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bananas

(27,509 posts)
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 03:49 AM Feb 2017

Robot probes show Japan reactor cleanup worse than expected

Source: Associated Press

Robot probes sent to one of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear reactors have suggested worse-than-anticipated challenges for the plant’s ongoing cleanup.

The plant’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the remote-controlled “scorpion” robot was sent into the Unit 2 reactor’s containment vessel Thursday to investigate the area around the core that had melted six years ago, but its crawling function failed while climbing over highly radioactive debris.

The robot, carrying a dosimeter, thermometer and two small cameras, transmitted some data and visuals but could not locate melted fuel - key information to determine how to remove debris out of the reactor. The robot was abandoned inside the vessel at a location where it won’t block a future probe.

Preliminary examinations over the past few weeks have detected structural damage to planned robot routes and higher-than-expected radiation inside the Unit 2 containment chamber, suggesting the need to revise robot designs and probes.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bad-news-from-japans-wrecked-fukushima-nuclear-reactor/

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bananas

(27,509 posts)
1. This is the second robot in two weeks
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 03:51 AM
Feb 2017
http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/17/14652274/fukushima-nuclear-robot-power-plant-radiation-decomission-tepco

Another robot just broke down investigating Fukushima’s record high radiation levels

This is the second one to break down in two weeks

by Rachel Becker Feb 17, 2017, 4:20pm EST

Another robot has died in the depths of one of Fukushima’s nuclear reactors, as attempts to locate and remove melted radioactive fuel continue. This is the second robot in two weeks to meet its end in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, the site of a major nuclear accident caused by the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The robot’s mission was to investigate the pedestal underneath the Unit 2 nuclear reactor, where melted nuclear fuel is suspected to have fallen. But about 10 feet away from its target, one of the robot’s tank-like treads got stuck, World Nuclear News reports. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which operates the plant, decided to cut the robot’s cable and abandon it inside the reactor. A TEPCO spokeswoman told Phys.org that they don’t yet know whether radiation or debris stopped the robot.

<snip>

bananas

(27,509 posts)
3. Its now at least the seventh robot to have broken down
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 07:35 AM
Feb 2017

From that same article:

http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/17/14652274/fukushima-nuclear-robot-power-plant-radiation-decomission-tepco

<snip>

It’s now at least the seventh robot to have broken down while investigating Fukushima’s nuclear reactors, which remain highly radioactive. Reuters had counted up to five by March 2016. Last week, a scouting robot was sent in ahead to clear the way for the scorpion robot, but it was pulled back out after about two hours: the camera had been fried by record high levels of radiation estimated to be about 650 sieverts per hour. (For scale, a CT scan exposes you to 0.006 sieverts, and just half a sievert is enough to cause symptoms of radiation sickness.)

<snip>

NNadir

(33,368 posts)
2. So what? Our anti-nukes care more about a fucking robot than they do about...
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 05:22 AM
Feb 2017

...the seven million people who will die this year from fucking air pollution.

These deaths are reported openly in the primary scientific literature, but the media and the idiots who hype this crap thinking couldn't care less, any more than they give a shit about the 275,000 people who died from seawater in tsunamis - including Fukushima - between 2004 and 2011.

Deaths from air pollution: A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 ( Lancet 2012, 380, 2224–60: For air pollution mortality figures see Table 3, page 2238 and the text on page 2240.)

Radiation deaths from Fukushima? Got any? As many as will die in the next half hour from air pollution?

All of the nuclear accidents in the more than half a century of nuclear operations have not killed as many people as will die today from air pollution, but in this space we hear again and again and again and again ad nauseum about the fucking robot.

The fact that there are no robots that can survive in an active volcano doesn't mean that every activve volcano is the end of the world.

This is a relatively trivial engineering problem that can, and will be solved. Unfortunately the idiot reporters and the illiterates who spread this crap know nothing about either science or engineering.

Nuclear energy saves lives because it prevents air pollution. The ignoramuses who oppose nuclear energy are Trumpian in their disconnection from reality and their stupid and frankly evil obsessions with Chernobyl and Fukushima.

They simply don't give a fuck about humanity. Period.

NeoGreen

(4,030 posts)
5. A previous response to your repeated sentiment...
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 09:54 AM
Feb 2017

... which, btw, was missing the traditional and iconic (sarcastic?) "Have a Nice Day".


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1127108029#post9


Rails against deaths due to air pollution when the fact is the majority of people who die from air pollution are mostly women and children who are exposed to indoor air pollution due to the fact that many of the people in third world countries are dependent on non-vented stoves and open fires for heating, cooking and lighting.

