TEPCO



TEPCO

TEPCO

TEPCO

TEPCO

Late last week, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) sent a probe into the damaged second reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant. The probe's mission was to explore the solidity of the nuclear fuel that melted back in 2011, when a tsunami hit the nuclear plant following an earthquake, causing a meltdown of the plant's three reactors.

Eight years later, TEPCO is making slow but steady progress toward decommissioning the three damaged reactors. The mission to touch the melted nuclear fuel with a remote-controlled probe aimed to find out how solid the melted fuel is and whether it could be transported away from the site. This was the first time that field crews had been able to use any device to physically interact with the fuel since the reactor meltdown.

"The observation device made contact with deposits at six locations on the pedestal," TEPCO wrote in a short preliminary report that was published on Friday. "Deposits in five locations could be moved." TEPCO posted a video, which can be found here, of the robotic probe picking up pieces of melted nuclear fuel.

In addition to images taken by the robotic probe (which can be found in the gallery above), TEPCO also took readings on radiation dosage and temperature. The company says it is still analyzing the sensor readings.

According to The Asahi Shimbun , the eight-hour operation helped TEPCO glean information on the kinds of containers it will need to remove the melted nuclear fuel. No material was removed from the reactor. "The retrieval process will start in earnest at one of the reactors in 2021, according to the plan drawn up jointly by the central government and TEPCO," The Asahi Shimbun wrote. The paper noted that TEPCO is scheduled to remove a small amount of nuclear fuel later this year for study.

The melted fuel in reactors 1 and 3 has not been touched yet, but information gathered from this probe will help TEPCO form a plan to move forward in the decommissioning process. Full decommissioning is expected to take 30 or 40 years, according to Bloomberg.

Correction: This story originally stated in the last paragraph that "fuel in reactors 1 and 2 has not been touched yet." In fact the fuel in reactors 1 and 3 has not been touched.

Listing image by TEPCO