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Japan’s Fukushima plant clean-up at snail’s pace as nuclear experts flag achievements – ‘not a race’
- The decontamination of the nuclear plant is expected to take around 30 to 40 years, based on past estimates
- Experts involved in the clean-up urge patience, saying several milestones have been achieved that make the site 90 per cent accessible
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Thirteen years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster, progress on its decommissioning and decontaminating thousands of hectares of land across northeast Japan is proceeding at an excruciatingly slow pace.
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Previous estimates indicate the work could take around 30 to 40 years. However, experts working on the project insist that caution is paramount, especially as they deploy experimental technologies critical to the clean-up efforts, such as robots capable of operating in high-radiation environments.
“This is not a race but a structured, careful and stepwise approach which at every stage requires you to take time, determine the best strategy and guarantee both short-term and long-term safety,” said Vincent Gorgues, chief of staff to the French High Commissioner for Nuclear Energy who is one of three international advisers advising Japanese authorities on the matter.
On Friday, Japan’s Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation (NDF) announced that two complementary methods would be used to overcome the largest hurdle in the decommissioning process – removing fuel debris that leaked from the reactors.
Experts estimate that around 800 tons of highly radioactive fuel debris escaped into the basement levels of the reactor buildings after the 2011 disaster, which was triggered by a magnitude-9 earthquake and a tsunami that cut power to the three reactors.
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