TOKYO — Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has resumed its trial removal of nuclear fuel debris from the Fukushima Daiichi plant after a previous attempt was halted last month due to equipment malfunction. This marks the first extraction attempt since the plant was damaged by the 2011 tsunami, followed by three suspensions.
On August 22, Tepco suspended the trial after discovering that five pipes used to insert a retrieval device into the No. 2 reactor’s containment vessel had been improperly set up. After correcting the pipe installation, Tepco has now passed a device through an isolation valve designed to block radioactive material. The device, which extends up to 22 meters, will be used to collect less than 3 grammes of debris, with the process expected to take about two weeks.
This effort is part of the extensive and prolonged decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which still contains an estimated 880 tons of fuel debris in reactors 1, 2, and 3. The extraction will be conducted remotely, and methods for retrieving all the debris have not yet been finalised.
“The government wishes to ask Tepco to respond even more quickly as we enter the most difficult phase, which will be the basis for the decontamination of the plant,” said government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi on Tuesday.
The disaster on March 11, 2011, caused by a tsunami, led to the failure of cooling systems in three of the plant’s six reactors, resulting in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The high radiation levels of the debris have necessitated the use of specialised robots to operate within the reactors.
Earlier this year, Tepco sent two mini-drones and a snake-shaped mini-robot into one of the severely damaged reactors, but the operation was interrupted due to technical issues. Additionally, Japan began releasing stored water from the plant into the Pacific Ocean at the end of August 2023, leading to a ban on Japanese seafood imports by China, Japan’s largest seafood buyer.
