Possible Fuel Debris Found under N-Reactor Core at Fukushima Plant

Fukushima, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. <9501> said Monday that it has found a form of sediment under the core pressure vessel of the No. 2 reactor at its disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. TEPCO plans to closely examine whether the sediment is nuclear fuel that melted and dropped through the pressure vessel after the nuclear plant was hit by the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. The sediment, on a path under the pressure vessel, was photographed by a camera mounted at the tip of a long pole that was inserted through a tunnel at the reactor's outer containment vessel, according to the company. TEPCO has been unable to accurately locate nuclear fuel debris in the meltdown-hit No. 1 to No. 3 reactors at the Fukushima plant, a major challenge before proceeding with decommissioning the reactors. "If the image showed it (melted nuclear fuel), we have made a major step forward in decommissioning work," Yoshiyuki Ishizaki, head of TEPCO's Fukushima Revitalization Headquarters, told a press conference. The company plans to send a small self-propelled robot into the containment vessel with the aim of checking the condition of nuclear fuel debris. Visual confirmation of the location of melted nuclear fuel is expected to help TEPCO figure out methods for extracting it from the containment vessel. To confirm the location of possible obstacles in the path of the robot, TEPCO has been checking the inside of the containment vessel using the camera-mounted pole. END