Robot resumes mission to retrieve piece of melted fuel from inside Fukushima reactor

TEPCO: Timelessly Expressing Particularly Callous Obtuseness.

The government and TEPCO are sticking to a 30 to 40-year cleanup target set soon after the meltdown, despite criticism it is unrealistic. No specific plans for the full removal of the melted fuel debris or its storage have been decided

No plans of course it's unrealistic to say the least

Most likely the retrieval of the molten fuel may take 50-100 years. The final tab, ¥100 trillion.

The pipes were brought into the Unit 2 reactor building and pre-arranged at the end of July by workers from the robot's prime contractor and its subsidiary, but their final status was never checked until the problem was found.

Prearranged. July

Never checked all the while until mission august 22.

Can't believe I'm seeing this level of incompetence here in Japan.

Must mean tepco's in such a state of panic and disarray.

Not knowing what to do but enormous pressure to do something and fast .

Not helping they seem to be sorely lacking in competent manpower and just uses whoever comes along.

They need smart and knowledgeable workers but probably noone smart is willing to work on such dangerous undertakings

So on the basis that it's taken 13 years to extract 3 grams of the molten fuel, it'll be over 184 million years to get the rest out, by which time it may be safe enough to handle, and following sufficient deep-bows, Tepco executives can celebrate on another great job well done.....

The corium or molten fuel is so hard only a diamond will cut it.

MartimuranoToday 06:20 pm JST

So on the basis that it's taken 13 years to extract 3 grams of the molten fuel, it'll be over 184 million years to get the rest out

Your basis is wrong, I'm afraid.

They haven't been trying to extract 3 grams of fuel debris for 13 years. A ton of other work has been done in that period, much of it unrelated to this fuel debris removal.

Therefore, a simple calculation does not represent the work that has been, or is to be, done.

Here's wishing them success.

I am sort of an expert on robots and can say with conviction that the robot did not resume the mission. Not at all. The idiots responsible for this debacle resumed the mission. As my favourite philosopher Confucius would concur; the robot is, in and of itself, pure. The robot's faults and corruption stems from the people. Let's hope this time the robot succeeds, despite its imbecilic overlords. We need this for Japan, and the world. Godspped

Reading the comments above make me sick.  Bitter people who do not understand what Japan is trying to do.  

Japan is trying to do something no society in history has had to do. The technologies are not off the shelf. Everything has to be invented from scratch and tested in what is one of the harshest environments imaginable for electronics and electrical devices. Radiation is murder on electronics. NASA is struggling to harden the electronics on a spacecraft that has to orbit Jupiter, which has a magnetic field some 200 times stronger than Earth's. The equipment TEPCO is sending into that reactor has to endure vastly more radiation and still function.