TOKYO — A robot that has spent months inside the ruins of a nuclear reactor at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant delivered a tiny sample of melted nuclear fuel on Thursday, in what plant officials said was a step toward beginning the cleanup of hundreds of tons of melted fuel debris.
The sample, the size of a grain of rice, was placed into a secure container, marking the end of the mission, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which manages the plant. It is being transported to a glove box for size and weight measurements before being sent to outside laboratories for detailed analyses over the coming months.
Plant chief Akira Ono has said it will provide key data to plan a decommissioning strategy, develop necessary technology and robots and learn how the accident had developed.
Despite multiple probes in the years since the 2011 disaster that wrecked the plant and forced thousands of nearby residents to leave their homes, much about the site’s highly radioactive interior remains a mystery.
The sample, the first to be retrieved from inside a reactor, was significantly less radioactive than expected. Officials had been concerned that it might be too radioactive to be safely tested even with heavy protective gear, and set an upper limit for removal out of the reactor. The sample came in well under the limit.
That’s led some to question whether the robot extracted the nuclear fuel it was looking for from an area in which previous probes have detected much higher levels of radioactive contamination, but TEPCO officials insist they believe the sample is melted fuel.
The extendable robot, nicknamed Telesco, first began its mission August with a plan for a two-week round trip, after previous missions had been delayed since 2021. But progress was suspended twice due to mishaps — the first involving an assembly error that took nearly three weeks to fix, and the second a camera failure.
On Oct. 30, it clipped a sample weighting less than 3 grams (.01 ounces) from the surface of a mound of melted fuel debris sitting on the bottom of the primary containment vessel of the Unit 2 reactor, TEPCO said.
On Thursday, the gravel, whose radioactivity earlier this week recorded far below the upper limit set for its environmental and health safety, was placed into a safe container for removal out of the compartment.
The sample return marks the first time the melted fuel is retrieved out of the containment vessel.
Fukushima Daiichi lost its key cooling systems during a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, causing meltdowns in its three reactors. An estimated 880 tons of fatally radioactive melted fuel remains in them.
The government and TEPCO have set a 30-to-40-year target to finish the cleanup by 2051, which experts say is overly optimistic and should be updated. Some say it would take for a century or longer.
No specific plans for the full removal of the fuel debris or its final disposal have been decided.
TOKYO — A remote-controlled robot has safely returned with a tiny piece of melted fuel it collected from inside one of three damaged reactors at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant for the first time since the 2011 meltdown.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which manages the plant, said Saturday that the extendable fishing rod-like robot successfully clipped a gravel as big as 5 millimeters (2 inches), the size of a tiny granola bit, from the top surface of a mound of molten fuel debris that sits on the bottom of the No. 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel.
The “telesco” robot, with its frontal tongs still holding the melted fuel bit, returned to the enclosed container for safe storage after workers in full hazmat gear pulled it out of the containment vessel earlier Saturday.
The sample return marks the first time the melted fuel is retrieved out of the containment vessel. But the mission is not over until it’s certain that the sample’s radioactivity is below a set standard and safely placed into a container.
If the radioactivity exceeds the limit, the robot must go back inside the reactor to find another piece. TEPCO officials said they expect the piece is small enough to meet the requirement.
The mission initially started in August for what was supposed to be a two-week round trip but had been suspended twice due to mishaps.
First one was the procedural mistake at the beginning that held up the work for nearly three weeks, then the robot’s two cameras designed to transmit views of the target areas for its operators in the remote control room failed. The camera problem required the robot to be pulled out all the way for replacement before the mission resumed Monday.
Fukushima Daiichi lost its key cooling systems during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, causing meltdowns in its three reactors. An estimated 880 tons of fatally radioactive molten fuel remains in them, and TEPCO has carried out a number of robotic probes to figure out how to decommission the plant.
Telesco on Wednesday successfully clipped a piece presumably measuring less than 3 grams (0.1 ounce) from the planned area right underneath the Unit 2 reactor core, from which large amounts of melted fuel fell during the meltdown 13 years ago, TEPCO said.
Plant chief Akira Ono said only the tiny spec can provide key data to plan decommissioning strategy, develop necessary technology and robots and retroactively learn how the accident had developed.
The government and TEPCO have set a 30-to-40-year target for the cleanup, which experts say is overly optimistic and should be updated.
No specific plans for the full removal of the fuel debris or its final disposal have been decided.
