Delay in Retrieving Nuclear Debris in Fukushima

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced that starting of retrieving highly radioactive debris remaining at the bottom of crippled reactors in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) will be delayed as late as FY2037. Although the company does not change the schedule of ending decommissioning process, which will be 2051, the change of schedule for retracting debris represents difficulty of decommissioning process in Fukushima with no precedent in the world.

Losing water to cool reactors after being soaked in tsunami caused by East Japan Great Earthquake in 2011, nuclear fuel in three reactors in FDNPP melted down and remains untouched. The debris amounts to 880 metric ton. Thirteen years after the severe accident, TEPCO for the first time was able to take out a small amount of debris, less than teaspoonful amount, last November.

 

TEPCO had a plan to start removing the debris by early 2030s. It assumes to crack debris down into small pieces and retrieve from the hole in the side wall. The process will be highly difficult with high radiation dispersed from the debris, making people unable to approach. In the process of retrieving, debris will be concreted and cooled with water.

 

TEPCO supposes that it takes time to establish detailed method for the process. It takes 12 to 15 years to breakdown a building close to the reactors and for basic research about the facilities and measures to reduce radiation. Even if TEPCO is successful in starting retrieve of debris, it is still unclear when the process will be finished.

 

The decommissioning process is based on a roadmap made by the government of Japan and TEPCO in November 2011. The roadmap sets three stages for finishing decommissioning: removing used nuclear fuels starting 2013, retracting melt-down debris starting 2024, and finishing all the process by between 2041 and 2051. However, the schedule has been delayed. TEPCO has not begun removing used nuclear fuels in the building of reactors #1 and #2. It continues safety examinations about the method for retrieving the debris.

 

It is still unclear where the debris to go, even if the company starts the retrieving. There is no final disposal site for nuclear waste in Japan. The site is necessary not only for debris in Fukushima but for used nuclear fuels. Nevertheless, the government of Japan is gradually shifting its policy of getting rid of nuclear power generation to increase or renew nuclear power plants which certainly produce nuclear waste.

 

TEPCO could not imagine such a severe accident can occur before the disaster in Fukushima and it has not found the solution to settle broken site. The investigation committee of the Diet concluded that the accident was not natural but manmade disaster. Effort to control the uncontrollable continues.

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