本文摘要:Two years since a shudder in the Earths crust devastated Japan, the countrys scientists and engineers are still attempting to develop technologies to make Fukushima safe from radiation. But progress has been slow and—because of institutional failings—more advanced technologies have not been available to workers at the sire.日本遭到大地震重创之后早已过去了两年时间,该国的科学家和工程师依然在尝试研发发更先进设备的技术,以维护福岛免遭电磁辐射侵犯。
Two years since a shudder in the Earths crust devastated Japan, the countrys scientists and engineers are still attempting to develop technologies to make Fukushima safe from radiation. But progress has been slow and—because of institutional failings—more advanced technologies have not been available to workers at the sire.日本遭到大地震重创之后早已过去了两年时间,该国的科学家和工程师依然在尝试研发发更先进设备的技术,以维护福岛免遭电磁辐射侵犯。不过由于研发进展较慢,而且制度不存在缺失,当地的工人依然无法使用更加先进设备的技术。A country known as a technological superpower ultimately had to rely on low-tech methods during the disaster, including dumping water from the air to cool the raging reactors. High radiation levels prevented engineers from approaching critically damaged areas at the plant two years ago—and still does so today. Robots that some expected to be on call were conspicuously absent. The country faces a bill of between $1 billion and $2.5 billion dollars to dismantle the Fukushima plant, and 40 years until it is safely decommissioned.日本虽以超级科技大国闻名,但在这次灾难中为了加热核反应堆温度,最后不能依赖空中泼水这类较低技术含量的办法。
两年前,强劲电磁辐射让工程师无法转入核电站的关键损坏区域——今天仍然如此。本以为能随时待命的机器人显著缺席了。
日本必须花费10到25亿美元拆毁福岛核电站,而要让它安全性除役,还得花上上40年。Only now are robots being developed that might be able to access the most contaminated areas within the shattered reactors cores. So how did Japan, with the worlds most advanced robots (not to mention the biggest population of them), fail to deploy the machines that might have spared dangerous human toil?如今,有可能到达坐落于反应堆核心的污染重灾区的,只有尚能正处于研发阶段的机器人。那么,享有世界最先进设备机器人(更加不用说机器人数量最多)的日本为何之前没有能配备机器人,让工人免遭专门从事如此危险性的工作呢?For a start, says Dr. Masashi Goto who worked on designing containment vessels of Mark-1 reactors like those at Fukushima Daiichi, neither Japans nuclear power industry nor the government concede that an accident like this could ever happen. They have long held that all of Japan reactors are absolutely safe. In other words, why prepare emergency backups or robots for the event of a quake-induced meltdown when the authorities denied such a thing could ever happen? Doing so would acknowledge a danger perpetually denied.后藤政志博士曾参予设计了福岛第一核电站1号反应堆密封壳。
他说道:“最初,日本核能工业和政府都不指出不会再次发生这样的事故。他们长期以来的观点是,日本所有的反应堆都‘意味著安全性’。换句话说,当局指出,地震显然会造成反应堆熔毁,有适当事前打算应急预案或者机器人吗?那样做到就相等否认危险性显然不存在,而他们仍然坚称有任何危险性。
”They said that accidents owing to earthquakes would be minimal, adds Goto. As a consequence the companies involved in designed these reactors were told only to make voluntary efforts to make the reactors containment vessel quake proof.后藤说道:“他们称之为地震造成事故的可能性完全为零。因此,参予设计核反应堆的公司被告诉,并不强迫拒绝该公司为核反应堆密封壳做到抗震处置,但可以强迫使用权展开。
”Although TEPCO the firm that built and ran the reactors, and the authorities knew disaster response technology on hand was old, little was done to provide backups, such as robots, in the event of a meltdown. Cheap nuclear power was—and still is—too important to Japans economic competitiveness.尽管修建和运营反应堆的东京电力公司(TEPCO)和政府当局都告诉现有的灾后应急技术陈旧过时,却在打算熔毁事故应急方案(例如机器人救援)时完全无所作为。不论过去还是现在,廉价的核能对日本经济竞争力觉得是过于过最重要了。
Luckily, so far radiation released from Fukushima is only one tenth of Chernobyls. The Ukrainian plant blew its top, literally, and spewed, chimney like, nuclear fallout far and wide. Daiichi shutdown, Chernobyl did not. Enough safety protocols functioned to avert an even larger disaster, but the reactors remain unstable. Still, the fact is that no machine exists that can safely obtain proper readings from near the radioactive cores. It will be difficult to explain where the fuel is. We cant get close enough for proper measurements, admits Yoshinori Moriyama, of Japans nuclear watchdog NISA.幸运地的是,到目前为止,福岛泄漏的核辐射仅有切尔诺贝利核电站外泄事故的十分之一。当年,那所乌克兰核电站的屋顶被冲入,如烟囱一般将核反应微粒倾倒向四面八方。
福岛核电站被重开,切尔诺贝利核电站却没。全面的安全性协议充分发挥了起到,防止了更大的灾难,但是目前反应堆依然不平稳。然而问题是,现在的机器依然无法从附近的反应堆堆芯中安全性地提供准确的数据。日本核能监察机构原子力安全性保安院(NISA)的嘉点森山否认:“很难搞清楚燃料到底在哪。
我们无法附近,积极开展测量工作。”At the centre of all this are the Daiichi workers—those unlucky enough to have the task, limited to a few moments at a time, of labouring inside the debris-strewn reactor buildings. With radiation high enough to sabotage electronics, American robots donated to the Daiichi plant have been missing in action, along with a Japanese robot dubbed Quince. Human labor for some of the most dangerous tasks has had to substitute.福岛核电站的工人则处在事件最中心——这些不走运的人分担了这项任务,每次不能在这些洒满残骸的核反应堆建筑中工作很短的时间。电磁辐射强劲到可以阻碍电子设备,所有捐献给福岛核电站的美国机器人都在任务中丧失了联系,一起下落不明的还有一台取名为“Quince”的日本机器人。
因此,某些最危险性的任务还是不能通过人力来已完成。
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