How VR brought me inside a

scary-real radioactive
Fukushima reactor
Here’s what it’s like inside the melted-down reactors of
the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Roger Cheng 

March 10, 2021 7:00 a.m. PT

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- 06:12
James Martin/CNET
Editor's note: This story originally ran on March 6, 2018, and we're reposting it
for the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster to give
readers a sense of the technology being employed to fix this enormous problem,
which continues today. To learn more about the ongoing cleanup efforts, read
Japan's latest report, issued to the International Atomic Energy Agency earlier
this month.

I'm inside one of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, site of
the worst nuclear disaster in history. It's pitch black, with only a flashlight to light
my way. I glide over a metal catwalk, heading deeper into the reactor.  But then,
when I turn to walk down the stairs, I hit an obstruction.

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At that moment, a loud buzzer, like something out of an old game show, blasts
into my ears, breaking the whole illusion.

Fixing Fukushima is a CNET multipart series that explores the role technology plays in
cleaning up the worst nuclear disaster in history.
OK, so I'm not actually in the Unit 1 reactor at Fukushima — the radiation level at
its core is high enough that even minutes inside would be a death sentence. I'm
in a virtual reality setup at the Naraha Center for Remote Control Technology,
about a half-hour drive south of the Daiichi facility.

Next to me are my photographer, an interpreter, a representative from Tokyo

Electric Power Co. and an employee of the Naraha facility who's serving as our
guide through this virtual re-creation. We're all staring at a giant screen projected
on the wall just a few feet in front of us and to our sides.

Thanks to robot surveys and loads of data, this facility has been able to piece
together a fairly accurate simulation of the Fukushima reactors. Tepco and the
Japan Atomic Energy Agency have worked together to build this setup. But
unlike other VR experiences, the virtual trip into the facility isn't for fun.
Academics, engineers and Tepco employees use these simulations to get a
sense of what kinds of robots can make it through the reactors, and which can't.

Eight years after an earthquake and tsunami combined to overwhelm Fukushima

Daiichi, the plant remains shut down, with Tepco and the Japanese government
struggling to find ways to remove the radioactive material.