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Fukushima disaster: Robot finds possible melted nuclear fuel

63 points by louthy 9y ago

andy_ppp 9y ago
Have there been independent assessments of sea food safety in Japan? Not that I don't absolutely trust the government on this... EDIT: Linked at the bottom of the article - http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-39140871/checking-radiation-levels-in-the-fukushima-area http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-39140871/checking-radi... Also from that video: https://blog.safecast.org https://blog.safecast.org
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  This was studied far from Japan but fish off the Oregon coast have certainly remained safe to eat. https://whatisnuclear.com/resources/fish_from_fukushima.html https://whatisnuclear.com/resources/fish_from_fukushima.html
roenxi 9y ago
It is great to see this issue (which is a pet one of mine) given fair context. I'm really glad to see someone juxtaposing: - "...the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl..." - "More than 18,500 people were killed ... when an earthquake triggered the massive tsunami ..." - "No-one died directly in the Fukushima disaster." Not that it isn't a disaster; just that the disaster, in context, wasn't the biggest deal that day.
- mistersquid 9y ago
  18,500 dead for a single weather event is a disaster by any measure. Additionally the 2011 Fukushima reactor failure is the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl which means it is the second (or third) worst nuclear accident in history. [0] What do you mean by "the disaster, in context, wasn't the biggest deal that day"? I'm not trolling. I honestly cannot understand what you are trying to communicate. Are you diminishing the magnitude of the disaster? If so, you haven't yet presented anything to warrant the designification of the tsunami and subsequent Fukushima reactor failure. [0] http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-accidents/history-nuclear-accidents#.WXSqD8aZMUE http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-accidents/... EDIT: Add link and parenthetical "(or third)".
  - cpdt 9y ago
    I think roenxi is referring to how the Fukisima nuclear accident wasn't the biggest deal that day, as the tsunami had a far greater impact (0 vs 18 500 direct casualties, respectively).
  - roenxi 9y ago
    No worries. I see two separate disasters here, both linked. The first an absolutely devastating weather event that killed more people than live in my home town in it's entirety + caused massive damage, and secondly the Fukushima nuclear disaster (which seems to be treated separately in many cases, which the article is about and which my comment was directed at). In my experience, many people & journalists hold Fukushima up as a really bad disaster. I'm trying to communicate that I don't think that Fukushima was a disaster that warranted international coverage - the weather was. At an international scale, I don't think Fukushima is much worse than a near miss. I would be really interested to get an expert academic order of magnitude on how many people died in the evacuation due to the Fukushima disaster vs. the theoretical number of deaths if they had evacuated more slowly (say over 12 months). It frustrates me that the cost-benefits of the evacuation aren't a more prominent point of discussion. EDIT: Just for fun; I can't pretend I know anything about radiation or what the Japanese are up to; but on wiki I see things like "absolute increase in the risk of cancer(of all types) during their lifetime, of approximately 1% due to the accident" [1], " Life expectancy of the evacuees dropped from 65 to 58 years ... because of depression, alcoholism, and suicide" [2]. I'd like to know who I can turn to for an honest rundown of the risks, because the radiation doesn't seem that terrible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties#WHO_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_reaction_to_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Long-term_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_reaction_to_Fukushima...
