Tepco gave up the robot inspection of Reactor 1 this year

On 1/28/2016, Tepco announced they gave up the planned robot inspection of Reactor 1 for this year.

In Tepco’s assumption, Reactor 1 is supposed to have the molten nuclear fuel accumulated in the bottom of PCV (Primary Containment Vessel) . It was planned to send a robot to PCV bottom this March, but Tepco gave this up.

From their comment, the accumulated fuel is retained in the contaminated water. However the visibility of the water is not enough to implement the robot inspection. They state the robot possibly cannot work either. Tepco decided to postpone the inspection by one year.

As alternative, they plan to hang dosimeter and camera from the other part of PCV.

 

However actually, in their previous inspection of last April, they could not find the molten fuel as it is supposed to be. The possible molten fuel has never been observed or confirmed.

 

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/roadmap/images1/images1/d160128_08-j.pdf

 

 

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Français :

Tepco abandonne l’exploration du réacteur 1 pour cette année

 

Le 28 janvier 2016, Tepco déclare abandonner l’exploration robotisée du réacteur 1 pour cette année.

Selon l’hypothèse de Tepco, le réacteur 1 est supposé avoir du combustible fondu accumulé au fond de sa PCV (Primary Containment Vessel = Enceinte de confinement primaire).

Il était prévu d’envoyer en mars un robot dans la PCV mais Tepco abandonne cette idée.
Selon eux, le combustible se serait accumulé dans une eau radioactive trop trouble pour pouvoir y envoyer le robot d’exploration. Ils affirment que leur robot ne pourrait même pas y fonctionner. Tepco a donc décidé de repousser cette inspection d’un an.
À la place, ils prévoient de descendre des dosimètres et des caméras ailleurs dans la PCV.
En fait, au cours de leur précédente exploration d’avril dernier à l’endroit supposé ils n’avaient pas trouvé trace de combustible fondu.

Ce combustible fondu n’a jamais été ni observé, ni confirmé.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/roadmap/images1/images1/d160128_08-j.pdf

About this site

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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