"A key step" toward decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi

July 19, 2012 

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Trial transfer: Work to remove a nuclear fuel assembly is under way Wednesday atop the heavily damaged building of reactor 4 at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. KYODO

Fuel rods removed from Fukushima plant pool

Jiji, AFP-Jiji

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120719a2.html#.UAgsUqBIwpU

Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Wednesday removed one of two unused nuclear fuel assemblies from the spent-fuel pool of reactor 4 at its Fukushima No. 1 power station.

Television footage showed dozens of workers, all wearing white protective suits, atop the heavily damaged unit 4 building, extracting the fuel rods with a crane. TV crews used helicopters to film the operation, defying requests from Tepco.

The operation is a trial ahead of the planned transfer of all the fuel assemblies now in the spent-fuel pool to a common pool in another part of the stricken plant. The transfer is expected to start by the end of 2014.

During the work, Tepco removed one of two unused fuel assemblies, which emit relatively low levels of radiation. The other assembly is expected to be removed Thursday.

Tepco will scrutinize the two to see if and how they have been affected by a hydrogen explosion at reactor 3 and the use of seawater to cool the fuel assemblies.

Reactor 4 had no fuel in its core when the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami hit the plant in March last year. The reactor had been shut down for maintenance.

At the time disaster struck, 1,535 fuel assemblies were stored in the spent-fuel pool. Of the total, 1,331 were spent fuel assemblies while 204 were unused.

2nd unused nuclear fuel assembly taken from Fukushima plant

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120719p2g00m0dm062000c.html

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. took out an unused nuclear fuel assembly from a spent fuel pool at the No. 4 reactor of its Fukushima Daiichi power plant Thursday, after removing another fuel assembly Wednesday, sources close to the matter said.

The operation came as the utility examines the extent of damage to the stored fuel before starting the full removal of fuel assemblies at the plant in December 2013.

It marks a key step in the process toward decommissioning the Nos. 1 to 4 units at the plant, which was crippled by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

As was the case with the first nuclear fuel assembly taken out Wednesday, TEPCO used a crane to remove the second one from the pool on the fifth floor of the reactor building, cleaned it with pure water and put it into a special container, the sources said.

The fuel assemblies in the special containers will be transferred to a so-called shared pool in a different building at the plant. Each assembly is about 4 meters long, weighing some 300 kilograms.

The utility has refused to disclose any information on the operation, citing nuclear security concerns.

The sources said the utility did not find any major abnormality with regard to the radiation level and to the external appearance of the initially removed fuel.

The removal of the two unused fuel assemblies leaves 1,533 used and unused ones still in the pool of the No. 4 reactor.

When the fatal quake and tsunami hit the plant on March 11 last year, the No. 4 reactor was offline for maintenance work and its fuel was stored in the spent fuel pool. The Nos. 1 to 3 reactors suffered meltdowns in the accident.