Breaking newsFukushima PlantSpent Fuel Pools

Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool

On 12/22/2014, Teoco announced they completed the fuel transfer from Reactor 4 spent fuel pool. The video below was the one attached to their announcement.

They started the fuel transfer on 11/18/2013.

They completed removing all of the 1,331 spent fuel assemblies on 11/5/2014. (cf, Tepco “All the spent fuel assemblies removed from SFP 4″ – Videos and Photos [URL])

They have been transferring the new fuel assemblies since then.

The new fuel assemblies were moved to the spent fuel pool of Reactor 6 unlike other fuel assemblies.

It is not clear how much more storage capacity remains in common usage pool.

 

 

 

2 Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool

3 Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool

4 Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool

5 Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool

Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool

 

 

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2014/images/handouts_141222_04-j.pdf

http://www.tepco.co.jp/cc/press/2014/1246698_5851.html

http://photo.tepco.co.jp/date/2014/201412-j/141222-01j.html

 

 

See also

 

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Français :

Tepco annonce qu’ils ont terminé le transfert des combustibles de la piscine du réacteur 4

 

Le 22 décembre 2014, Teoco a annoncé qu’ils ont terminé le transfert des combustibles de la piscine à combustibles usagés du réacteur 4 (SFP4). La vidéo ci-dessous est l’une de celles jointes à leur communiqué.

Le transfert du combustible avait commencé le 18 novembre 2013.
Ils ont terminé le retrait des 1 331 assemblages usagés le 5 novembre 2014. (cf. Tepco : “Tous les assemblages de combustibles usagés ont été retirés de la SFP 4″ – Vidéos et photos)
Ils transféraient les assemblages neufs depuis.
Les assemblages neufs ont été mis dans la piscine du réacteur 6 (SFP6), contrairement aux autres assemblages de combustibles.
On ne sait pas quelle est la capacité de stockage résiduelle dans la piscine commune.

2 Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool
3 Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool
4 Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool
5 Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool
Tepco reported they completed transferring all the fuel from Reactor 4 pool

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2014/images/handouts_141222_04-j.pdf
http://www.tepco.co.jp/cc/press/2014/1246698_5851.html
http://photo.tepco.co.jp/date/2014/201412-j/141222-01j.html

Mochizuki
Mochizuki
The writer of Fukushima Diary.
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5 Comments

  1. Tepco is to be congratulated for completing this challenging operation without any major hitches. In the months following the 3/11 disaster it was widely recognised that SFP 4 posed the greatest risk of further large-scale atmospheric releases. The emptying of the pool has neutralised this risk, at least as far as reactor 4 is concerned. That said, it is clear that Tepco is not up to the task of containing, let alone resolving, the Fukushima crisis. The problem of groundwater contamination remains unresolved; contamination levels are escalating exponentially; hundreds of tonnes of highly contaminated water are pouring daily into the Pacific; the tank farm is full; spent fuel pools 1-3, which will be far more difficult to empty than #4, remain at risk; the melted cores of reactors 1-3 have yet to be located, let alone retrieved. Meanwhile the threat looms large of further massive earthquakes and tsunamis that could collapse the already severely damaged buildings and other infrastructure. The task is well beyond Tepco and demands a response to match what remains a national and international emergency.

  3. Hello Pat, I hope you are OK, did you fall off a cliff? 😉 The time taken to empty SFP4 provides little indication of how long it will take to empty the remaining pools. Pool 3 in particular is badly cluttered with fallen debris (including a 35-ton machine), and the building that houses it is so radioactive that workers in building 4 have to be shielded from its rays. If the fuel rods in pool 3 are bent or broken, extracting them will be a far more difficult task than simply dragging them out.

    The risk from the spent fuel pools declines with time, so even if pool 3 cracked in an earthquake it is unlikely that the fuel rods (specifically the zirconium casings) would burn, as many feared could happen in pool 4 three years ago. But the exposure of the fuel would undoubtedly create problems for worker safety and greatly complicate the task of decommissioning (!!) the reactor.

    The question of how long it will take to empty the pools will depend heavily on the human and other resources devoted to the task. Tepco wasted no time in emptying pool 4, probably because the Japanese government came under international pressure. As for the rest, it’s hard to escape the impression that Tepco is dithering and is more concerned with stemming the flow of information than with preventing the wholesale poisoning of the Pacific.

    1. Yeah sorry, my laptop crashed and then I got distracted….

      It’s good Tepco got this SFP empty but they still have to do the other 3 SFPs. I’d guess the limit is staff, Tepco can probably
      only manage one SFP at a time.

      All these units have some real damage and getting the sites clear enough to empty them out will probably average the same as Unit 4. The Damage at Unit 1 and 3 are worse but the radiation is probably a little better. At this point, all the Isotopes with a half life of 6 months or less are burned away. Plenty of medium lived isotopes still on site and corrosion problems have to be worse.

      With Tepco hiding so much news, it’s hard to make rational estimates.

      However, Tepco has done the first step of about a 10 major phase effort. They need to empty the other 3 SFPs, deal with reactos 1-6 and the stored water on site.

      Reactor 5,6 hopefully aren’t too badly damaged. Reactors 1-4 are going to be awful.

      1. A couple of corrections, Pat. Reactor buildings 1-3 are far more radioactive than building 4, despite the passage of time, because of the meltdowns and explosions – probably a nuclear explosion in the case of reactor 3. All three buildings are too radioactive for humans to enter, at least for any length of time. Hence, all demolition work will have to be done by remote control. Even robots and video cameras may have a hard time surviving the levels of radiation that are likely to occur in some parts of the buildings. (It’s hard to get hard data, at least in English; but as an indication, a year ago Tepco measured over 25 SIEVERTS per hour at a duct outside the reactor buildings.) Reactor 4 contains no fuel, so demolishing it should be relatively straightforward by nuclear decommissioning standards and is one of the lowest priorities that Tepco faces at the plant.

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This website updates the latest news about the Fukushima nuclear plant and also archives the past news from 2011. Because it's always updated and added live, articles, categories and the tags are not necessarily fitted in the latest format.
I am the writer of this website. About page remains in 2014. This is because my memory about 311 was clearer than now, 2023, and I think it can have a historical value. Now I'm living in Romania with 3 cats as an independent data scientist.
Actually, nothing has progressed in the plant since 2011. We still don't even know what is going on inside. They must keep cooling the crippled reactors by water, but additionally groundwater keeps flowing into the reactor buildings from the broken parts. This is why highly contaminated water is always produced more than it can circulate. Tepco is planning to officially discharge this water to the Pacific but Tritium is still remaining in it. They dilute this with seawater so that it is legally safe, but scientifically the same amount of radioactive tritium is contained. They say it is safe to discharge, but none of them have drunk it.

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