An attempt to remove a sample of highly radioactive debris trapped in the reactors of the Fukushima nuclear power plant began on Tuesday, Japanese operator Tepco announced. “At 07:20 (22:20 GMT Monday)the pilot extraction operation has started”Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said in a statement.
Using a probe equipped with a robotic arm, Tepco is seeking to recover a tiny quantity (three grams) of the 880 tons of radioactive debris believed to be inside the reactors of the nuclear power plant hit by the devastating tsunami of 2011, in order to analyze it and decide what to do next. The maneuver, which should last about two weeks according to Tepco, was initially scheduled to begin on August 22 but was suspended after a technical problem.
Decontamination work expected to last several decades
Three of Fukushima’s six reactors were operating when the tsunami struck the plant on March 11, 2011, melting the cooling systems and causing the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The debris has such high levels of radiation that the operator had to develop specialized robots capable of withstanding it to operate inside. Removing the debris is considered the most difficult challenge in the decommissioning project. The decontamination and dismantling work is expected to take decades.
Tepco had sent two mini-drones and a mini-robot, in the shape of a snake, into one of the three seriously damaged reactors at the end of February. But the operation was interrupted for technical reasons. Japan began releasing water stored at the plant site into the Pacific Ocean at the end of August 2023. China in particular strongly criticized this operation, although this process had been validated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and responded by suspending all its imports of Japanese seafood since the summer of 2023, imitated by Russia a few months later.