In the last few decades, obesity has evolved from a localised public health issue to an international epidemic. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), 1 in 8 people worldwide living with obesity. Adult obesity has more than doubled since 1990, and adolescent obesity has quadrupled over the same period. In total, 2.5 billion adults were classified as overweight last year, including 890 million living with obesity.
Countries with the highest combined rates of underweight and obesity in 2022 were island nations in the Pacific and the Caribbean and those in the Middle East and North Africa.
According to data, among adults aged 18 years and older, 43% were overweight, and 16% were living with obesity. The figures for children are equally concerning—37 million children under the age of 5 were reported as overweight in 2022. Additionally, over 390 million children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 years were overweight, of which 160 million were living with obesity.
While the obesity rates in India have also witnessed an upward direction. According to National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) 2019-2021, around 24% of women and 22.9% of men aged 15–49 are now considered overweight or obese, showing an increase from the previous survey in 2015-16, where 20.6% of women and 18.9% of men were affected.
Watch Also: Obesity Has Become a Public Health Crisis with More Youngsters in Danger | Vantage with Palki Sharma
Obesity is now recognised as a serious health condition that profoundly elevates the threat of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and even cancers.
Dr Mohit Bhandari, Chief of Bariatric Surgeon at Pristyn Care shared insights with Firstpost on various aspects surrounding the issues.
Changes in dietary patterns
Dr Bhandari: Probably, the most important cause of this rising tide of obesity is the dramatic change in global dietary patterns. With economic development and urbanisation, diets rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains are replaced by these rather processed, high-calorie, and sugar-laden foods. Fast-food chains, sugary beverages, and ultra-processed snacks become more accessible and affordable in low- and middle-income countries. This is feeding into high-energy, nutrient-poor diets that fuel weight gain and obesity, particularly in the cities.
Increasing trend of sedentary lifestyle
Dr Bhandari: The other important factor is an increasing trend of sedentary lifestyle. The invention of modern technology has completely changed the way one lives, works, communicates, and entertains himself or herself. However, it greatly reduces the need for physical exercise. Such jobs in the office, buying on the internet, and streaming content encourage long sitting, but hard activities of the past years, which include walking and physical movements, have reduced. This low energy expenditure with high food consumption leads to gaining weight.
Environmental and socioeconomic factors
Dr Bhandari: The environment in which a person lives also contributes to obesity. Urbanisation has consequently created settings that discourage active physical activity the most. Without a conducive safe space for walking, biking, or exercising within many cities, the convenience stores and fast food tend to outweigh fresh food markets, thereby creating a food desert effect.
Genetics and biological factors
Dr Bhandari: Lifestyle and environmental factors have been important components of the story, but genetics also predispose individuals to be at higher risk for obesity. Perhaps some individuals have genetic factors that increase their likelihood of gaining weight or even have slower metabolisms. They may be more sensitized biologically and have a stronger urge to eat more. Hormonal problems, such as hypothyroidism or PCOS, also cause weight gain and make it a challenge for one to lose weight.
Psychosocial and behavioural factors
Dr Bhandari: Mental problems like stress, depression, and anxiety trigger conditions of over-eating or poorly eaten foods leading to more cases of obesity. Emotional eating is thus common as people over-eat comfort foods that contain so much fat and sugar, and so get conditioned to eat due to stress or bad feelings. Behavioural factors include poor eating habits or strategies, such as not eating at set times, consuming food at very late hours, and missing meals.
Obesity is a complex issue influenced by many factors, including diet, lifestyle, environment, genetics, and mental health. To address this growing epidemic, both individuals and societies need to prioritize healthier eating habits, increased physical activity, and the creation of environments that support well-being. It is crucial to focus on these key factors to prevent and manage obesity on a global scale.
TOKYO — A long robot entered a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant on Tuesday, beginning a two-week, high-stakes mission to retrieve for the first time a tiny amount of melted fuel debris from the bottom.
The robot’s trip into the Unit 2 reactor is a crucial initial step for what comes next — a daunting, decades-long process to decommission the plant and deal with large amounts of highly radioactive melted fuel inside three reactors that were damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Specialists hope the robot will help them learn more about the status of the cores and the fuel debris.
Here is an explanation of how the robot works, its mission, significance and what lies ahead as the most challenging phase of the reactor cleanup begins.
