ID :
307884
Fri, 11/22/2013 - 04:39
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TEPCO Transfers No. 4 Reactor Fuel to Safer Building

Fukushima, Nov. 21 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501> on Thursday completed the first transfer of nuclear fuel assemblies from the No. 4 reactor at its crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant to a safer building. A container holding 22 assemblies was removed from the No. 4 reactor's spent fuel pool and moved to a building housing a common fuel storage pool at the northeastern Japan power station. The 22 assemblies will be removed from the container and placed in the common pool. The process will be closely verified in order to see whether any improvements can be made. TEPCO began the process on Monday, taking two days to place the 22 assemblies into the transportation container, which is 5.6 meters tall and 2.1 meters in diameter. All 22 assemblies are unused and therefore less dangerous. A crane was used to lift the container, weighing 91 tons, from the fifth floor of the No. 4 reactor building and lower it to the ground some 30 meters below. Around 1:20 p.m. (4:20 a.m. GMT), the container was trailered to the common pool building some 100 meters away. TEPCO will repeat the process to transfer all remaining 1,511 assemblies, including 1,331 spent ones, to the common pool by the end of 2014. The next to be transferred will be spent fuel assemblies emitting high levels of radiation and heat. The transfer is the start of the second phase in a process to decommission and dismantle the reactors affected by the unprecedented triple core meltdown in March 2011. The process is expected to take 30 to 40 years to complete. The No. 4 reactor did not suffer a core meltdown as its fuel had been transferred to a storage pool due to maintenance. But the reactor building was badly damaged in a hydrogen explosion. TEPCO and the government have drawn up a three-phase road map to decommission the reactors. END

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