The idea of a nuclear power plant having a meltdown is one that strikes fear into the hearts of most people. It’s a massively dangerous event that can affect people all around the world and can take decades or more to contain or clean up even then leading to areas becoming uninhabitable for millennia.

The most recent major nuclear disaster happened at and saw several reactors melt their fuel, some of which then went on to have a hydrogen explosion. Since the meltdown occurred, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been working to document and clean the huge radioactive mess there, but, , it’s not using people to do this deadly work. It’s using robots.

This video from the not only goes into the many different types of robots used at Fukushima, some of American and most of Japanese design, but it also goes into a brief history of the use of robots in nuclear disasters going back to .

Robotics is cool (other than those terrifying Boston Dynamics robots), and this is a case where they’re not just doing important work with bleeding-edge technology; they’re actively saving lives.