Nuclear fuel in the reactor cores melted after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s cooling systems to fail. The melted fuel dripped down from the cores and mixed with internal reactor materials such as zirconium, stainless steel, electrical cables, broken grates and concrete around the supporting structure and at the bottom of the primary containment vessels.
The reactor meltdowns caused the highly radioactive, lava-like material to spatter in all directions, greatly complicating the cleanup. The condition of the debris also differs in each reactor.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO, which manages the plant, says an estimated 880 tons of molten fuel debris remains in the three reactors, but some experts say the amount could be larger.
Workers will use five 1.5-meter-long (5-foot-long) pipes connected in sequence to maneuver the robot through an entry point in the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel. The robot itself can extend about 6 meters (20 feet) inside the vessel. Once inside, it will be maneuvered remotely by operators at another building at the plant because of the fatally high radiation emitted by the melted debris.
The front of the robot, equipped with tongs, a light and a camera, will be lowered by a cable to a mound of melted fuel debris. It will then snip off and collect a bit of the debris — less than 3 grams (0.1 ounce). The small amount is meant to minimize radiation dangers.
The robot will then back out to the place it entered the reactor, a roundtrip journey that will take about two weeks.
The mission takes that long because the robot must make extremely precise maneuvers to avoid hitting obstacles or getting stuck in passageways. That has happened to earlier robots.
TEPCO is also limiting daily operations to two hours to minimize the radiation risk for workers in the reactor building. Eight six-member teams will take turns, with each group allowed to stay maximum of about 15 minutes.
Sampling the melted fuel debris is “an important first step,” said Lake Barrett, who led the cleanup after the 1979 disaster at the U.S. Three Mile Island nuclear plant for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is now a paid adviser for TEPCO’s Fukushima decommissioning.
While the melted fuel debris has been kept cool and has stabilized, the aging of the reactors poses potential safety risks, and the melted fuel needs to be removed and relocated to a safer place for long-term storage as soon as possible, experts say.
An understanding of the melted fuel debris is essential to determine how best to remove it, store it and dispose of it, according to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.
Experts expect the sample will also provide more clues about how exactly the meltdown 13 years ago played out, some of which is still a mystery.
The melted fuel sample will be kept in secure canisters and sent to multiple laboratories for more detailed analysis. If the radiation level exceeds a set limit, the robot will take the sample back into the reactor.
“It’s the start of a process. It’s a long, long road ahead,” Barrett said in an online interview. “The goal is to remove the highly radioactive material, put it into engineered canisters … and put those in storage.”
For this mission, the robot’s small tong can only reach the upper surface of the debris. The pace of the work is expected to pick up in the future as more experience is gained and robots with additional capabilities are developed.
TEPCO will have to “probe down into the debris pile, which is over a meter (3.3 feet) thick, so you have to go down and see what’s inside,” Barrett said, noting that at Three Mile Island, the debris on the surface was very different from the material deeper inside. He said multiple samples from different locations must be collected and analyzed to better understand the melted debris and develop necessary equipment, such as stronger robots for future larger-scale removal.
Compared to collecting a tiny sample for analysis, it will be a more difficult challenge to develop and operate robots that can cut larger chunks of melted debris into pieces and put that material into canisters for safe storage.
There are also two other damaged reactors, Unit 1 and Unit 3, which are in worse condition and will take even longer to deal with. TEPCO plans to deploy a set of small drones in Unit 1 for a probe later this year and is developing even smaller “micro” drones for Unit 3, which is filled with a larger amount of water.
Separately, hundreds of spent fuel rods remain in unenclosed cooling pools on the top floor of both Unit 1 and 2. This is a potential safety risk if there’s another major quake. Removal of spent fuel rods has been completed at Unit 3.
Removal of the melted fuel was initially planned to start in late 2021 but has been delayed by technical issues, underscoring the difficulty of the process. The government says decommissioning is expected to take 30-40 years, while some experts say it could take as long as 100 years.
Others are pushing for an entombment of the plant, as at Chernobyl after its 1986 explosion, to reduce radiation levels and risks for plant workers.
That won’t work at the seaside Fukushima plant, Barrett says.
“You’re in a high seismic area, you’re in a high-water area, and there are a lot of unknowns in those (reactor) buildings,” he said. “I don’t think you can just entomb it and wait.”
An extendable robot on Tuesday resumed its entry into one of three damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to retrieve a fragment of melted fuel debris, nearly three weeks after its earlier attempt was suspended due to a technical issue.
