclear/coal generation for 3 years, on building an iron-clad transmission/distribution system that's truly global.
Now solar works, no batteries required !
Click to expand...
A cerian physicist spoke of the "uranium barrier". Basically, any species as advanced as we are in the galaxy will inevitably discover uranium and nuclear energy. Either it can be used for good things like power production, cancer treatment, etc OR it could be used to make enough bombs to obliterate ourselves. We're still at that barrier....

Solar I theory is a great idea. The issue is how much land you'd need and location is a huge issue. They're only peak efficiency at a narrow temperature and even then output is pretty low. More panels means more waste because you can't repair these things. They're also made with highly toxic chemicals making them very hazardous waste.

Ideally, I'd prioritize hydroelectric run of river, nuclear next to make a strong base load. Once we get energy storage figured out, wind and solar would become excellent for peaking power. They'd be able to store up all day and night to serve that intense couple of hours.

Another thing we need is reactors that can vary their output better...they don't do that very well so far.
 
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