use the robots!

[kittenscribble]

I woke this morning to the news that the attempt to use helicopters to dump seawater on the reactors was called off, because the radiation above the plants was just too strong.

I respect their pulling back the pilots in those cases, but it made me wonder: why can't we use robots? We have UAVs that can fly over mountains in the Middle East and target insurgents. Can't we arm a UAV with a water cannon, or even just a bucket on a string, and fly it right over the reactor without irradiating a single human being?

Am I missing something? Why are we not doing this? I mean, if anyone can design a robot to do this sort of thing, I would think it would be the Japanese.

Comments

[p-sunshine.livejournal.com]

So I was reading that one of that major problems is that they need to get power back to the pumps, so they're trying to figure out the logistics of getting lines back out there. This might be a dumb question, but what about generators? Not small home ones, but big, hospital sized ones? Short term solution, sure, but while they're working on getting the physical lines back, it could help?

[kittenscribble.livejournal.com]

They already have a diesel generator attached to at least one of the units, and GE is sending gas turbines over to help out. With the damage to the area and infrastructure, though, it's apparently been hard to get anything at all to the plants.

Murphy's Law has really been in force out there.

[p-sunshine.livejournal.com]

Oh! I hadn't seen anything about the reactors being built by GE before. I guess it makes sense though.