How to Clean Up Hundreds of Tons of Melted Nuclear Fuel
- Tepco released first images likely showing lost Fukushima fuel
- Clean up expected to last 40 years, cost more than $70 billion
Three Robots Abandoned at Fukushima
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More than six years after three nuclear reactors melted down in Japan, the country is homing in on the lost fuel inside one of them. Japan’s biggest utility and owner of the wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc., last week released images that for the first time showed what’s likely melted fuel inside the No. 3 reactor.
If confirmed, the nation will have to devise a way to remove the highly radioactive material, a mixture of melted nuclear fuel and reactor debris known as corium. The cleanup process that may last 40 years and cost 8 trillion yen ($72 billion) will require technology not yet invented.