As if nuclear energy would change any of that. When you look at the big picture of nuclear energy from paper to energy produced it is not that clean, nor is it cheap, in fact these two are why most sane people want nothing to do with it.

Right now, today, the brains, have no idea of how to deal with Fukushima, same as they didn't know what to do with Chernobyl. At least the Russians had the good sense to encapsulate theirs with concrete and now with the huge steel arch, that has been in the making for years. It does nothing for the actual problem but rather only covers it up so the release of radiation is held to a minimum. In Japan they really have no idea as to what is going on other than having to finally admit that indeed there were meltdowns of the cores, three 'cores' in fact. How to deal with that very dangerous and on going catastrophe is a seat of the pants operation. Hardly a reassuring means to deal with this as denial and obfuscation is not a plan.

On paper nuclear energy appears to show promise, but as applied by fallible humans it's one of the most dangerous means of obtaining the energy we so need in today's world. Due to the Lie that nuclear energy is, cheap, safe and clean we've lost 60 some odd years where we could have been researching and developing more benign ways to obtain the energy our world depends on.


originally posted by madokie
Edited (without permission) for spelling and clarity...

Full previous thread...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1127108029

Oh, and I have to highlight your statement..."This is a relatively trivial engineering problem..."... really..."trivial"?

Scruffy1

(3,239 posts)
8. I remember when the big atomic selling started.
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 12:47 PM
Feb 2017

They used an over the hill actor named Reagan to promote the "peaceful atom" with shows such as GE theater. I can't help but think that if only a portion of the big money promotion spent to assure that GE could both build Nukes and make bombs with the byproducts was spent on renewable energy research we would have a completely renewable energy supply by now. Instead we squandered our wealth on oil wars and are now a backwards nation. High poverty, poor education and a government completely controlled by oil interests.

NNadir

(33,368 posts)
10. Well, I always like your posts, because they obviate the mentality of anti-nukes.
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 01:09 PM
Feb 2017

There is no point in discussing the issue of engineering with anti-nukes, since by definition, they know absolutely nothing about the subject, and in fact, hate scientists and engineers.

So I'll just repost, as you have done, my response to what is from my perspective a "no brains" and "no ethics" comment reposted here, with from my perspective, is an ethical nightmare completely devoid of concern for humanity.

Here it is:


Um, once again, you pretend that air pollution deaths on a massive scale are...

Last edited Mon Feb 6, 2017, 12:35 AM - Edit history (1)

...only connected to indoor air pollution.

I often advise people holding this morally awful view to enter a good quality academic library and actually find out what is what, but some of the people I so advise are clearly not competent to read an academic paper of any kind.

Their brains, from what I can tell, are filled with concrete.

It is unsurprising to hear such a person commenting like this: "Right now, today, the brains, have no idea of how to deal with Fukushima, same as they didn't know what to do with Chernobyl."

This statement comes from a person who has never, obviously, opened a science book in his life, and therefore is unacquainted with what technical people, scientists and engineers -who, by the way are more than their "brains" - do and do not know.

The matter is simple arithmetic. The reactors at Fukushima - as opposed to the 20,000 people who died in the tsunami from, um, living in coastal cities about whom morally vapid anti-nukes couldn't care less - and Chernobyl combined, didn't kill as many people as will die this afternoon from air pollution.

This means, for anyone who has a decent sense of risk, would recognize that it would be wise rather than spend billions of dollars chasing after every radioactive atom at Fukushima, to spend billions - trillions of dollars - to fight air pollution.

How many lives were saved per dollar by the Chernobyl sarcophagus? How many lives might have been saved if the same amount spent of the sarcophagus were spent on providing decent sanitation for some of the 2.4 billion people who lack it?

The moral problem is that the uneducated intellectual weaklings who oppose nuclear power have in the bizarre calculus that any death from radiation is billions of times worse than all other deaths.

This is not only stupid, it's evil.

It's interesting that the assholes holding to this very, very, very questionable rhetorical nonsense love to rail about me but they care not a whit for the rest of humanity. They're trumpian in their outlook, with their heads so far up their asses that the shit will never get out of their eyes.

But I will say this; these asses are correct about one thing. I am in fact, bitter, very bitter. Nuclear power, were it not demonized by the uneducated and the stupid, might have saved many of the 70 million lives lost to air pollution since 2007. It breaks my heart, and yes, makes me very bitter. As it was for John Donne, "Every man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.."

As for indoor vs outdoor pollution, and the stupid claim that indoor air pollution has no bearing on nuclear energy, this is also pig headed indifference.