The collection of a tiny sample of the spent fuel debris from inside of the Unit 2 reactor marks the start of the most challenging part of the decadeslong decommissioning of the plant where three reactors were destroyed in the March 11, 2011, magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
The sample-return mission, initially scheduled to begin on Aug. 22, was suspended when workers noticed that a set of five 1.5-meter (5-foot) add-on pipes to push in and maneuver the robot were in the wrong order and could not be corrected within the time limit for their radiation exposure, the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said.
The pipes were to be used to push the robot inside and pull it back out when it finished. Once inside the vessel, the robot is operated remotely from a safer location.
The robot, nicknamed “telesco,” can extend up to about 22 meters (72 feet), including the pipes pushing it from behind, to reach its target area to collect a fragment from the surface of the melted fuel mound using a device equipped with tongs that hang from the of the robot.
The mission to obtain the fragment and return with it is to last about two weeks.
The mix-up, which TEPCO called a “basic mistake,” triggered disappointment and raised concerns from officials and local residents. Industry Minister Ken Saito ordered TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa a thorough investigation of the cause and preventive steps before resuming the mission.
The pipes were brought into the Unit 2 reactor building and pre-arranged at the end of July by workers from the robot’s prime contractor and its subsidiary, but their final status was never checked until the problem was found.
TEPCO concluded the mishap was caused by a lack of attention, checking and communication between the operator and workers on the ground. By Monday, the equipment was reassembled in the right order and ready for a retrial, the company said.
The goal of the operation is to bring back less than 3 grams (0.1 ounce) of an estimated 880 tons of fatally radioactive molten fuel that remain in three reactors. The small sample will provide key data to develop future decommissioning methods and necessary technology and robots, experts say.
The government and TEPCO are sticking to a 30 to 40-year cleanup target set soon after the meltdown, despite criticism it is unrealistic. No specific plans for the full removal of the melted fuel debris or its storage have been decided.
Welcome to our annual Labor Day weekend brunch buffet. And don’t forget to stop by our three-cheese omelet station. …
What do you suppose has driven the escalation of “social” media putdowns, threats and unfettered hatred that has been aimed at pro tennis players?What do you suppose has driven the escalation of “social” media putdowns, threats and unfettered hatred that has been aimed at pro tennis players?
Well, is it logical to note that the hatred has coincided with the rise in legal gambling on sports? All sports have reported increased incivilities from “fans” as per their lack of success through the growth and promotion of gambling. Why should tennis be different from golf, basketball and football?
Fans pack Arthur Ashe Stadium for the U.S. Open. REUTERS
Tennis is the easiest sport to fix, as all one needs is one person — himself or herself — plus, perhaps, one other to place the bets.
Regardless, easily outraged nuts will always be among us, but digital instant messaging plus legalized wagering from which the sports financially benefit help unscrew the nuts from their bolts.
Speaking of legalized sports gambling, Bob Costas, calling Thursday night’s Braves-Phillies on MLB Network, continues to refuse to narrate any gambling come-ons, in game or between half innings. He insists that someone else handle that, often in a remote or recorded insert.
He’s the opposite of “Everyone Loves” Charles Barkley, an admitted big-problems gambler who compiled staggering casino debt, yet still took the cash to star in commercials encouraging young male adult suckers to gamble. What a guy!
A fan places a bet that New Jersey’s Ocean Casino. APDavid Banks-USA TODAY Sports
Apparently there was at least a modicum of internal shame within the Mets following that Camp Day afternoon disgrace when the Mets honored a young, TikTok oral sex “advisor” by having her throw out the ceremonial first pitch.
Reader and Mets’ fan Henry Conte contacted team owner Steve Cohen to express his dismay. Cohen responded:
“Henry — I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ve taken the appropriate remedial actions to ensure that this situation doesn’t occur again.
Viral internet personality Haliey Welch throws the ceremonial first pitch of a game between the New York Mets and the Oakland Athletics at Citi Field on August 15, 2024. Getty Images
“Poor judgment was exercised here and I’m as upset as you are. Thanks for the feedback. Best, Steve.”
Not bad. No attempt to excuse the inexcusable. Though a fully public, unsolicited apology would have closed the case.
Regardless, it sure beat Rob Manfred’s usual Sgt. Schultz act.
