A Japanese industrial group unveiled Thursday a robot designed for underwater probes of damage from meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Remote controlled robots are key to the decades-long decommissioning process for the plant. But super-high radiation and structural damage inside the reactors hampered earlier attempts to […]
Fukushima Cleanup Chief Urges Better Use of Probe Robot
The head of decommissioning for the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant said Thursday that more creativity is needed in developing robots to locate and assess the condition of melted fuel rods. A robot sent inside the Unit 2 containment vessel last month could not reach as close to the core area as was hoped for because […]
Robot Probes Show Japan Reactor Cleanup Worse Than Expected
Robot probes sent to one of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear reactors have suggested worse-than-anticipated challenges for the plant’s ongoing cleanup. The plant’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the remote-controlled “scorpion” robot was sent into the Unit 2 reactor’s containment vessel Thursday to investigate the area around the core that had melted six years ago, […]
Japan, India Sign Agreement On Civil Nuclear Power
Japan signed a pact Friday in which it agreed to sell India civil nuclear power equipment and technology, as the Japanese nuclear industry seeks markets overseas because of shrinking business at home since the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, also agreed during talks to advance business […]
IAEA: Japan Nuclear Regulation Should Improve Skills, Law
Japan has improved its nuclear safety regulation since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, but it still needs to strengthen inspections and staff competency, a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday. It was the first IAEA review for Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority since it was established in 2012. Japan adopted stricter safety requirements for […]
Reactor in Japan being loaded with nuke fuel before restart
A Japanese utility on Tuesday began loading fuel into a nuclear reactor where operations are scheduled to resume next month in the country’s first restart under safety requirements set following the Fukushima disaster. Kyushu Electric Power Co. said the first four fuel bundles were loaded into the Sendai plant’s No. 1 reactor as of late […]
What’s Ahead for Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Plant
Four years after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, the road ahead remains riddled with unknowns. The government approved a revised 30-to-40-year roadmap Friday that delays by three years the start of a key initial step — the removal of still-radioactive fuel rods in the three reactors that had meltdowns following […]
WWII Battleship Blew Up Under Water, Footage Suggests
Debris scattered over a large area at the bottom of sea in the Philippines indicate that the massive Japanese World War II battleship Musashi had blown up in an undersea explosion after it sank beneath the surface 70 years ago. View: Photos of the Day: Massive WWII Battleship Discovered Experts from a research team analyzing […]
WWII Warship Found by Microsoft Co-Founder
Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen and his research team have found the wreckage of a massive Japanese World War II battleship off the Philippines near where it sank more than 70 years ago, he said Wednesday. View: Photos of the Day: Massive WWII Battleship Discovered The apparent discovery of the Musashi, one of the […]
Japan approves joint missile study, export to US
TOKYO (AP) — Japan has approved the export of a locally-made component for a missile defense system to the U.S. and is launching joint research with Britain on air-to-air missile technology for fighter jets. The approval late Thursday marks the first defense technology transfer since Japan eased military export rules in April. The policy change […]