That puddle is one hot mess.
I’m guessing that’s their version of the elephants foot.
Pick up one small chunk and bring it back with the robot and the core will instantly cool down. Best news on FU-shima in year’s.
Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto
Not to mention that the rest of the fuel is still a hot lump
melting its way into the earths core? I wonder how deep its gotten by now?
For the nuclear ignorant, such as myself, now that they know where the reactor core is could they not distribute Boron tubes over the active fuel to dampen the nuclear flux and therefore the heat?
I know there are other “control rod” elements capable of absorbing the protons and thereby restricting further splitting of the Uranium. Is it possible to just flood the zone with Silver or another neutron absorber?
Laugh if you must but, wouldn’t this help?
The Great East Japan Earthquake (Tohoku Quake), which led to the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, was the biggest ever measured in Japan, and the fourth biggest ever measured on Earth.
At over 9.0 on the richter scale, it was strong enough to move Japan’s main island of Honshu eight feet to the East, and knocked the Earth about eight inches off its axis.
The tsunami was 133 feet high.
Nuclear reactors all along the East Coast of Japan shut themselves down safely, as designed. At the Fukushima site however (closest to the epicenter), the massive tsunami came over the tall cliff, and flooded the site - choking off the diesel generators that provided backup electricity to the coolant pumps. Reactors overheated, coolant boiled off, and hydrogen gas buildup exploded, breaching containment.
Although over 15,000 were confirmed killed in the total disaster (most by the tsunami), none died from acute radiation sickness. Six of the workers at the plant exceeded the total lifetime radiation dosage, but all survive six years later.
Just dump some cat litter on it.
It`ll absorb the whole mess.
Why didn't they just fly a drone in there? It's a lot faster and cheaper than a robot. It could probably get in and take a lot of video before succumbing to the radiation.
I know the Japanese have "heard of them".
And someone can maybe tell everyone the number of deaths that have directly occurred NOT from the Tsunami but from the failure of the Tsunami flooded nuclear plant. How many?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties
Yet, irrationally, Japan stopped 54 of its nuclear power plants, and only recently has put five of them back online.
If anything, what Fukushima represents, to Japanese nuclear power plants, is that Japan needs to review just where each plant is located with consideration for the history for Japan of both earthquakes and Tsunamis, and it needs to look at all the measures being taken at each plant for mitigating problems that might occur in the case of an earthquake or Tsunami. It is that last part where the Fukushima plant failed, initially, not from the general nuclear power functions themselves. Had the “flood safety” measures at the site been better, the plant’s operations would not have been disrupted by the Tsunami. That was a failure of site design and not of the design of the plant generally.
Japan has lessons it learned and can still learn from Fukushima. Ending its nuclear power program is just throwing out the baby with the bathwater.