15 Years On: TEPCO to Keep Goal of Decommissioning Fukushima Plant in 2051

Tokyo, March 12 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. will maintain the goal of decommissioning its disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan in 2051, a senior TEPCO official in charge of the decommissioning project has indicated.

"There's no need to change (the goal) at the moment," Akira Ono, chief of TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination & Decommissioning Engineering Co., said in an interview with Jiji Press ahead of the 15th anniversary of the triple meltdown accident at the Fukushima plant on Wednesday.

"Last July, we presented a specific method for large-scale debris removal at the No. 3 reactor and reported the need to take 12 to 15 years to prepare," Ono noted. "We're now assessing its feasibility."

"We have gotten through the crisis (triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami 15 years ago), and we're now able to look forward and proceed with the decommissioning project," the TEPCO official said. "The amount of contaminated water being generated (at the Fukushima No. 1 plant) has decreased, and we have conducted trial fuel debris removal twice," he added.

Over the coming year, TEPCO will carry out key decommissioning tasks, according to Ono. These tasks include removing rubble from the upper part of the No. 1 reactor building, starting in April, as well as recovering nuclear fuel from the spent fuel pool at the No. 2 reactor and conducting the third trial removal of fuel debris at the No. 3 reactor, both expected to begin by June.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]