Robbing the robot in a nuclear accident in Japan

Japan is the world's center for robotics, from playing robots to kissing robots, but none of the robots have been deployed to cure the reactors that are contaminated with dangerous radiation for humans.

Robots that are used quite a bit in the nuclear energy industry, as European engineers have built robots that can climb walls in radioactive environments. This prompted many people to ask questions because they did not see the owner of the Fukushima I power plant using any robots for rescue work.

Robot serves breakfast in Japan. Photo: businesspundit

Instead, a group of workers were tasked with directly cooling the reactors by hand , in danger of being exposed to dangerous radiation. They work hard and only occasionally take a break to avoid being exposed too much to close contact with nuclear fuel.

Last Thursday, workers had to halt rescue work at the Fukushima I factory and retreated far away, as the area was too hot and the level of radiation increased. This difficult time is thought to be the ideal condition for robots to take on the dangerous parts of people, but this has not happened.

Although world-famous is a high-tech country, Japan maintains elements that are considered " conservative " in everyday life. According to the Telegraph , Japan still uses people to do jobs that in many other parts of the world have turned to automation for a long time such as operating elevators or warn driving at repaired roads.

Meanwhile, Japan is the world leader in robot technology, has long used them in most complex production lines or robots to detect victims in the ruins of earthquakes. In the nuclear industry, robots have also been used to deal with the two most serious accidents of the century, Three Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in the Soviet Union.

Right at the Fukushima I factory, robots are also deployed to work in highly contaminated areas and a Japanese Ministry of Science official confirmed this. However, official of the Nuclear Safety Bureau, Hidehiko Nishiyama, said: " We have no reports of robots being used here ."

Kim Seungho, an engineer in charge of designing robots for Korea's nuclear power plants, said: " You have to design specialized robots for emergencies at these plants as soon as they are available. construction, so that the robot can self-detect the way on the corridors, steps and position of the closed valves ".

However, the Fukushima I factory of Japan was built in the 1970s of the last century, a long time before robots reached intelligence that could perform complex tasks.Currently robots are only deployed to perform simple fixed tasks such as monitoring pipes or maintenance is not complicated.

Moreover, according to Kim Seungho, who is also the deputy director of technology at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, the budget problem is limited, even eliminating the maintenance of love coping robots. emergency in many nuclear plants in your country as well as in the world.

" Nuclear power plant managers do not like to think of serious situations that are beyond human control ," Kim added.

Meanwhile, the Fukushima I plant, 220 km from Tokyo, was badly damaged after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The automatic cooling system is paralyzed, causing 4 of the 6 reactors here to experience an explosion problem, spreading radiation to the environment. The accident at Fukushima I pushed Japan to face a third disaster risk of radioactive contamination after earthquakes and tsunamis.