TEPCO didn't bother developing robots b/c cheap expendable workers were available

[franzia99]

Apparently you CAN put a price on human life, if you're a TEPCO executive.

http://www.slate.com/id/2290932/

A month into Japan's nuclear crisis, no robots have been put to work at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Instead, the plant's operator is relying on a cheaper, expendable resource: humans

Japanese robotics researchers say efforts to develop robots for the nuclear industry have been held back by a lack of enthusiasm from utilities such as Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), operator of Fukushima Daiichi. Japan's government encouraged development of nuclear-response robots for several years after an accident at an atomic-fuel reprocessing station in 1999 released radiation that killed two workers. But with no large market to spur private investment, prototypes languished in the lab and research programmes have been scaled back. In other words, TEPCO and other plant operators decided that robots were too expensive.

Instead, the industry has relied on humans even for its most dangerous routine work, such as transferring waste and scrubbing radiation from spent-fuel pools and reactor buildings. Kyodo News and the New York Times say these jobs have been dumped onto temporary workers, who get lower wages, fewer benefits, and less job security. Japanese regulators report that last year, the industry exposed contract workers to radiation levels about 15 times higher than the radiation levels TEPCO's own employees endured.

At Fukushima, the peril is much greater. Fifty of the 300 workers now at the Daiichi plant are contract laborers. They've been sleeping at the site under lead-lined sheets, sometimes in hallways or against walls, in an overcrowded building incompletely shielded from radiation. Until last week, they were getting only two meals a day. Many have been laying cables, clearing debris, or removing contaminated water. More than 20 have exceeded the traditional prescribed limit for daily radiation exposure. On March 24, two contract workers suffered burned feet from radioactive water.

[BillyJack]

1. I recently had the occasion to talk with a guy who works for Exelon

...he told me that they 'just' sent over 3 guys (and their robots) to Fukushima. It took that long (supposedly) b/c even though Exelon works with TEPCO, the Japanese government & and the US State Department "had to work it all out".

Relating to the OP, I thought it was 'weird' b/c I always thought the Japanese were miles/kilometers ahead of the US with regard to robotic technology.

[madrchsod]

2. older power plants were not designed for the use of robots.