    - new299 9y ago
      From wikipedia: "but 34 people died as a result of the evacuation" [1]. I'm not sure I can agree that Fukushima isn't an internationally noteworthy incident. It's even one that really requires long term monitoring of radiation levels (locally only of course). Many mistakes were made in the handling of the Fukushima reactor and accident. Radiation accidents have the potential of be massive disasters. It's important to learn from Fukushima, and not just treat it as an "acceptable cost". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
CydeWeys 9y ago
It's amazing to me that we're six years in now and essentially no progress has been made on cleanup beyond simple containment and mitigation. I suppose Chernobyl isn't particularly any different in that regard either.
- mistersquid 9y ago
  In March, the NYT published an article discussing the accumulation of contaminated water from the failed Fukushima reactor. [0] At the time of writing, 400 tons per day of contaminated water were being collected and officials were concerned that storage for the water might run out. Alarmingly, one possible contingency was to dilute the collected contaminated water and dump it in the ocean. Excerpted from the article: > But the decontamination filters cannot remove all the > radioactive material. So for now, all this water is being > stored in 1,000 gray, blue and white tanks on the grounds. > The tanks already hold 962,000 tons of contaminated water, > and Tokyo Electric is installing more tanks. It is also > trying to slow the flow of groundwater through the reactors > by building an underground ice wall. > > Within a few years, though, and no one is sure exactly when, > the plant may run out of room to store the contaminated > water. “We cannot continue to build tanks forever,” said > Shigenori Hata, an official at the Ministry of Economy, > Trade and Industry. > > The authorities are debating whether it might be acceptable, > given the relatively low radioactive levels in the water, to > dilute the contaminated water and then dump it into the > ocean. But local fishermen are vehemently opposed. Many > people still do not trust Tokyo Electric because of its > bungled response to the disaster, the worst nuclear accident > since Chernobyl. [0] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/asia/struggling-with-japans-nuclear-waste-six-years-after-disaster.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/asia/struggling-...
  - tptacek 9y ago
    My understanding, which is limited, is that it's not as alarming as it sounds. The water is "contaminated" with tritium (really, the water is composed in part of tritium), which has low bioavailability. Much more importantly, however big a number "962,000 tons" sounds like, the ocean is vast, on a whole different scale from anything amount of water humans can manipulate directly. If the liquid was radioactive sludge that would could settle at the seafloor or clump up and ride the top of the waves like an oil slick, dumping it would be untenable. But tritiated water is literally just water; it will quickly dilute back down to the ambient radioactivity of the ocean. I'm not saying I approve of them dumping HTO into the ocean; I'm just saying it may not be as terrible as it sounds.
ameesdotme 9y ago
I'm interested in how this robot "survived" the radiation levels that many previous robots did not [1]. I know little to nothing about radiation hardening, but this seems like an almost impossible task, considering it being exposed to more than 530 sieverts per hour [2], which is the highest radiation level ever recorded. [1] http://gizmodo.com/excessive-radiation-inside-fukushima-fries-clean-up-rob-1792217866 http://gizmodo.com/excessive-radiation-inside-fukushima-frie... [2] https://www.sciencealert.com/radiation-levels-in-the-fukushima-reactor-have-started-unexpectedly-climbing https://www.sciencealert.com/radiation-levels-in-the-fukushi...
- wereHamster 9y ago
  Water absorbs radiation really well. https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

