VIDEO: Inside Fukushima’s Ground Zero: First Robot Sent Inside Melted Reactor at Tsunami-Hit Plant Sends Back Chilling Footage

14 Apr, 2015 by Greg Campbell

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The 2011 tsunami that hit Japan cast serious doubt on the viability of nuclear power. Now, four years after the devastating nuclear disaster, the first robot has been able to enter the nuclear facility and send back chilling footage. According to the Daily Mail:

The first robot to be sent into the radioactive reactor of Fukushima nuclear power plant has stalled just three hours into its mission.

These incredible pictures offer the first glimpse into the melted reactors at the Japanese plant after the 2011 nuclear disaster.

More than 300,000 people had to be evacuated after three of Fukushima’s six reactors blew up following the huge tsunami which devastated the country over three years ago. Nearly 16,000 people lost their lives in the natural disaster and subsequent devastation.

The photographs were captured as part of the robot’s mission to inspect melted fuel in one of the reactors.

Developed by Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy and the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning, it was supposed to be able to function for about 10 hours at levels of radiation which would be fatal to humans and cause ordinary electronic devices to malfunction.

But decommissioning work at the plant suffered a setback after the adaptable ‘transformer’ robot stalled before it could complete its operation and had to be abandoned.

A second robot mission scheduled for Monday was postponed as engineers investigated the cause of the malfunction.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, admitted the robot had only completed two-thirds of Friday’s planned mission inside the Unit 1 containment vessel before it failed.

But the company said it had collected enough data to indicate there was path to send robots deeper into the reactor.

It leaves the door open to a new generation of remote-controlled robot missions which may finally reveal the residue of the melted fuel for the first time since the 2011 disaster.

Nuclear power may not be a perfect solution to the world’s energy crises; however, while many eco-warriors hail “green” technology as the wave of the future, the fact remains that “green” technology simply produces far too little energy to run the world and such advocacy overlooks this inconvenient truth about the inadequacy of “green technology.