????日本遭受大地震重創之后已經過去了兩年時間，該國的科學家和工程師仍然在嘗試研發發更先進的技術，以保護福島免受輻射侵害。不過由于研發進展緩慢，而且制度存在缺陷，當地的工人仍然無法采用更先進的技術。

????日本雖以超級科技大國著稱，但在這次災難中為了冷卻核反應堆溫度，最終只能依靠空中潑水這類低技術含量的辦法。兩年前，強輻射讓工程師無法進入核電站的關鍵損毀區域——今天依然如此。本以為能隨時待命的機器人明顯缺席了。日本需要花費10到25億美元拆除福島核電站，而要讓它安全退役，還得花上40年。

????如今，有可能抵達位于反應堆核心的污染重災區的，只有尚處于研發階段的機器人。那么，擁有世界最先進機器人（更不用說機器人數量最多）的日本為何之前沒能配置機器人，讓工人免于從事如此危險的工作呢？

????后藤政志博士曾參與設計了福島第一核電站1號反應堆密閉殼。他說：“最初，日本核能工業和政府都不認為會發生這樣的事故。他們長期以來的觀點是，日本所有的反應堆都‘絕對安全’。換句話說，當局認為，地震根本不會導致反應堆熔毀，有必要事先準備緊急預案或者機器人嗎？那樣做就等于承認危險確實存在，而他們一直否認有任何危險。”

????后藤說：“他們稱地震導致事故的可能性幾乎為零。因此，參與設計核反應堆的公司被告知，并不強制要求該公司為核反應堆密閉殼做抗震處理，但可以自愿無償進行?！?/p>

????盡管建造和運營反應堆的東京電力公司（TEPCO）和政府當局都知道現有的災后應急技術陳舊過時，卻在準備熔毀事故應急方案（例如機器人救援）時幾乎無所作為。不論過去還是現在，廉價的核能對日本經濟競爭力實在是太過重要了。

????幸運的是，到目前為止，福島泄露的核輻射僅有切爾諾貝利核電站泄漏事故的十分之一。當年，那所烏克蘭核電站的屋頂被掀翻，如煙囪一般將核微粒噴灑向四面八方。福島核電站被關閉，切爾諾貝利核電站卻沒有。全面的安全協議發揮了作用，避免了更大的災難，但是目前反應堆仍然不穩定。然而問題是，現在的機器仍然無法從附近的反應堆堆芯中安全地獲取正確的數據。日本核能監察機構原子力安全保安院（NISA）的嘉點森山承認：“很難搞清楚燃料究竟在哪。我們無法靠近，開展測量工作?！?/p>

????福島核電站的工人則處在事件最中心——這些不走運的人承擔了這項任務，每次只能在這些灑滿殘骸的核反應堆建筑中工作很短的時間。輻射強到可以干擾電子設備，所有捐贈給福島核電站的美國機器人都在任務中失去了聯系，一同失蹤的還有一臺名為“Quince”的日本機器人。因此，某些最危險的任務還是只能通過人力來完成。

????Two years since a shudder in the Earth's crust devastated Japan, the country's 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.

????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.

????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?

????"For a start," says Dr. Masashi Goto who worked on designing containment vessels of Mark-1 reactors like those at Fukushima Daiichi, "neither Japan's 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.

????"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."

????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 Japan's economic competitiveness.

????Luckily, so far radiation released from Fukushima is only one tenth of Chernobyl's. 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 can't get close enough for proper measurements," admits Yoshinori Moriyama, of Japan's nuclear watchdog NISA.

????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.