63 points by louthy 9y ago

Have there been independent assessments of sea food safety in Japan? Not that I don't absolutely trust the government on this... EDIT: Linked at the bottom of the article - http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-39140871/checking-radiation-levels-in-the-fukushima-area http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-39140871/checking-radi... Also from that video: https://blog.safecast.org https://blog.safecast.org

acidburnNSA 9y ago
This was studied far from Japan but fish off the Oregon coast have certainly remained safe to eat. https://whatisnuclear.com/resources/fish_from_fukushima.html https://whatisnuclear.com/resources/fish_from_fukushima.html

roenxi 9y ago

It is great to see this issue (which is a pet one of mine) given fair context. I'm really glad to see someone juxtaposing: - "...the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl..." - "More than 18,500 people were killed ... when an earthquake triggered the massive tsunami ..." - "No-one died directly in the Fukushima disaster." Not that it isn't a disaster; just that the disaster, in context, wasn't the biggest deal that day.

mistersquid 9y ago
18,500 dead for a single weather event is a disaster by any measure. Additionally the 2011 Fukushima reactor failure is the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl which means it is the second (or third) worst nuclear accident in history. [0] What do you mean by "the disaster, in context, wasn't the biggest deal that day"? I'm not trolling. I honestly cannot understand what you are trying to communicate. Are you diminishing the magnitude of the disaster? If so, you haven't yet presented anything to warrant the designification of the tsunami and subsequent Fukushima reactor failure. [0] http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-accidents/history-nuclear-accidents#.WXSqD8aZMUE http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-accidents/... EDIT: Add link and parenthetical "(or third)".
- cpdt 9y ago
  I think roenxi is referring to how the Fukisima nuclear accident wasn't the biggest deal that day, as the tsunami had a far greater impact (0 vs 18 500 direct casualties, respectively).
- roenxi 9y ago
  No worries. I see two separate disasters here, both linked. The first an absolutely devastating weather event that killed more people than live in my home town in it's entirety + caused massive damage, and secondly the Fukushima nuclear disaster (which seems to be treated separately in many cases, which the article is about and which my comment was directed at). In my experience, many people & journalists hold Fukushima up as a really bad disaster. I'm trying to communicate that I don't think that Fukushima was a disaster that warranted international coverage - the weather was. At an international scale, I don't think Fukushima is much worse than a near miss. I would be really interested to get an expert academic order of magnitude on how many people died in the evacuation due to the Fukushima disaster vs. the theoretical number of deaths if they had evacuated more slowly (say over 12 months). It frustrates me that the cost-benefits of the evacuation aren't a more prominent point of discussion. EDIT: Just for fun; I can't pretend I know anything about radiation or what the Japanese are up to; but on wiki I see things like "absolute increase in the risk of cancer(of all types) during their lifetime, of approximately 1% due to the accident" [1], " Life expectancy of the evacuees dropped from 65 to 58 years ... because of depression, alcoholism, and suicide" [2]. I'd like to know who I can turn to for an honest rundown of the risks, because the radiation doesn't seem that terrible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties#WHO_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_reaction_to_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Long-term_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_reaction_to_Fukushima...
  - new299 9y ago
    From wikipedia: "but 34 people died as a result of the evacuation" [1]. I'm not sure I can agree that Fukushima isn't an internationally noteworthy incident. It's even one that really requires long term monitoring of radiation levels (locally only of course). Many mistakes were made in the handling of the Fukushima reactor and accident. Radiation accidents have the potential of be massive disasters. It's important to learn from Fukushima, and not just treat it as an "acceptable cost". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

CydeWeys 9y ago

It's amazing to me that we're six years in now and essentially no progress has been made on cleanup beyond simple containment and mitigation. I suppose Chernobyl isn't particularly any different in that regard either.

mistersquid 9y ago
In March, the NYT published an article discussing the accumulation of contaminated water from the failed Fukushima reactor. [0] At the time of writing, 400 tons per day of contaminated water were being collected and officials were concerned that storage for the water might run out. Alarmingly, one possible contingency was to dilute the collected contaminated water and dump it in the ocean. Excerpted from the article: > But the decontamination filters cannot remove all the > radioactive material. So for now, all this water is being > stored in 1,000 gray, blue and white tanks on the grounds. > The tanks already hold 962,000 tons of contaminated water, > and Tokyo Electric is installing more tanks. It is also > trying to slow the flow of groundwater through the reactors > by building an underground ice wall. > > Within a few years, though, and no one is sure exactly when, > the plant may run out of room to store the contaminated > water. “We cannot continue to build tanks forever,” said > Shigenori Hata, an official at the Ministry of Economy, > Trade and Industry. > > The authorities are debating whether it might be acceptable, > given the relatively low radioactive levels in the water, to > dilute the contaminated water and then dump it into the > ocean. But local fishermen are vehemently opposed. Many > people still do not trust Tokyo Electric because of its > bungled response to the disaster, the worst nuclear accident > since Chernobyl. [0] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/asia/struggling-with-japans-nuclear-waste-six-years-after-disaster.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/asia/struggling-...
- tptacek 9y ago
  My understanding, which is limited, is that it's not as alarming as it sounds. The water is "contaminated" with tritium (really, the water is composed in part of tritium), which has low bioavailability. Much more importantly, however big a number "962,000 tons" sounds like, the ocean is vast, on a whole different scale from anything amount of water humans can manipulate directly. If the liquid was radioactive sludge that would could settle at the seafloor or clump up and ride the top of the waves like an oil slick, dumping it would be untenable. But tritiated water is literally just water; it will quickly dilute back down to the ambient radioactivity of the ocean. I'm not saying I approve of them dumping HTO into the ocean; I'm just saying it may not be as terrible as it sounds.

ameesdotme 9y ago

I'm interested in how this robot "survived" the radiation levels that many previous robots did not [1]. I know little to nothing about radiation hardening, but this seems like an almost impossible task, considering it being exposed to more than 530 sieverts per hour [2], which is the highest radiation level ever recorded. [1] http://gizmodo.com/excessive-radiation-inside-fukushima-fries-clean-up-rob-1792217866 http://gizmodo.com/excessive-radiation-inside-fukushima-frie... [2] https://www.sciencealert.com/radiation-levels-in-the-fukushima-reactor-have-started-unexpectedly-climbing https://www.sciencealert.com/radiation-levels-in-the-fukushi...

wereHamster 9y ago
Water absorbs radiation really well. https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/