軍用ロボ、フクシマに投入 米ハイテク企業が名乗り
2011年4月1日8時44分
福島救援で来日したものと同型の軍事ロボット「タロン」＝キネティック北米社提供
福島救援で来日したものと同型の軍事ロボット「ドラゴン・ランナー」＝キネティック北米社提供
福島第一原発に投入されるものと同型の軍事ロボット「ドラゴン・ランナー」＝キネティック北米社提供
東京電力福島第一原発の事故を受け、遠隔操作ロボットの開発が盛んな米国から、複数のハイテク企業が支援に名乗りを上げている。イラク戦争に使われた軍用ロボも投入される。原発事故という特殊現場での効果は未知数だが、期待は高まっている。
「日本政府が世界にロボット、無人機を求めています」。世界の注目が「フクシマ」に集まっていた３月２２日、米バージニア州にある国際無人機協会（ＡＵＶＳＩ）のホームページに会員企業向けの案内が載った。
ロボット開発に取り組む研究者や企業でつくる世界最大の業界団体で、現在５５カ国から２千社以上が加盟している。協会によると、原発事故後、日本政府が米国務省にロボットや無人機の支援を要請。現時点で少なくとも３社が支援に動き出しているという。
キネティック北米社は、遠隔操作できる長いアームを備えた積み込み機（ローダー）を東京電力に提供した。前後のカメラ７台と熱探知カメラなどで現場の状況を把握。アーム先端のショベルや電動カッター、粉砕器なども操作できる。
国防産業とのつながりが深い同社は、無限軌道走行型の軍用ロボット「タロン」と「ドラゴン・ランナー」も日本に送り込んだ。
タロンは米軍ロボの先駆的存在で、路上の爆発物の探知・処理に多用されている。イラクやアフガンなどの戦地、同時多発テロの現場などに投入されてきた。今回のタロンには放射性物質の精密測定器や暗視カメラも搭載済みだ。
ドラゴンは米海兵隊向けに開発された小型ロボで、屋内の偵察や車両底部の不審物探査などの任務に適している。原発内部に入り込み、詳細な破損状況の確認などに使われることが想定されている。
遠隔操作ロボの開発は軍事利用が念頭に置かれているが、原発事故の直後には、日本の防衛省関係者の間で「今回は戦地に並ぶ危険任務。遠隔操作可能な無人機、ロボットを投入できれば、人的リスクを軽減できる」との期待が高まっていた。国際無人機協会によると日本側が求めているのは、（１）運搬用ロボット、（２）原発の深部に入り込んで破損状況など詳細データを収集できる小型ロボット、（３）放射能汚染区域にも物資や機器を運べる、遠隔操作型の無人ヘリコプターやトラック――の３点だった。
世界における軍事ロボの広がりに詳しい米ブルッキングス研究所のピーター・シンガー上級研究員によると、多くの米企業がアイデアや技術の提供を申し出ている。原発という珍しいケースのため、試作品の投入も検討されているという。
シンガー氏は今回の危機には「ロボットのあり方が試されている。テクノロジーそのものは善悪を決めない。技術の進歩がどのような結果を生むか、それはひとえに人類がどのように技術を利用するかにかかっている」と朝日新聞の取材に語った。（金成隆一）
◇
日本のロボットも現地に１台が派遣されている。放射線計測器やカメラなどを積んだ「防災モニタリングロボット」だ。原子力安全技術センターが１億円弱をかけ、２０００年に開発した。
これまで防災訓練で使われていたが、「実戦」は初めて。地震発生から数日後に東電側に引き渡された。ただ「使用状況に関する情報は入っていない」（同センター）という。
「ロボット先進国」の日本では、原子力施設の事故に対応する専用のロボットも開発してきた。
同センターのほかに、旧日本原子力研究所（現・日本原子力研究開発機構）も、９９年に茨城県東海村のＪＣＯで起きた臨界事故の後、放射性物資で汚染された場所の状況を把握することなどができるロボット５台を開発した。
だが、福島には派遣されていない。今はもう動かないからだ。予算がつかなくなり、維持管理ができなくなったためという。（小宮山亮磨）
Live-Blogging a Senate Briefing on Nuclear Safety
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times David Lochbaum, left, director of the Nuclear Power Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Anthony R. Pietrangelo, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute, testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee heard from four experts on Japan’s nuclear crisis and efforts to limit risks at nuclear plants in the United States.
11:49 a.m. |Wrapping Up Testimony
The briefing concluded at 11:45 a.m.
11:42 a.m. |The U.S. Backup-Battery Situation
After the tsunami knocked out power at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that American reactors had batteries that would last for four or eight hours. David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Power Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the committee that this was true, sort of. Only 11 of the American reactors have eight-hour batteries, and 93 have four-hour batteries, he said.
“When the event lasts longer than our assumptions, either four or eight hours, we shouldn’t leave operators with no choices,” said Mr. Lochbaum, a nuclear industry veteran who is among the most technically proficient of the industry’s opponents. If the batteries run out, power from the grid is not restored, and the diesel generators stop running, leaving operators with no options “other than a miracle,” he said.
“Miracles are great, but you can’t rely on them,” he said. “Japan showed the price of not doing that.”
Testifying with Mr. Lochbaum was Anthony R. Pietrangelo, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade association. “To get to 48 hours, or 72 hours, pick a number,” he said. “We’re going to have to take a hard look and see what resources would be required.”
He said that extending battery capability was “one of the obvious places we’ll have to look.”
But he emphasized that a natural catastrophe that wiped out the grid, the diesel generators and other plant equipment was highly unlikely. “It’s hard to postulate that here,” he said. “It’s very, very unlikely for that to occur and destroy the entire infrastructure around the plant.”