Stephen A. can’t keep Yanks’ lineup order in order
OK, so now after Stephen A. Smith’s latest self-revealment as an $18 million per (plus commercial endorsements) fake — last week’s blowhard, expert on-air assertion that “Bro” Aaron Judge benefits from batting behind Juan Soto when the reverse has been in place all season — was further proof that ESPN’s center stage voice, face and presence has a credibility rating of zero.
Smith offers nothing better than his transparent bad-guess “facts,” his race hustles and ignorance of the sports he addresses from his self-constructed and ESPN-secured mountaintop throne.
And it’s totally inconceivable that ESPN can any longer play stupid to Smith’s fakery. It’s certainly not as if ESPN viewers and subscribers weren’t years ago unaware of Smith’s bogus presence as ESPN execs increased his pay and presence.
Stephen A. Smith Getty Images
So what does ESPN, this time, do about it? The track record guess is nothing. ESPN’s double standard is granitized. Then wait until next time — it’s due sooner than later — for Smith to make more perverse comedy of himself and ESPN — then do nothing, again.
If college players are academically deficient, why shouldn’t their schools’ partner networks?
Near the top of Fox’s North Carolina-Minnesota on Thursday, a large graphic appeared suggesting that a key to the game was for UNC to “Play Complimentary Football.”
Reader Ken Mortenson: “Apparently victory for UNC is based on saying only nice things to the Gophers during the game.”
We’ll take a wild guess here: Fox meant “Complementary” and not “Complimentary.”
For all the boring, repeatedly empty, expensive and unentertaining national TV MLB pregame shows, has it struck any production exec that a return to some form of “This Week in Baseball” might actually both attract and hold an audience?
What baseball fan ever turned off TWIB? So why not produce one from a network’s studios?
Of course, if such a show were resurrected, the producers might stuff it with bat-flips and all forms of me-dancing.
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Maybe the college can no longer afford a janitorial staff or to heat the dorms, but there’s always plenty of money for sports.
Thursday, Monmouth opened at Eastern Washington. Oddly enough there is no direct flight from West Long Branch, N.J., to Cheney, Wa.
Seems everything we watched on national network prime time TV last month was stuffed with empty-headed cheerleading: NBC’s Olympics, the Republican National Convention, the Democratic National Convention. Same sell, same smell.
I suppose this is the week when NFL head coaches gather their fabulously paid troops to demand that not one of them cause the team 15 yards, let alone a win, for post-play, all-about-me misconduct.
Then again, if that were the case, we wouldn’t be beginning another season when such impudence among professionals hasn’t grown worse.
Tickets not all UK fans buying
In this age of “more transparency” more and more seems attached to a con.
The University of Kansas recently announced payment rules on season’s tickets for football and basketball. In addition to must-pay-for-tickets, there is a “required donation.” Required donation? Is that anything like a mob shakedown?
Then there’s the National Football Foundation, which last week announced that there are a “Record-Breaking 3,534 Graduates Suiting Up For College Football This Season.”
kansas head coach Lance Leipold AP
The news release added that all of them will be in the quest for “additional diplomas,” as if they’re all both enrolled in active pursuit of graduate degrees — a masters or doctorate — in addition to playing football.
Malarkey in pail! These are football players who have slipped through eligibility loopholes under the laughable guise of grad students, and the universities are complicit in the scheme and scam.
The NFF would be taxed to find a tiny fraction of these 3,534 post-grad players in any campus structure outside the athletic department.
And the TV and radio announcers, who wouldn’t dare ask what these players’ specific academic goals are, will obediently play this bogus game, continuing to identity them only as “graduate transfers.”
Standards? What standards? Where?
Despite a career as a slugger predicated on admitted steroid use, an arrest for domestic assault and incarceration for violation of a drug distribution probation, Jose Canseco last week was inducted into the A’s Hall of Fame.
Athletics former outfielder Jose Canseco prepares to throw the ceremonial first pitch before the game against the San Francisco Giants at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con
Al Attles, the Newark-born career-long Warriors — Philly, San Francisco, Oakland — player, coach and GM died Aug. 20, at 87.
I was surprised to read in his obit that he was just 6-foot, as he played tall and tough.
Attles also had a thoughtful way with words. Asked about comparing apples to oranges, he said, “They’re both good fruit.”
I wonder how many employees of just sold-out WCBS News Radio 880 — committed, valued, news professionals — will enjoy, if possible, their first Labor Day off from labor in decades.
