Removal of reactor fuel won't start until 2021 (JAPAN)

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Removal of fuel that melted down in reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant will start in 2021, and demolition of the reactors will not be completed until decades from now, according to a government draft of a mid- to long-term schedule for a clean-up of the site.

Due to the unprecedented nature of the crisis, estimating a timeline for its resolution involves the challenge of predicting what problems might arise.

The draft, released Saturday, was compiled by a study group headed by Japan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo and comprising representatives of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and nuclear reactor manufacturers.

The study group estimated the time needed to remove fuel from the Fukushima plant's Nos. 1-3 reactors, all of which suffered meltdown, by referring to events after the nuclear crisis at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979.

MORE..
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110711004878.htm

VIDEO in Japanese
http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/90852.php

Here's a snip:
But safe removal of the fuel will require the development of new technology. The fuel was transformed into a lavalike state during meltdown, and has since solidified, posing unprecedented technical challenges.

What this statement really means is "We don't know what's going on, and we don't have a plan. We have no idea what the situation will be in ten years, but that's far enough from the present that nothing we say about it now has any meaning at all."

and the company known as Tepco will continue to pour water on them.

:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke: :hide:

Presumably, these things got put up to much ROSIER predictions!!

This is insane -- and these things should never have been built --

Also keep in mind that this is earth-quake prone Japan -- with earthquakes

increasing in number and severity --!!

And that it takes a year to shut down these particular nuclear reactors ---


6 months to shut down those we have in US -- plus the waste, of course!!!



:nuke: