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Thirty-five years after the world’s worst nuclear disaster in Chernobyl – or in Ukrainian Chornobyl – Professor Tom Scott, a nuclear expert at the University of Bristol and a research fellow at the Royal Academy, is using robot dogs to help local scientists shut down the exploded reactor that in a dilapidated “sarcophagus”.
A sarcophagus, the size of a small cathedral, was built over Reactor 4 after the 1986 explosion to contain radioactive lava, contaminated soil, and debris from the explosion – but the building materials meant it would only last a couple of decades and the roof cracked is a leak.
In 2019, therefore, the construction of a giant hanger-like arch over the reactor and sarcophagus was completed to encase everything for a century so that the dismantling and removal of waste from the remains of the reactor could continue.
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Hear the story of how Professor Scott’s team used camera-equipped robot dogs to 3D map parts of Chornobyl that are too dangerous for humans due to the intense radiation.
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