Remote technology centre opens in Japan

A ceremony was held on 30 March to inaugurate a new centre in Fukushima prefecture for the development and testing of remote-controlled equipment for use in decommissioning the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

A ceremony was held on 30 March to inaugurate a new centre in Fukushima prefecture for the development and testing of remote-controlled equipment for use in decommissioning the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The completed test building (Image: JAEA)

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency began construction of the Naraha Remote Technology Development Centre in September 2014. The centre will take charge of the development and demonstration of remote-controlled equipment and devices to be used in the decommissioning of the damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.

The greatest challenge in decommissioning the plant will be removing the fuel debris from the three reactors that suffered meltdowns in the March 2011 accident. However, radiation levels in those reactor buildings remain too high for workers to enter. Therefore remotely operated equipment, such as robots, is needed to carry out investigations and tasks within those areas.

The centre at Naraha-Minami industrial park houses a mock-up of the lower part of a reactor containment vessel, representing the interior of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, as well as an indoor demonstration test area for disaster response robots that will also be used to train operators and other workers.

The Naraha Remote Technology Development Centre consists of two buildings: the research management building equipped with state-of-the-art virtual reality systems used for training workers and the test building. The research management building was completed last year and an opening ceremony for that was held in October. The ceremony was attended by prime minister Shinzo Abe.

The test building was recently completed and will be used for carrying out demonstration tests for the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors. This will include demonstrations for repairing sections from which cooling water is leaking in the lower part of the reactor containment vessel. The building will also be used for developing and demonstrating remote-controlled equipment.

The facility is within 20 km of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, and it is hoped that its work will contribute to the revitalization of the local economy. The evacuation order for the town of Naraha in Fukushima prefecture was lifted last September, allowing residents to return permanently to their homes there.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News