Another robot sent to investigate “unimaginable”radiation levels at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has broken down. This is the second robot to break down in two weeks The “Scorpion” robot experienced catastrophic failure as it approached the core of reactor number two. A spokeswoman for the Tokyo Electric Power company TEPCO said that they don’t yet know whether it was radiation or debris that stopped the robot. Phys.Org reports: TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, sent the remote-controlled device into the No. 2 reactor where radiation levels have recently hit record highs. The “scorpion” robot, so-called because it can lift up its camera-mounted tail to achieve better viewing angles, is also designed to crawl over rubble inside the damaged facility. But it could not reach its target destination beneath a pressure vessel through which nuclear fuel is believed to have melted because the robot had difficulty moving, a company spokeswoman said. “It’s not immediately clear if that’s because of radiation or obstacles,” she said, adding that TEPCO is checking what data the robot was able to obtain, including images. A massive undersea earthquake on March 11, 2011 sent a huge tsunami barrelling into Japan’s northeast coast, leaving more than [...]
The post Another Robot Breaks Investigating Fukushima’s Extreme Radiation appeared first on Your News Wire.