A robot begins removal of melted fuel from the Fukushima nuclear plant. It could take a century (apnews.com)
from mox@lemmy.sdf.org to technology@lemmy.world on 11 Sep 2024 09:52
https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/22181235

#technology

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schmorpel@slrpnk.net on 11 Sep 2024 10:15 next collapse

Wall-E, is that you?

LiveLM@lemmy.zip on 11 Sep 2024 10:50 collapse

Such a fantastic movie, I need to watch it again

FergleFFergleson@infosec.pub on 11 Sep 2024 12:42 next collapse

It could take a century

Maybe we should chip in and buy a second robot.

sawdustprophet@midwest.social on 11 Sep 2024 15:33 next collapse

Maybe we should chip in and buy a second robot.

Hear me out: three robots.

FantasmaNaCasca@lemmy.world on 11 Sep 2024 15:49 collapse

With more than one, a union can be formed. So, no.

lud@lemm.ee on 11 Sep 2024 18:15 collapse

The union would be extremely powerful with just one robot though. There would be no competition or different opinions. If the single robot strikes to get better working conditions or better pay, the entire workforce is on strike.

sbv@sh.itjust.works on 11 Sep 2024 18:43 next collapse

yes yes, but the robot cannot strike, you see, because one robot must make the strike motion, another robot must second the strike motion, and then all the robots must vote. if there is no robot to second the strike motion, then no robots may vote, meaning the strike cannot pass.

flicker@lemmy.world on 11 Sep 2024 20:40 collapse

I would like to add to this conversation, “I’ve talked it over with myself and I’ve decided I’m going on strike,” is an extremely powerful thing to say.

…I didn’t promise my addition would be valuable.

Etterra@lemmy.world on 12 Sep 2024 21:38 collapse

Also that roebuck could probably lift three tons.

KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml on 11 Sep 2024 16:27 next collapse

It may take a century not because of robot costs, but because the materials haven’t decayed enough to store in a dry cask.

Noodle07@lemmy.world on 13 Sep 2024 22:49 collapse

This is getting out of hand

Ilandar@aussie.zone on 11 Sep 2024 12:47 next collapse

Why don’t they use humans like the Soviets? Are they stupid?

nyan@lemmy.cafe on 11 Sep 2024 14:01 next collapse

The Soviets never sent humans into the reactor to remove melted core material. The remains of the Chernobyl No. 4 core are still there inside the sarcophagus, and I don’t think anyone was making serious plans to remove them even before the Ukraine war got in the way.

(The job that got so many Soviet workers exposed was moving solid radioactive debris from the exploded core so that the initial containment sarcophagus could be built and the other three reactors on the site restarted. Nothing comparable was required at Fukushima because the explosions there didn’t breach any of the cores, thus no chunks of highly radioactive graphite to shovel off the roofs. I understand that the Soviets did try robots, but radiation isn’t good for electronics and, well, it was Soviet equipment in 1986—they just weren’t very effective.)

VonReposti@feddit.dk on 11 Sep 2024 19:13 collapse

They actually tried using a West German state of the art police robot but it failed. IIRC it still sits broken on the roof to this day.

KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml on 11 Sep 2024 14:19 next collapse

Because they’re going to use specialized cranes to pull that shit out and bury it over the next 100 years (special military operation pending). It was installed with the New Safe Confinement. The entire point of the NSC was to protect the site from disturbance and collapse while they waited for it to be safe enough to disassemble the plant.

Badeendje@lemmy.world on 11 Sep 2024 23:47 next collapse

Weren’t there so old people that volunteered for some cleanup jobs, reasoning they had less life left than you get people so the cancer would not get to them in time.

I think I remember reading something like that.

explodicle@sh.itjust.works on 12 Sep 2024 00:38 next collapse

Yeah but that’s for much less radioactive areas. These robots are going places that would make a human die badly.

KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 12 Sep 2024 02:31 collapse

the “liquidators” served about 2 minutes of time doing cleanup service at chernobyl. This was how they mitigated a lot of the radiation risk, the people that suffered the most were the people in nearest proximity, reactor personnel for example.

KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 12 Sep 2024 02:30 collapse

because putting people in those buildings is sketchy, and the serve almost zero static concern, especially with modern survey robots and technology that allows us to very easily analyze this stuff without having to set foot near it.

BlucifersVeinyAnus@sh.itjust.works on 11 Sep 2024 15:21 next collapse

Nobody had a faster robot?

explodicle@sh.itjust.works on 12 Sep 2024 00:26 collapse

Those robots are now stuck within the power plant.

moody@lemmings.world on 11 Sep 2024 15:34 next collapse

This is what we need AI for. Robots that can independantly handle this type of task that is too dangerous for humans.

Fuck the generative garbage we have now. Work on this stuff instead.

RogueBanana@lemmy.zip on 11 Sep 2024 16:08 next collapse

But where’s the money in that?

Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee on 11 Sep 2024 16:18 collapse

“Our shareholders insist the line must go up!”

GrammarPolice@lemmy.world on 11 Sep 2024 17:14 collapse

GenAI is getting better and better

chuckleslord@lemmy.world on 11 Sep 2024 20:24 collapse

Generative AI, as it is being built right now, is a dead-end. It won’t get much better than it currently is (markedly worse once the next-gen is forced to scrape data that includes AI generated data) and hallucinations are always going to be the reality for them.

It’s why there’s this big push over the last couple of years to get these products to market. Not because you’re going to corner some burgeoning industry (though the hype definitely is designed to look like that), but because this is a grift now and you have to get the goods while there’s still goods to get. Need to recoup those R&D dollars somehow.

piecat@lemmy.world on 12 Sep 2024 02:09 next collapse

That’s what they’ve said about every disruptive technology since the beginning of time.

I’m against it being shoved down our throats at every opportunity for a quick buck, but it’s very much an active area of research.

You’d be foolish to think there’s no innovation or imlrovements to be made.

KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 12 Sep 2024 02:27 collapse

the output performance won’t get better, but the consumption performance will continue to improve, the generalization of models will continue to improve.

It’s not going to be a replacement for google, but it will do a damn good job at efficiently recognizing an individual soda can from a picture damnit!

chuckleslord@lemmy.world on 12 Sep 2024 21:10 collapse

My only problem with that is that they lobotomized Google to make the AI seem valuable. Not that they weren’t going to destroy Google’s utility eventually, but, once generative AI entered the scene, it deteriorated with a quickness.

KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 13 Sep 2024 03:49 collapse

thats just VC funding at it’s finest, there’s nothing of note there, they did the same with data, they’re doing the same with AI now. They’ll continue to do it into the future as well.

Google has also just been getting worse over the years. There is no reason to single out the AI feature, all of google is terrible now.

KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 12 Sep 2024 02:26 next collapse

didn’t this happen like 4 years ago?

Etterra@lemmy.world on 12 Sep 2024 21:40 collapse

It’s okay because as the radiation blasts away at the robots circuitry they’ll have to replace it. Then they could just replace it with a better robot every few years as technology improves. It’ll become exponentially more powerful. And by the end of it they’ll have a superpowered radioactive robot… that they’ve… used for slave labor… Huh. Maybe they should rethink this plan.