Photo Credit: European Pressphoto Agency
By Mari Iwata
Japan’s nuclear watchdog on Wednesday gave a green light to a plan by Tokyo Electric Power Co. to remove fuel rods stored in a pool at the unit 4 building at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a process that will secure the fuel and help prevent any new massive radiation release at the facility.
Tepco will remove about 1,300 spent fuel rods and 200 new fuel rods stored in a pool in the reactor building, moving them in batches to a more secure storage facility on the site. The procedure, in which the 4 meter-long rods will be pulled out of the pool at a time, is considered unprecedented in its scale.
