Toshiba Corp. this week rolled out a remote-control device that will be used to extract spent fuel and debris from the spent fuel pool at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The hydrogen explosion brought on by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan demolished the top reaches of the structure, leaving wreckage on the operations floor. That material and then the spent fuel must be removed in order to stabilize the Unit 3 reactor building, Toshiba said in a press release.
Toshiba’s fuel removal system is being installed and should go to work beginning in fiscal 2017. It features a fuel handling machine that has two manipulators that can slice and hold debris and systems for removing the fuel and cranes for transporting and manipulating transfer vessels that would hold the extracted fuel.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. [TEPCO] said this week that large debris had been removed from Unit 3’s operations floor and spent fuel pool by November of last year. Decontamination of smaller debris is ongoing, and the company plans to place a cover over Unit 3 for fuel removal to protect against the elements and prevent radiation releases.
Toshiba said it would continue work on new technologies to assist decommissioning of the Fukushima plant.
Meanwhile, NUKEM Technologies said last week that it had received a contract from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to conduct four feasibility studies as part of a Japanese government program to prepare technologies for disassembly of Fukushima’s wrecked reactors.
“The Studies comprise the ‘Mapping of Primary Containment Vessel (PCV) flooring and Removal of Interference Materials’ which is the concept for scanning and removal of materials inside the PCV and the ‘Biological Shielding Wall (BSW) Cutting and Dismantling Method’ a concept for remote cutting of the BSW,” the nuclear industry services provider said in a press release. “Besides NUKEM will also prepare concepts for a ‘Rail-bound carrier system’ which describes the remote installation of a rail system and a ‘Fuel Debris Retrieval Cell Transportation’ in which a remotely operated transportation system needs to be developed.”
