LOVELAND- A Colorado company is playing a big role in an effort to fix one of the worst nuclear disasters in modern history. Three years ago, a massive 9.0 earthquake rocked Japan, creating a devastating tsunami and killing more than 19,000 people. It also damaged a nuclear plant on the coast – and it’s been spewing radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean ever since.In a nondescript building near Loveland, though, a series of tests are underway, to see if a Colorado company’s invention can lend Japan a helping hand- or in this case, an arm.
“As soon as the disaster happened, our group, the first thing we said is, ‘we know we can help there,'” said Marc Rood, business development director for the company Kurion.The company has spent the past year building a carbon fiber, robotic arm, designed to go where humans cannot: to discover radioactive leaks in the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Kurion is one of only a handful of American companies working on the clean-up at Fukushima.