Indoor air pollution is connected to human poverty, and human poverty is connected to a lack of access to clean energy. India and China know something about human poverty, even if lime brains in the West don't. This may be why their scientists and engineers are building more nuclear reactors than anyone else on the planet. A person with an electric hot plate won't be burning biomass, including dung, with a little coal thrown in, to cook his or her food.

I wrote at length on this relationship here: Current World Energy Demand, Ethical World Energy Demand, Depleted Uranium and the Centuries to Come. I strongly suspect that what I wrote is over the tiny little heads of some of the people who burn gas and coal to rail here that an atom of cesium from Fukushima might end up in a tuna fish can in Ohio.

One can wallow all one wants in open contempt for intellectuals, but basically, we don't give a shit what blockheads think.

Have a nice Sunday.


I note with due contempt, that it's very clear that the present company has not, cannot, and will not read the scientific publication that exposes the Trumpian lie that outdoor air pollution is a nontrivial source of millions of deaths every year, nor the reality that indoor air pollution is associated with poverty, which is why two countries where this is recognized, India and China, are building most of the new nuclear reactors in the world in spite of what harebrained bourgeois Americans with no engineering or science background think.

Since the rhetoric of antinukes consists entirely of repetition of stupid selective attention that kills people on a massive scale, I will also repeat again to confront this awful set of human beings, a later exchange, referred to in the same exchange.

One of the more amusing things I note about the anti-nukes here...

Last edited Wed Feb 8, 2017, 03:04 AM - Edit history (1)

One of the more amusing things I note about the anti-nukes here...

...is their repeated use of the giggle emoji.

One suspects that they utilize this emoji because they're uniformly inarticulate, because, as is clear from the their rather lockstep nonsense, they rarely, if ever, open a book or read anything worthwhile.

This is why they have the sort of mentality that can make leaps like statements half of the 7 million deaths from air pollution take place from indoor air pollution, therefore the other half do not matter.

Earlier in this thread, in response to another example of the anti-nuke claiming, in complete ignorance that is typical of their type, that the "brains" don't know what to do about Fukushima or Chernobyl, I remarked that a person whose rhetoric drips with mindless drivel that obviates that he has never opened a science book, an engineering text, an engineering paper, or a scientific paper is obviously unqualified to make any rational statement about what engineers and scientists know.

It is reasonable to extend this concept to examining whether anyone who is barely literate is qualified to adjudge what an intellectual is or is not.

Most of the emoji generating giggling idiots here, I've taken the liberty of using the wonderful "ignore" key here at DU. Their stupidity is frankly uninteresting, and I question whether their is anything to be gained by engaging their vast human indifference and immoral selective attention. It's not like the fact that we are well over 400 ppm at Mauna Loa, and will never go below it again has caused them to question anything. They still go on and on with their "by 2050" talk, even though their previous, "by 2000" talk half a century ago was Trumpian in its disconnection with reality. Clearly the majority of them are sheep, and have never had an original thought in their pathetic lives.

But for some of the really, really, really, really stupid ones, well, they're so cute, that they're amusing.

I'm not there yet on using the ignore key on this set of fools with cement between their ears.

Yes, have a nice day tomorrow.




Again, I very much enjoy these exchanges, since the obviate the stupidity of the anti-nuke position.

I note that this exchange has a new post claiming that dumb anti-nukes get "under my skin," another Trumpian remark.

The fact is that what's actually getting intopeople, rather than under the skin is particulate matter, which kills them. That's what I care about; I really don't care about dumb fuck anti-nukes, except to the extent their rhetoric kills people, which it does.

The mentality of anti-nukes demonstrates clearly and openly for anyone who is intelligent enough to see through it - present company obviously excepted - what they find important.

Again, to repeat, they care more about a fucking robot than 70 million deaths every decade, because they can't think, can't count, and know no science or engineering whatsoever.

eggplant

(3,891 posts)
7. Because we can't abhor the risks of fallout AND the risks of air pollution at the same time.
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 12:33 PM
Feb 2017

Right.

*This* nuke plant is not saving lives. It is an out-of-control situation that, in the best case, will take decades to repair the damage that occurred in a single day. There are other technologies that can provide clean power without the ever-present danger of meltdown.

To suggest that people who are concerned about the current and future damage Fukushima is causing don't care about humanity is really beyond the pale. Period.

Achilleaze

(15,543 posts)
4. the toxic melted core will emerge soon in Mar a Lago
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 09:50 AM
Feb 2017

out of the republican tax-&-draft-dodger-in-chief's mouth and anus

lark

(23,003 posts)
6. Nuclear plants, particularly of that model, need to be disabled.
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 12:01 PM
Feb 2017

They are an existential threat to the planet.

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