Japan robots collect radioactive waste

Japan's Toshiba Corp. today introduced a remote-controlled robot that collects radioactive fuel rods from Fukushima's No. 3 reactor that stopped operating due to the tsunami disaster in 2011.

According to RT , after the catastrophic double earthquake and tsunami struck in Japan in March 2011, hundreds of fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were still trapped in the reservoir. Workers cleaned their tanks at the No. 4 reactor, but were unable to work at No. 3 kilns and other buildings, due to the lethal level of radioactivity.

The task of the FRS robot is to recover fragments with 566 fuel rods from internal cooling tanks to stabilize the No. 3 reactor.

One of FRS's arms was developed to pick up and cut debris, while the other was designed to pick up fuel rods. The arms will be used to place radioactive waste in the containers, closing the lid to move away.

"The FRSs are designed to place nuclear fuel rods in a large, securely sealed container and then lift the container onto the ground, moving to a temporary storage facility."

All work is remotely controlled and monitored by many robotic cameras. The work is expected to begin in early 2017, following robotic inspections and training. Toshiba engineers hope to reduce the radioactivity inside the reactor to 1 mSv (a measure of how much radiation is absorbed by the ionizing radiation).