nuclear-news

Decommissioning Fukushima nuclear reactors will take 50 years at the very least

Stricken nuke plant struggles on, Yahoo 7 Finance, AAP  Jun 10, 2013 “……Experts, including even the most optimistic government officials, say decommissioning Fukushima Dai-ichi will take nearly a half-century.

TEPCO acknowledges that the exact path to decommissioning remains unclear because an assessment of the state of the melted reactor cores has not yet been carried out. Since being brought under control following the disaster, the plant has suffered one setback after another.

A dead rat caused a power blackout, including temporarily shutting down reactor-cooling systems, and leaks required tons of water to be piped into hundreds of tanks and underground storage areas.

The process of permanently shutting down the plant hasn’t gotten started yet and the work up to now has been one makeshift measure after another to keep the reactors from deteriorating.

Thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods that are outside the reactors also have to be removed and safely stored. Taking them out is complex because the explosions at the plant have destroyed parts of the structure used to move the rods under normal conditions. The process of taking out the rods, one by one, hasn’t even begun yet. The spent rods have been used as fuel for the reactors but remain highly radioactive…….”.http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/stricken-nuke-plant-struggles-000105277.html

June 12, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | decommission reactor, Fukushima 2013, Japan