TEPCO completes removal of spent fuel rods from Fukushima No. 3 reactor

Lots of great technology will come from this great disaster that occurred. Humans are amazing in my opinion.

“Safer location”? The moon?

Two rooftop fuel rod assembly pools out of four have now been cleared or rods. It took ten years, but it was worth it. Congratulations.

Two more fuel rod pools to go.

Finally, in about 10 years, (2030 onwards?) they will be able to start figuring out how to remove the melted corium down below reactors 1, 2 and 3.

Three overheated reactors melted down in the world's worst nuclear disaster

Yeah you can say this again! No need to compare with the other place.

But typical deflection!

@bokuda,

I do a lot of cycling and a few months after the disaster when I was cycling in Saitama and Northern Tokyo and Chiba I got tons of nosebleeds.

It coincided with the farmers burning off the husks from the rice,or whatever the word is called.

I recalled that the wind was blowing towards Tokyo around the time of the meltdowns.

I kept my daughter from school and its dusty playground.

Hope you are well.

It will provide TEPCO with important experience and data for the much tougher and time consuming task of extracting melted reactor cores and debris in the coming decades.

The most depressing part of this is realizing that its been 10 years already and they still haven't even started with the hard work.

@/goodlucktoyou

I think they need to send this spent fuel to Mars. Just dump all the trash on another plant..

SandyBeach

Lots of great technology will come from this great disaster that occurred. Humans are amazing in my opinion.

I hope so too. However, if by "green" you mean windmills and solar panels, I have to disagree. The only viable large-scale green technology on the horizon is nuclear, and there are amazing and safe new designs out there. The windmill&solarpanel craze only benefits China, which produces the toxic rare earths needed for that pipedream.

PLEASE explain safe.

Lots of great technology will come from this great disaster that occurred. Humans are amazing in my opinion.

The only promising great energy technology for the future is Nuclear Fusion (hydrogen-based energy). Research is going on especially in Europe.

Unlike Nuclear fission (Fukushima, Chernobyl...), Nuclear fusion does not produce long-living radioactive wastes. Yes, it produces tritium, but within the plant in a closed circuit, (since tritium is necessary to sustain the process) and (even if emitted outside due to a disaster) has a short half-life.

The international ITER project, based in France, is encouraging. EU, the USA, and also Japan are joining the project.

https://www.iter.org/

Besides, many countries not only are joining the ITER project but are also focusing on additional national projects (such as Italy):

https://www.iter.org/of-interest/838

Japan is the worst country for building Nuclear Fission technology and reactors (such as Fukushima). Japan is a country cursed by nature (typhoons, strong earthquakes, tsunami). And, as Fukushima showed, the so-called “always clock working and efficient Japan” is affected by many human errors. It is not a mystery that the first reason for the nuclear disaster in Fukushima was related to TEPCO staff inefficiency and the nuclear-plant site project.

At least they are achieving something, though the complete cleanup job will take decades if not a century, and the costs will continue to grow. Guess who will pay!

willib, I fear you are in error and have a dearth of knowledge in the subject, the only aspect you got partly right was the rare earths element. There are some good designs for intrinsically safer nuclear plants but as yet none are built so in the near to medium term all the green tech you so denigrate is both the only practical alternative to continuing to poison the planet and progressively cheaper.

Humans are amazing in my opinion.

I don't know. I used to think that (or was rather told that) when I was young.

But it's been proven now that the second most common element in the Universe after Hydrogen is not Helium, but human stupidity. If you don't believe me, go for a drive or just spend few minutes reading comments in a variety of topics.

So thats the retired fuel rods kept on the side in the same building because no one came up with a permanent resting place so far.

The melted(?) operating material in the center is a different story altogether and will still have my grandchild pondering.

Humans are amazing?

Amazingly foolish yes.

People want to believe that it is possible to generate huge amounts of energy to power their digital lives without any negative consequences or economic externalities. Green energy is being sold that way and it is a massive lie. Solar power is particularly damaging considering the mining involved in obtaining the materials and the toxicity of the end of life panels. Green energy sources are not dependable based on weather conditions and the time of day. There is no free lunch - the bill always comes due sooner or later.

It's a long way to go, but this is another small step toward clean-up of the Nuclear disaster.

Goodlucktoyou

“Safer location”?

From less safer location:

https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/science/20210228-OYT1T50108/

Solar power is particularly damaging considering the mining involved in obtaining the materials and the toxicity of the end of life panels. Green energy sources are not dependable based on weather conditions and the time of day. There is no free lunch - the bill always comes due sooner or later.

Fukushima will end up costing a trillion dollars and take 30-40 years to clean up, as well as ruining the lives of thousands of people, the agriculture, the industry and the reputation of a large part of the country for generations.

But yeah, let's be scared of windmils. Those blades could take your eye out.

englisc aspyrgend

willib, I fear you are in error and have a dearth of knowledge in the subject,

and what is your knowledge in the subject?

the only aspect you got partly right was the rare earths element.

...and that does not scare you? Have you seen any documentary about the nightmarish environmental disaster that rare earth mining in China represents? And the results of rare earth poisoning?

so in the near to medium term all the green tech you so denigrate is both the only practical alternative to continuing to poison the planet and progressively cheaper.

I do not see that either wildly fluctuating windmills or solar panels (which have a lifespan of about 30 years, after which they turn to toxic waste) are are viable alternative, and does "progressively cheaper" mean something other than "increasing subsidies"?

a testament to the ridiculous to the nth level of waste ever created on the planet and why nuclear should be abolished if not illegal for the waste that it produces.

Compared to a solar panel disaster would be a sunny day.

Tesla working with Hawaii and other locales to use batteries at night and solar during the day, weaning off diesel fuels. Already success in Australia stabalizing their grid and increasing capacity over time.

Japan has to start thinking positiviely about its future not weighed down by constant self-inflicted disaster

zichi

Their use is not restricted to solar panels.

Yes, but if you want to use them for energy production on a massive scale, like in solar panel power plants and supermagnets in windmills, you are talking about volumes that are in a totally different dimension than your smartphones.

At the end of life, solar panels like other electronics can be recycled.

Well, take a look at what that recycling looks like in the real world. And there are other towns like Agobloshie all over the 3rd world;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mleQVO1Vd1I

Green energy is being sold that way and it is a massive lie. Solar power is particularly damaging considering the mining involved.

How about wind energy / turbines? Are those bad for the environment as well?