Spot the dog? No, we couldn't either because Spot is a robot employed by United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Tired of doing parkour on the internet, robots from Boston Dynamics have been deployed at UK nuclear facilities to carry out routine tasks in dangerous environments. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has held a three-day trial of Boston Dynamics' four-legged Spot at the decommissioned Calder Hall nuclear plant …
The Boston Dynamics videos include several sequnces where ther demonstrate the recovery capability of robots by trying to push them over.
When a two-legged, anthropoid machine staggers but stays standing, my reaction is "That's impressive engineering". When it's the four-legged version, I can't help thinking "Don't be cruel to the doggy".
I'm not one to dismiss the effects of ionising radiation on microelectronics, but chips are less susceptible than meatbags, even if they're modern chips with ridiculously tiny feature sizes that haven't been radiation hardened. And they're more easily replaceable when burnt out. (Unless they are in orbit.)
And it sounds like they're only being used in situations a human could enter. The high radiation environments are where you use the really expensive clockwork models.
I hadn't realised that the UK Atomic Energy Authority had anything at all to do with atomic energy any more. Its website says "UKAEA researches fusion energy and related technologies". But I am sure the Chinese, French and American reactor manufacturers are delighted with the fruits of the billions that the British previously spent on researching nuclear fission.
Since British Governments are congenitally clueless about how to commercially exploit any research, and quite happy to see any British company that does manage that sold off abroad, perhaps yet again the UK is subsidising the research to enable foreign corporations to turn a profit selling us its end products in a few years time.
That's nothing compared to the problem of long term storage of high level radioactive waste.
If the Cro-Magnons had built nuclear power stations at the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago, we would still be having to be guard it.
Whether or not there is any good solution to the disposal high level radioactive waste is strictly constrained by the scientific reality that we have no control over.
There really is no such thing as magic, however hard people might wish for it - and at least some of the human race has learnt that over the past 12,000 years.
We built a very nice facility in Nevada to manage nuclear waste. Technically there's nothing wrong with it. Politically, its a non-starter. (So we keep the high level waste in (leaky) tanks dotted around the country.)
Fortunately nuclear waste lasts a lot longer than politicians.
if they had continually improved the power station and kept the reactors running (by replacing old parts, improving capacity, etc. etc.) instead, it would FUND ITSELF. Waste disposal, like for anything, is part of the operating cost. So other plants would send their waste to Sellafield (for a fee), let's say, and it would get stored and/or processed there, and the site would have its own operating reactors, and no "saddling of expenses" on future generations because it would be SELF SUSTAINING.
and "clever engineering" might even make use of the decay heat.
however, blocking power generation and scientific and engineering progress because "PHEAR NUKE THINGS" is NOT helping... and is CREATING the "saddle expenses on the next generation" problem you pointed out.
(I know something about fission reactors, having operated one for the U.S. Navy back in the day)
icon, because, facepalm
And no-one factored in the "cost" of dumping all that CO2 into the atmosphere, which I think is going to dwarf nuclear remediation. Ironically, the nuclear accident exclusion zones like Chernobyl and Fukushima seem to be something of a boon for the non-human denizens of the planet, who can get on with re-wilding without our interference.
My dad took me and my dog on a trip to Windscale at the height of the emissions in the seventies, he thought the nuclear mess was interesting to visit. Mickey was charming and brave and I'd hug him every day, but he was also a mutt and he delighted in rolling over the corpses of the many hundreds of dead seagulls there.
We never thought why all the dead seagulls, apparently they drank and swam upon vast open vats of radioactive waste water. Which are still there, still open.
Mickey died the next year and my own health plummeted from fittest in my year to least fit.
I know, correlation is not causation but if someone kills your dog and robs you of your health then suspicions arise. To hell with pro-nuke Monbiot and his pseudo scientific propaganda, we do not need nuclear power, we can't afford it, and if there are future generations then they won't appreciate it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gofman
The Hanford Atomic Reservation in Washington state is at least as problematic as Windscale. Vast tanks of liquid radioactive chemicals must constantly be stirred lest solids settle and begin fissioning, causing the liquids to boil and vaporize.
Unfortunately, the tanks are leaking and the radioactive effluvia are draining towards the mighty Columbia River, threatening the West Coast of the United States. At least we have plutonium bombs to show for it all.
I remember back in the 80s as a 6th Form student doing a summer job at Marchwood Engineering Labs. Some of the 1st year university student interns were working on software for a robot to decommission nuclear stations. Occasionally it would have whoops moments where it rotated the opposite direction from expected to reach a position. I on the other hand was merely allowed to rewrite the database software in Clipper for how to weld the stations together. Those were the days....
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