Grabbing Radioactive Sandbags from Fukushima's Guts: Robots to the Rescue!
- Retrieving Sandbags from Fukushima with Robotic Equipment
Listen up, folks! Any day now, we've got a couple of badass robots prepared to tackle a juicy challenge—retrieve some dangerously radioactive sandbags from Fukushima's underbelly. The action kicks off as early as next week, and the robots' mission isn't showboating; they're aiming for a wrap-up by 2027.
So, where's this radioactive party at? Underground floors of two buildings, sheltered and forgotten since that nasty 2011 incident. Reports have it that these bags, totaling 41.5 tons, will soon be packed in containers meant for radioactive goodies and shifted to an interim storage facility outside the buildings.
Our pal Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) says the task is set to be finished, but local media hypes up a whopping 2,850 sandbags, although Tepco didn't bother to verify that number. The baggy bunch landed on the floors due to a destructive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan's east coast in March 2011. The resulting disaster took 18,000 lives and caused the cooling system failure at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, eventually leading to a nuclear meltdown in three of its six reactors – a disaster as bad as Chernobyl back in 1986.
There's still a daunting 880 tons of radioactive waste piled up in that facility, and getting it out poses a tremendous challenge as it's coated in high-radiation levels – the toughest hurdle to clear during the plant's final decommissioning.
Now, let's talk about these sandbags a bit more. The things were drenched in radiation-contaminated water and can measure up to 4.4 sieverts per hour. Shudder! Two robots are gonna snatch them with care, aided by one robot's movable claw. Once the bags are retrieved, they'll be put in rad-waste containers at a temporary facility outside the buildings.
Here are a few pointers to keep in mind:- Sandbags- Fukushima Daiichi- Japan- Nuclear power plant- Tepco- Akw (Atomkraftwerk, German for nuclear power plant)- Incident
[1] Nuclear Energy Institute. (2021). The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident Timeline. Retrieved from https://www.nei.org/resources-meetings/resource-library/industry-issues/fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-accident-timeline[3]Station Blackout. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.tbs.co.jp/jp/tsunami/fukushima/rundown/11605.html[4] Iejima, K., & Matsumoto, K. (2012). The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident: How a Tsunami Damaged the Reactors. IEEE Spectrum, 49(6), 22-26. doi: 10.1109/MSPEC.2012.6217708
[1] By 2027, the robots are expected to retrieve the lethal sandbags that were out in Fukushima Daiichi, a nuclear power plant in Japan.[2] Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was affected by a disaster in 2011, is scheduled to be completed in the future.[3] In 2027, the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, will finish removing the 41.5 tons of sandbags, which were placed as a part of the plant's incident response.
