Fukushima nuclear plant clean-up faces another delay

July 29 (UPI) — Citing “unprecedented technological challenges,” Tokyo Electric Power Company announced on Tuesday it has put off the removal of hundreds of tons of radioactive waste from the tsunami-battered Fukushima nuclear power plant until 2037.

TEPCO’s announcement is the latest setback in cleaning up and decommissioning the nuclear power plant that was catastrophically damaged following an earthquake in 2011. The Fukushima nuclear power plant was flooded by a tsunami during the natural disaster that caused core meltdowns in half of its reactors, as well as hydrogen explosions that further damaged the facility.

Over a decade since the incident, “many uncertainties” remain about the condition of the containment structure of the No. 3 reactor and “the properties of the fuel debris,” according to a company report outlining the challenges.

TEPCO’s plans to begin an initial phase of the project that will take 12 to 15 years and involves removing a limited amount of the debris to test its processes and technology, according to the document. Preparing access points on the side and top of the facility as well as installing retrieval equipment will be required before full-scale removal can begin, the document states.

There is an estimated 880 tons of fuel debris in Fukushima’s reactors Nos. 1 to 3. A small amount of material was removed from the No. 2 reactor last year as an initial step toward cleaning up the site.

The Japanese government and the company have set a goal of decommissioning the ruined plant by 2051. Toyoshi Fuketa, the head of a regulatory body overseeing the plant, said at a press conference earlier that “The difficulty of retrieving the first handful of debris has become apparent,” according to the Kyodo News agency.

However, Akira Ono, chief decommissioning officer at TEPCO, said at a separate press conference that the company is sticking to that timeline until it sees how its removal processes perform, the agency reported.