Post by Ex_Nuke_Troop on Mar 7, 2014 6:40:55 GMT
IEEE : Dismantling Fukushima: The World's Toughest Demolition Project
Taking apart the shattered power station and its three melted nuclear cores will require advanced robotics
By Eliza Strickland
Posted 28 Feb 2014 | 15:00 GMT
A radiation-proof superhero could make sense of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in an afternoon. Our champion would pick through the rubble to reactor 1, slosh through the pooled water inside the building, lift the massive steel dome of the protective containment vessel, and peek into the pressure vessel that holds the nuclear fuel. A dive to the bottom would reveal the debris of the meltdown: a hardened blob of metals with fat strands of radioactive goop dripping through holes in the pressure vessel to the floor of the containment vessel below. Then, with a clear understanding of the situation, the superhero could figure out how to clean up this mess.
Unfortunately, mere mortals can’t get anywhere near that pressure vessel, and Japan’s top nuclear experts thus have only the vaguest idea of where the melted fuel ended up in reactor 1. The operation floor at the top level of the building is too radioactive for human occupancy: The dose rate is 54 millisieverts per hour in some areas, a year’s allowable dose for a cleanup worker. Yet, somehow, workers must take apart not just the radioactive wreck of reactor 1 but also the five other reactors at the ruined plant.
This decommissioning project is one of the biggest engineering challenges of our time: It will likely take 40 years to complete and cost US $15 billion. The operation will involve squadrons of advanced robots, the likes of which we have never seen.
Nothing has been the same in Japan since 11 March 2011, when one of history’s worst tsunamis flooded Fukushima Daiichi, crippled its emergency power systems, and triggered a series of explosions and meltdowns that damaged four reactors. A plume of radioactive material drifted over northeast Japan and settled on towns, forests, and fields, while plant workers scrambled to pour water over the nuclear cores to prevent further radioactive releases. Nine months later, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the utility company that operates the plant, declared the situation stable.
Stability is a relative concept: Although conditions at Fukushima Daiichi aren’t getting worse, the plant is an ongoing disaster scene. The damaged reactor cores continue to glow with infernal heat, so plant employees must keep spraying them with water to cool them and prevent another meltdown. But the pressure vessels and containment vessels are riddled with holes, and those leaks allow radioactive water to stream into basements. TEPCO is struggling to capture that water and to contain it by erecting endless storage tanks. The reactors are kept in check only by ceaseless vigilance.
TEPCO’s job isn’t just to deal with the immediate threat. To placate the furious Japanese public, the company must clean up the site and try to remove every trace of the facility from the landscape. The ruin is a constant reminder of technological and managerial failure on the grand scale, and it requires a proportionally grand gesture of repentance. TEPCO officials have admitted frankly that they don’t yet know how to accomplish the tasks on their 40-year road map, a detailed plan for decommissioning the plant’s six reactors. But they know one thing: Much of the work will be done by an army of advanced robots, which Japan’s biggest technology companies are now rushing to invent and build.
Continue reading the entire article here >> spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/dismantling-fukushima-the-worlds-toughest-demolition-project
Taking apart the shattered power station and its three melted nuclear cores will require advanced robotics
By Eliza Strickland
Posted 28 Feb 2014 | 15:00 GMT
A radiation-proof superhero could make sense of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in an afternoon. Our champion would pick through the rubble to reactor 1, slosh through the pooled water inside the building, lift the massive steel dome of the protective containment vessel, and peek into the pressure vessel that holds the nuclear fuel. A dive to the bottom would reveal the debris of the meltdown: a hardened blob of metals with fat strands of radioactive goop dripping through holes in the pressure vessel to the floor of the containment vessel below. Then, with a clear understanding of the situation, the superhero could figure out how to clean up this mess.
Unfortunately, mere mortals can’t get anywhere near that pressure vessel, and Japan’s top nuclear experts thus have only the vaguest idea of where the melted fuel ended up in reactor 1. The operation floor at the top level of the building is too radioactive for human occupancy: The dose rate is 54 millisieverts per hour in some areas, a year’s allowable dose for a cleanup worker. Yet, somehow, workers must take apart not just the radioactive wreck of reactor 1 but also the five other reactors at the ruined plant.
This decommissioning project is one of the biggest engineering challenges of our time: It will likely take 40 years to complete and cost US $15 billion. The operation will involve squadrons of advanced robots, the likes of which we have never seen.
Nothing has been the same in Japan since 11 March 2011, when one of history’s worst tsunamis flooded Fukushima Daiichi, crippled its emergency power systems, and triggered a series of explosions and meltdowns that damaged four reactors. A plume of radioactive material drifted over northeast Japan and settled on towns, forests, and fields, while plant workers scrambled to pour water over the nuclear cores to prevent further radioactive releases. Nine months later, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the utility company that operates the plant, declared the situation stable.
Stability is a relative concept: Although conditions at Fukushima Daiichi aren’t getting worse, the plant is an ongoing disaster scene. The damaged reactor cores continue to glow with infernal heat, so plant employees must keep spraying them with water to cool them and prevent another meltdown. But the pressure vessels and containment vessels are riddled with holes, and those leaks allow radioactive water to stream into basements. TEPCO is struggling to capture that water and to contain it by erecting endless storage tanks. The reactors are kept in check only by ceaseless vigilance.
TEPCO’s job isn’t just to deal with the immediate threat. To placate the furious Japanese public, the company must clean up the site and try to remove every trace of the facility from the landscape. The ruin is a constant reminder of technological and managerial failure on the grand scale, and it requires a proportionally grand gesture of repentance. TEPCO officials have admitted frankly that they don’t yet know how to accomplish the tasks on their 40-year road map, a detailed plan for decommissioning the plant’s six reactors. But they know one thing: Much of the work will be done by an army of advanced robots, which Japan’s biggest technology companies are now rushing to invent and build.
Continue reading the entire article here >> spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/dismantling-fukushima-the-worlds-toughest-demolition-project
so whats happening in the Solomons, is haarp missing its mark?