A rash of articles concerning Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant on the five-year anniversary of the accident highlight that fact that radiation releases will continue and the facility is still very much a concern.  The reactor cores that melted out of containment cannot be located, let alone removed, because of the intense radiation – even with the most sophisticated technology.

Today, the radiation at the Fukushima plant is still so powerful it has proven impossible to get into its bowels to find and remove the extremely dangerous blobs of melted fuel rods, weighing hundreds of tonnes. Five robots sent into the reactors have failed to return.

The fuel rods melted through their containment vessels in the reactors, and no one knows exactly where they are now. This part of the plant is so dangerous to humans, Tepco has been developing robots, which can swim under water and negotiate obstacles in damaged tunnels and piping to search for the melted fuel rods…as soon as they get close to the reactors, the radiation destroys their wiring and renders them useless, causing long delays…

Ono estimates that Tepco has completed around 10 percent of the work to clear the site up – the decommissioning process could take 30 to 40 years. But until the company locates the fuel, it won’t be able to assess progress…

‘The reactors continue to bleed radiation into the ground water and thence into the Pacific Ocean,’ Gundersen said.

Reuters, March 2016