They say that the first stage, comprising radiological surveys, will take ten years. The second stage, which will involve clearing the equipment from around the nuclear reactors, will last 12 years. Removal of the reactors (stage 3) and demolition of the reactor buildings (stage 4), will each last 11 years.

But these estimates are useless. The U.S. has been cleaning up Hanford, WA, site of the reactors that made the plutonium in the Alamagordo bomb, and then the Nagasaki bomb, for decades, at an every mounting cost and an ever-receding completion date. Turns out that generating large amounts of high-level nuclear waste turns out to be a bit more challenging to deal with than the techno-optimists ever dreamed. If there’s anyone around with the consciousness to care several hundred years from now, the creation of nuclear waste is going to be a very nasty reminder of how stupid we were.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. has estimated that it will take 44 years to decommission its Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant.

Tepco presented the outline of decommissioning plans to the municipal assembly of Tomioka, one of the two host towns of the nuclear plant, on Wednesday.

The Fukushima No. 2 plant is located south of the No. 1 plant, which suffered a triple meltdown accident in the wake of the March 2011 massive earthquake and tsunami.

According to the outline, the decommissioning process for the No. 2 plant will have four stages, taking 10 years for the first stage, 12 years for the second stage and 11 years each for the third and fourth stages.

Tepco will survey radioactive contamination at the nuclear plant in the first stage, clear equipment around nuclear reactors in the second, remove the reactors in the third and demolish the reactor buildings in the fourth.

Meanwhile, the plant operator will transfer a total of 9,532 spent nuclear fuel units at the plant to a fuel reprocessing company by the end of the decommissioning process, and 544 unused fuel units to a processing firm by the start of the third stage.

Tepco will submit its finalized decommissioning plans for the Fukushima No. 2 plant to the Nuclear Regulation Authority after gaining approval from the municipal governments of Tomioka and the other host town, Naraha, as well as the Fukushima Prefectural Government.