11:26 a.m. |U.S. Workers Keep a Distance From Japan’s Radiation
The State Department has told American citizens to stay 50 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and it turns out that American government personnel who have been sent over to help are keeping their distance as well.
Mr. Lyons described radiation levels at a radius of 2.5 miles from the plant. He said levels were much higher at the plant itself, but “our flights are not going closer than that.”
The maximum level of radiation observed on the ground 2.5 miles away is 30 millirems per hour, he said. One hour of exposure to that level would subject someone to roughly what the average American gets in a month from background radiation. Exposure at that rate for a day and a half would put a person around the threshold at which the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission advise evacuating or taking shelter.
But Mr. Lyons said exposure rates had dropped since that peak reading.
(As he left the hearing room, Mr. Lyons said that the robots the United States is sending to Japan, mentioned earlier in the briefing, could take pictures as well as measure radiation fields. They could go places where “you certainly wouldn’t send a person,” he said, adding that they have been used in cleanups of Energy Department weapons manufacturing sites.)
7:47 p.m. | Updated
The United States is shipping a “Talon” robot, built by Qinetiq, equipped to take pictures and provide a radiation map of areas with high radiation. The military uses them in war zones.
11:02 a.m. |Franken Asks About Flood Risks in U.S.
So far there has not been much sharp questioning of the witnesses, but Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, did some probing. “We have a plant in Monticello, Minn., that is the same design as the Fukushima reactors,’’ he said. An earthquake there is unlikely, and “if we have a tsunami there, we’ve probably got bigger problems,’’ he said, drawing laughter from the room.
“But we do have floods,’’ Mr. Franken said. “Any chance that the backup generators at places like Prairie Island in Minnesota or Monticello could get overwhelmed by flooding?”
Mr. Borchardt responded that the plants were designed and built after a careful consideration of historical records of floods and other natural phenomena.
Senator Franken asked, “And do they do those kinds of reviews in Japan?”
“I really can’t speak to that,” Mr. Borchardt replied.
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing to know?” Senator Franken said. “Certainly, yes, sir,” Mr. Borchardt said.
Senator Franken added, “I would suggest you hop right on that.” Then he pushed a bit further. “Are any reactors in the U.S. built near faults, or oceans?”
“Or just one ocean?” he amended, to further laughter.
10:45 a.m. |U.S. to Send Robots to Japan
The Energy Department is preparing a shipment of radiation-hardened robots and personnel to show the Japanese how to use them, Mr. Lyons said. “A shipment is being readied — I don’t know if it has left yet,” he said. “The government of Japan is very, very interested in the capabilities that could be brought to bear from this country.”
Mr. Lyons, responding to a question from Senator Murkowski, said the robots could help collect some but not all of the information needed on the state of the reactors.
Both he and Mr. Borchardt declined to predict when conditions would stabilize enough for a thorough evaluation of the reactors’ condition. “I can’t even hazard a guess,” Mr. Borchardt said.
Senator Bingaman, the committee chairman, asked what effect the action would have on re-licensing reactors in the United States. More than half the 104 reactors in service have won 20-year license extensions, and all or nearly all of the others are expected to as well.
This was a question Mr. Borchardt could answer unequivocally: none, he said. “If there was a design change necessary in order to adapt the plants to what we’re learning from Japan, we would take that action absent or outside the license renewal process,’’ he said. “We would take that action without hesitation.”
There is “no technical reason I’m aware of that this would impact the license renewal process,” he said.
Some senators and many opponents of nuclear power have called for a moratorium on re-licensing.
Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, asked about the storage of spent nuclear fuel since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Some engineers have said it would be safer to move more of the older fuel from pools to dry casks, which require no mechanical cooling.
Mr. Lyons, who noted that he was a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when spent fuel storage was reviewed, replied, “Using the best info we had at the time, both storage systems were deemed to be safe.”
The spent fuel pools at Fukushima, while adding yet another problem to the travails of the nuclear complex, are not nearly as heavily loaded as American spent fuel pools, however.
10:04 a.m. |‘A Slow Recovery From the Accident’
Seawater cooling, a desperate measure, has ended at the three Fukushima Daiichi reactors that were running at the time of the earthquake, and freshwater cooling has resumed, William Borchardt, the top staff official of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told the committee.
And the Energy Department official in charge of promoting that technology, Peter Lyons, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that there was progress in Japan but still a long way to go.
“Current information suggests that the plants are in a slow recovery from the accident,” said Mr. Lyons, who was appointed as assistant secretary of energy but is “acting” in that role because the Senate has not confirmed him. “However, long-term cooling of the reactors and pools is essential during this period and has not been adequately restored to date, to the best of my knowledge.”
The session is officially not a hearing but a briefing. At a hearing, witnesses are supposed to file their testimony 72 hours in advance. “Things are changing rapidly at the Fukushima nuclear power plant,” said the committee chairman, Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico.
Mr. Lyons was vague on some points. He stepped back slightly from the statement two weeks ago by Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that one of the spent fuel pools was empty, or nearly so. “Water levels in the spent fuel pools were also a concern, with some reports that at least one was empty for some time,’’ he said.
He said his department had deployed 40 people and 17,000 pounds of gear, including some that measure radiation from aircraft.
The committee’s ranking Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, pointed out that among the problems for the plant workers is that the earthquake and tsunami may have killed relatives and destroyed their homes.
“It’s probably too early for us to say that the situation is under control,’’ said Senator Murkowski, who, like Senator Bingaman, is a strong backer of nuclear power.
沒有留言:
張貼留言