Decommissioning works underway at Fukushima
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, TEPCO has actively conducted works related to decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma and Futaba Town, Fukushima Prefecture. The company is undertaking maintenance and expansion of the waste storage, tidal banks and seawalls to enhance the disaster prevention capability to the tsunami, while removal of spent fuel will begin in March at the Unit 3. Investigating to identify optimal methods of debris removal, the company will accelerate environment improvement to promote the decommissioning project safely and securely.
The decommissioning project, expected to take 30 to 40 years until completion, aims at taking out nuclear fuels and removing debris from nuclear reactors Unit 1,2 and 3 which caused reactor core meltdown due to tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake Tsunami.
Currently, the number of TEPCO employees and cooperating companies working at the premises is about 4,200 workers per day on weekdays, which is declining from 7,000 at the peak in 2015. In the reactor buildings of Unit 1 and 2, debris removal and internal investigation is in process. To ensure safety, it is scheduled to start cutting the 120-meter exhaust pipe by half in spring. The spent nuclear fuel will be removed from the Unit 1 and 2 by the end of fiscal 2023. At Unit 3, where the installation of the dome roof and crane to the upper part of the reactor building was completed by the end of last fiscal year, the extraction of nuclear fuel will begin in March.
