[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Japan mulls emergency system to deal with nuclear accidents



Japan mulls emergency system to deal with nuclear accidents

TOKYO, April 12 (Kyodo) - Japan is considering introducing in the 
nuclear power industry an emergency-response system led by the 
private sector in which remote-controlled robots will be used to deal 
with accidents involving radiation leaks, government sources said 
Wednesday. 

The government has begun discussions on the planned emergency-
response system, after studying similar systems in France and 
Germany, the sources said. 

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry announced in January 
that it and several Japanese firms will launch a 3 billion yen 
project to jointly develop by the end of March 2001 remote-controlled 
robots that can deal with radiation leaks. 

But the government has not yet announced any plan regarding who 
should be in charge of managing the robots. 

The government decided to accelerate efforts to develop robots for 
dealing with radiation leaks after seeing some 80 workers exposed to 
radiation in operations to deal with a leak at the nuclear 
reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, last September 
in Japan's worst nuclear accident. 

Workers risked radiation exposure when they drained water from the 
accident site to halt a nuclear chain reaction and during operations 
to minimize the radiation leakage from the uranium processing plant 
where the chain reaction occurred. 

The government studied between January and March how the United 
States and some European countries deal with emergency situations at 
nuclear facilities, the government sources said. 

In France, Groupe INTRA, financed half by the government and half by 
electric power companies, possesses a number of robots resistant to 
radiation as well as vehicles for use in operations to deal with 
nuclear accidents. 

INTRA officials say workers can combat leaks at a distance of 10 
kilometers from an accident site by using vehicles equipped with 
antennas and robots. The French body has an annual budget worth 800 
million yen. 

In Germany, KHG, funded jointly by 43 electric power companies, 
provides the emergency-response system. In one incident in which a 
radioactive material was lost in a hospital, it sent in a robot to 
search for it. The body has an annual budget worth 700 million yen. 

''We can learn a lot from France and Germany where emergency-response 
systems function well by minimizing involvement by the government,'' 
a government official said. 

In Japan, three domestic companies -- Toshiba Corp., Hitachi Ltd. and 
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. -- and Cybernetix, a French robot 
maker, will be in charge of developing several types of remote-
controlled, radiation-resistant robots, according to industry 
sources. 

The government is asking the makers to develop robots that can 
withstand 10 sieverts of gamma rays per hour, the sources said. 

Cybernetix, which makes robots for INTRA and KHG, can make robots 
capable of withstanding radiation exposure of about 1,000 times the 
requested level, the sources said. 

It is also hoped that through the joint robot development project the 
Japanese companies will learn advanced robot technology as well as 
know-how on using robots from Cybernetix, an industry source said. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Division		Fax:(714) 668-3149 	                   		    
ICN Biomedicals, Inc.				E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 				                           
ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue  		E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com          	          
Costa Mesa, CA 92626                                      

Personal Website:  http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com

************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html