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April 19, 2011

Fukushima: Terror Turning Just a Little Robotic

Robots are cool. Robot pictures are about the future, and science, and the application of advanced technological know-how. And generally, robot pictures are fun.

These all-too-clinical pictures from Fukushima (that historic nuke eco-disaster that manages, somehow, to keep falling out of the news stream) gives off that “progress”/”we’re getting at it” vibe. To the extent it does, however, it clashes with the other take-away here, that plant contamination continues to rise and human beings can hardly access the hot zones without an escalating risk of being permanently fried.

I really like the middle shot, by the way, for the fact you can see an actually human being behind the glass. By the way, doesn’t the unit there look like an old and a little rusty front loading washing machine someone stashed in their attic?

(photo: TEPCO. captions: Packbot working inside the reactor building of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 3 – April 17, 2011.)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000475051901 Teeluck Sooknarine

    Don’t know if to laugh or cry !

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000475051901 Teeluck Sooknarine

    Don’t know if I should laugh or cry…

  • Gasho

    …”gives off that “progress”/”we’re getting at it” vibe.”

    Wow, I know you end that paragraph from the opposite angle about the area being too radioactive for people, but I don’t see ANY hint of ‘progress’ here. These bots can go measure the radiation levels, but they seem too puny and frail to get any of the work done that will need to be done. If this is our attempt to get in there and fix this, then we’re truly out of our league with this problem.

    The Roadmap everyone is talking about seems like a fantasy to me. Just because we have a roadmap doesn’t mean we’re any closer to actually figuring out how to contain this whole thing. It’s so fragile and it’s destructive power is SO huge.. we’re kidding ourselves that a TEPCO powerpoint presentation and a few feeble robots opening a door means that we’ve got anything under control here.

    I’m still pretty pessimistic (as you can tell). I’m glad we’ve got a way to get a few working instruments closer to the reactors, but I’m not satisfied with the “progress” AT ALL.