Headline Dec. 03/ ''' ROBOTS *NUCLEAR* RUNWAY '''

''' ROBOTS *NUCLEAR* RUNWAY '''

HERE ON THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY* Student Umair Nasir has a Mechanical Engineering Degree from Queen Mary College, and a-

Masters in Robotics, from King's College, U.K. I asked him to comment on the Japanese Robotics vision. 

In the days ahead, we all hope, that he does. But in the meantime, I add up the nuclear threats that face the world.    

NORTH KOREA is for sure a nuclear power but that is not enough reason to fear the worst-

North Korea's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test has provoked understandable alarm, particularly in among the Americans about the threat.

But many analysts reacted with something closer to grizzled stoicism, greeting the launch as dispiriting but unsurprising confirmation of North Korea's capabilities and intentions. 

When United States Defense Secretary Jim Mattis declared that North Korea now had the missile capability to ''threaten everywhere in the world, basically,'' he hinted at a-

Long-running debate inside the United states government : Can the same strategy worked that worked against the Soviet Union -mutually assured destruction- also work against a far smaller adversary?

Having said and narrated that, I now swivel to Japan's nuclear power plant disaster.........

During a recent visit, the mood within the plant was noticeably more relaxed, though movements were tightly controlled and everyone was required to wear radiation-measuring badges.

Inside a ''resting building,'' workers are in a large cafeteria and bought snacks in a convenience store.

At the plant's entrance, a sign warned : ''Games like Pokemon GO are forbidden within the facility.''

''We have finished the debris cleanup and gotten the plant under control,'' said the guide, Daisuke Hoirose, a spokesman for Tepco's subsidiary in charge of decommissioning the plant. ''Now, we are finally preparing for decommissioning.''

The government acknowledges that cleaning up the plant will take at least three to four decades and and tens of billions of dollars.

A $100 million research center has been built nearby to help scientists and engineers develop a new generation of robots to enter the reactor building and scoop up the melted fuel.

At Chernobyl, the Soviets simply entombed the charred reactor in concrete after the deadly 1986 accident.

But Japan has pledged to dismantle the Fakushima plant and decontaminate the surrounding countryside, which was home to about 160,000 people who were evacuated after the accident.

Many of them have been allowed return, as the rural towns around the plant have been contaminated.

But without at least starting a clean up of the plant itself, officials admit they will find it difficult to convince the public that the accident is truly over, 

They also hope that beginning the cleanup will help them win a public's consent to restart Japan's undamaged nuclear plants, most of which remain shutdown since the disaster.

Tepco and the government are treading cautiously to avoid further mishaps that could raise doubts  that the Fukushima plant is under control.

''They are being very methodical   -too slow, some would say   -in making a careful effort to avoid any missteps or nasty surprises,'' said David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project at  Union of Concerned Scientists, who was a  co-author of a book on the disaster.

''They want to regain trust. They have learned that trust can be lost much quicker than it can be recovered.''

To show the course followed by the Manbo, Tepco's Mr. Hirose guided me inside the building containing the undamaged Unit 5 reactor, which is structurally the same as two of the destroyed reactors.

Mr. Hirose pointed toward the spot on a narrow access ramp where two robots, including one that looked like a scorpion, got tangled in February by debris inside the ruined Unit 2.

Before engineers could free the scorpion, its monitoring screen faded to black, as its electronic components were overcome by radiation, which Tepco said reached levels of 70 sievert per hour. 

[A dose of one sievert is enough to cause radiation sickness in a human].

Mr. Hirose then led me underneath the reactor, onto what is called the pedestal.

The bottom of the reactor looked like a collection of huge bolts -the access points for control rods used to speed up and slow down the nuclear reaction inside a healthy reactor.

The pedestal was just a metal grating, with the building's concrete floor visible below.

''The overheated fuel would have dropped from here, and melted through the grating around here,'' Mr. Hirose said, as we squatted to avoid banging our heads on the reactor bottom.

The entire area  around the reactor was dark and cluttered with pipes and machinery .

To avoid getting entangled, the Manbo took three days to travel some 20 feet to the bottom of Unit 3.

Extracting the melted fuel will present its own set of technical challenges and risks.

Engineers are developing the new radiation-resistant robots at the Naraba Remote Technology Development Center.

It includes a hangar-size building to hold full-scale mock-ups of the plant and a virtual-reality room that simulates the interior of the reactor buildings, including locations of known debris.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of Japan and then the World. See Ya all on !WOW!  -The World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Nations & Nuclear '''

Good Night and God Bless

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