Nobody wants a job cleaning up Japan’s devastated Fukushima nuclear reactor for some reason

[n2doc]

Tokyo Electric Power Co., has acknowledged that an undersized and unstable pool of workers has led to a series of mishaps at the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant site. More than two years after an earthquake and tsunami led to the partial meltdown of the plant’s reactor, dangerous leaks continue to plague the site, compounded by worker errors such as removing the wrong pipe and spilling 7 tons (6.4 tonnes) of radioactive water.
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“We are not sure about our long-term staffing situation during the upcoming process of debris removal, which requires different skills,” Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) vice president Zengo Aizawa told reporters. Aizawa had been called on the carpet earlier in the day to answer for what Nuclear Regulation Authority chairman Shunichi Tanaka called “silly mistakes,” caused by declining worker morale.
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Tepco president Naomi Hirose admitted to the difficulties in recruitment, but assured Tanaka that more staff would be sent from other sites to assist in the Fukushima plant’s decommissioning. Shifting staff is a short-term measure, which leaves the future of the long-term site remediation up in the air as long as the company continues to have trouble recruiting capable workers.
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It’s not for lack of trying.
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In the months following the accident, Tepco claimed to have secured 24,000 workers, but some 16,000 quit within months due to harsh working conditions and the fear of dangerous radiation levels. Japan’s elderly tried to step up in hopes of saving younger workers with decades of life ahead of them, but finding skilled labor continues to be a challenge. A web of labor brokers and subcontractors have given rise to pay skimming, corruption, and ties to organized crime, according to a Reuters investigation.

more

http://qz.com/140674/nobody-wants-a-job-cleaning-up-japans-devastated-fukushima-nuclear-reactor-for-some-reason/

[MADem]

1. Who wants to die? They've got serious robot skills, they need to build remotely operated robots

to do this work--take the best of drone technology and put feet and arms on it.

The workers can stay safely in a prefab building, many miles away, and operate the robots by remote control.

[Katashi_itto]

2. Robots electronics fry in minutes bathed in the Hard Radiation.

It took 600,000 Soviet troops to fight Chernyobl.

They called themselves "Bio-Robots"

[MADem]

3. They need to find a way to send in hardened robots!

There's gotta be a way that won't endanger people.

Once they get this mess under control, they need to move to solar/wave/wind.

[Katashi_itto]

5. At those levels of radiation there is no such thing as hardened devices.

You can only send in troops in and try to limit their exposure.

[MADem]

6. Surely they can find a way. We put a man on the moon and returned him safely to earth.

They need to keep trying to find a way to get robots in there, since they aren't having success hiring people.

I think they need to try something new--the paradigms aren't cutting it.

[Katashi_itto]

7. Physics is immutable. Radiation is a known thing. Our problem is the moneyed interests

have subverted it all and let the genie out of the bottle.

Basically we need to send close to a million to their doom in order that millions more might live. That huge swaths of the ocean and conteints are not polluted forever.

But I don't see anything like that happening.

It's a human trait.

[MADem]

9. I think it can be done. The trick is figuring out HOW, not IF. And they ARE trying to do it.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/robots/3-robots-that-braved-fukushima-7223185#slide-1

3 Robots That Braved Fukushima
When the radiation levels coming from the ruined Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan were too high to safely allow humans to enter, robots went in first. Here are three that played a major part in monitoring the plant during the emergency-response period and showing to their human operators the level of devastation inside.
By Marina Koren


http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/toshiba-shows-new-robot-for-nuclear-cleanup-1.1131222

Toshiba Corp. unveiled a robot Wednesday that it says can withstand high radiation and help in nuclear disasters.

What exactly the new machine will be capable of doing, however, when it gets the go-ahead to enter Japan's crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, remains unclear.

The four-legged robot can climb over debris and venture into radiated areas off-limits to human workers. One significant innovation, Toshiba said, is that its wireless network can be controlled in high radiation, automatically seeking better transmission when reception becomes weak.

But the machine, which looks like an ice cooler on wobbly metal legs, also appears prone to glitches. The robot took a jerky misstep during a demonstration to reporters, freezing with one leg up in the air. It had to be lifted by several people and rebooted.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/robbie-the-robot-in-a-japanese-adventure-british-firms-creation-sent-to-fukushima-8861200.html

Weighing in at 400kg, Robbie has just been sent out to Tokyo, where he is expected to be one of the stars of next month's IROS 2013, the big event in the world of intelligent robots. It is fitting that the conference is in Japan, as shortly afterwards Robbie will be sent into the rubble of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that was so devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Robbie is a prototype a year in the making, designed and manufactured by a small conglomerate based in Carlisle that produces rat bait and cattle feed as well as one of the world's most-sophisticated robots. Carr's Milling is a £400m revenue group that can trace its origins back to the 1830s, but Robbie is one of the highlights in a long history that has largely been based on producing flour.

Five of the company's boffins in Carr's Milling's German engineering division, Walischmiller, have spent around €500,000 (£422,000) designing and developing the 125cm long, 75cm wide, 40cm high base on which the 100kg arm sits.

Super-strong Robbie will be remote controlled from a distance of 100m-200m. An onboard camera and global-positioning system will help his operator move debris and transport grinders as scientists and technicians try to discover the extent of the clean-up required within the confines of the destroyed reactors.

http://www.azorobotics.com/news.aspx?newsID=4730

A flying radiation detector that could be used to help with nuclear decommissioning and clean-up at sites such as Fukushima and Sellafield was recently tested in a specially designed experimental area at the National Physical Laboratory, the only one of its kind in the UK.

Project RISER (remote intelligent survey equipment for radiation), a collaboration between the University of Bristol, Blue Bear Systems Research (BBSR), Createc, demonstrated at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and funded by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board, has been focused on the development and demonstration of a unmanned air system (UAS) based radiation survey system that could potentially be used in hazardous environments.

The tests at NPL involved placing gamma sources around the experimental facility and were the first tests with live sources of radiation, which enabled BBSR the opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technology.

A group of observers watched the aircraft navigate around a predetermined path whilst simultaneously mapping the environment and detecting radiation. The aircraft then revisited and investigated the areas where NPL scientists had positioned radiation sources by hovering over them to create a more detailed image.

Dr Tom Richardson, Senior Lecturer in Flight Dynamics and Control in the University’s Department of Aerospace Engineering, said: “For many radiation survey applications, the environments under investigation are complex and often within enclosed structures or buildings, so standard GPS based positioning and control is not suitable for unmanned aircraft system control. The RISER project clearly demonstrates a potential route for UAS control system development and their use within these types of potentially hazardous environments.”

[Heywood J]

10. Here you go:

http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewtopic.php?f=107&p=708952

Necromancy as a novel mode of production.

[Poll_Blind]

4. From almost two years ago:

I propose smothering the fire in Reactor No.4 with Nuclear Industry Lobbyists.

Whether by helicopter or by bus, whatever is quickest.

Still holds for all occasions and situations.

PB

[msongs]

8. send in the board of directors and top management, they are making the big $$ nt