Photo/Illutration The tip of a crane device, equipped with two cameras and a gripper, used to collect melted nuclear fuel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant (Takuya Tanabe)

Tokyo Electric Power Co. will need to retrieve additional melted nuclear fuel from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant because the sample obtained earlier this month was too small for a sufficient analysis.

TEPCO on Nov. 28 announced plans for a second operation to collect radioactive debris from the plant’s No. 2 reactor.

The decision follows the company’s extraction of 0.7 gram of fuel debris on Nov. 7. It was the first fuel sample retrieved since the triple meltdown caused by by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Scientists are currently analyzing the sample. Their findings will be used to develop a strategy for removing the hundreds of tons of debris that remain in the plant’s three melted-down reactors.

The analysis process could take up to a year.

However, Nuclear Regulatory Authority Chairman Shinsuke Yamanaka and members of the government’s expert panel have emphasized that additional samples will be needed for a more thorough analysis.

In a second operation, engineers are expected to use the same remote-controlled robotic crane that was deployed in the first operation.

Previously, TEPCO planned to test a different device designed for the project during this second operation.

However, that device’s robotic arm--partly funded by taxpayer money--has faced repeated technical setbacks and is not ready for immediate use.

(This article was written by Keitaro Fukuchi and Fumi Yada.)

Related News