AEC Panel Estimates That Decomissioning Fukushima Nuclear Complex May Take 30 Years Or More - Sci-Am

[hatrack]

TOKYO, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Japan will likely need more than 30 years to dismantle the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, the Atomic Energy Commission said on Friday, underscoring its prolonged challenges after the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

A massive earthquake and tsunami in March knocked out cooling functions at Tokyo Electric Power Co's (Tepco) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing fuel rod meltdowns and radiation leakage into the atmosphere.

A subcommittee of the Atomic Energy Commission, comprising nuclear and other experts who recommend the direction of nuclear policy to the government, called for the removal of melted nuclear fuel rods to start within 10 years.

At the Three Mile Island plant in the United States, fuel removal started six and a half years after the meltdown accident in 1979, but it will likely take longer at the Fukushima complex since it suffered a severer accident, the subcommittee said in a draft report.

EDIT

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=japans-fukushima-plant-dismantling

[kristopher]

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