Melted Nuclear Fuel Search Proceeds One Dead Robot at a Time
- Third robot abandoned in search of fuel at Japan’s Fukushima
- Melted fuel still needs to be located before removal begins
Three Robots Abandoned at Fukushima
This article is for subscribers only.
The latest robot seeking to find the 600 tons of nuclear fuel and debris that melted down six year ago in Japan’s wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant met its end in less than a day.
The scorpion-shaped machine, built by Toshiba Corp., entered the No. 2 reactor core Thursday and stopped 3 meters (9.8 feet) short of a grate that would have provided a view of where fuel residue is suspected to have gathered. Two previous robots aborted similar missions after one got stuck in a gap and another was abandoned after finding no fuel in six days.