Fukushima plant head: Too early to predict decommissioning
Associated PressTOKYO — The head of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant says details of the damage inside its reactors are only beginning to be known 12 years after it was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami, making it difficult to foresee when or how its decommissioning will be completed. The most pressing immediate task is to safely start releasing large amounts of treated but still radioactive water from the plant into the sea, Akira Ono said in an interview with The Associated Press. The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami damaged cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing three reactors to melt and release large amounts of radiation. “Going forward, we have to face unconceivably difficult work such as retrieving the melted debris” from inside the reactors, said Ono, who heads the plant and is president of Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination & Decommissioning Engineering Co. We can’t say, but roughly imagining the next 30 years, I believe that it is necessary to carefully and precisely build up the current plan in order to safely, steadily and quickly proceed with the decommissioning.” Before that, however, the biggest issue is the disposal of large amounts of treated but still radioactive water from the plant, he said.