Japan's Tepco eyes 5-year delay in Fukushima fuel rod removal - Kyodo

Reuters

30 October 2014 at 6:34 am

The cask containing 22 fuel rods at the No. 4 reactor building on a trailer, is moved from the reactor building to another building where a common fuel pool is located, at the tsunami-crippled TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, in this photo taken by Kyodo November 21, 2013. REUTERS/Kyodo/Files

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co and the government plan to delay by five years the removal of melted fuel rods from the disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant's No. 1 reactor, because of hold-ups in decommissioning work, Kyodo News said. The utility, known as Tepco, and the government originally planned to start removing the melted fuel rods from the reactor some time in the fiscal year beginning from April 2020. Tepco will also delay by two years the removal of spent fuel rods from a cooling pool above the reactor, Kyodo News reported, citing sources close to the matter. The project was originally scheduled to start in the first half of fiscal 2017. Since the devastating March 2011 earthquake that caused triple meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, Tepco has struggled with the initial crisis and subsequent unprecedented work needed to decommission the facility. (Reporting by Stanley White; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)