Just a bit of rust

August 29, 2012

Fukushima fuel rods show no visible damage

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120830_02.html

The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says there is no visible damage to the surface of fuel rods from the No.4 reactor.

Tokyo Electric Power Company completed a 3-day examination of the rods on Wednesday. The utility is preparing to remove them from the reactor in December next year.

Two trial sets of rods were taken out of the spent fuel pool last month.

The firm said that apart from some rusting, it could see no damage or corrosion to the rod surface or the handle of the rod containers.

But concrete pieces up to 2 centimeters in diameter were found in the rods. They are believed to be fragments of the reactor building from the hydrogen blast that tore it apart in March last year.

The utility suspects that similar radioactive fragments may be scattered over a wide area of the spent fuel pool, complicating the removal process.

The pool contains 1,533 rods, the largest number of all 6 reactors at the plan