Fukushima engineers continue probing reactors www3.nhk.or.jp
Engineers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are continuing their efforts to check the state of molten fuel inside the damaged reactors.
They sent robots into the containment vessels of the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors, hoping to get a glimpse of the melted fuel.
But obstacles prevented a camera from reaching the bottom of the No. 1 reactor's containment vessel, and a robot got stuck while checking the No. 2 reactor.
The government and the plant's operator expect to decide how to remove the fuel debris, as the mixture of molten fuel and reactor parts is known, this year. It's seen as the biggest challenge in decommissioning.
Professor Hajime Asama of the University of Tokyo Graduate School is a technical advisor on decommissioning the reactors.
He says the latest probe didn't provide enough information to make a decision. He is calling for other techniques to be tried, noting that a camera attached to a pipe was able to capture images from beneath the reactor core.
Published Date:2017-03-28