Six years after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami events, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), owner of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, is seeking partners to help develop technology that would move the massive decommissioning project forward.
Tepco said Thursday it was “seeking to expand its technology collaboration with partners in the long-term work to decontaminate and decommission,” the nuclear power plant that suffered the worst accident at a nuclear power plant since the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl in Ukraine.
In the past six years, Tepco has been working with many partners, in particular Toshiba and GE Hitachi (GEH) with tasks that range from water purification to sending robot probes into the damaged pressurized containment vessels to assess conditions inside the reactors.
Tepco has now established a website to solicit partners to help develop new cleanup technology. "Of particular interest,” the company said, is help developing technology for reducing the volume of waste, “such as plastic and polyethylene, used in water storage tanks that store RO-concentrated salt water,” and consulting services concerning methods for on-site recycling in otder to reduce the amount of radioactive solid waste being generated at the site.
Tepco also listed “electricity-related” needs, including technology for leveraging drones and man-made satellites to quickly ascertain the status of company equipment and the surrounding environment “in the event of a natural disaster.”
Tepco also called for help managing large volumes of recorded data and technology related to electronic monitoring of the facility and conditions of equipment, as well as measuring “attributes about the surrounding environment.”
The company noted that there were many other needs, which are outlined on the new website at https://cuusoo.com/projects/49497.