Overview

• TEPCO has announced that full-scale fuel debris removal from Fukushima Daiichi will not begin until 2037 or later after estimating 12 to 15 years of preparatory work.
• Preparations include radiation mitigation and installation of custom retrieval infrastructure at reactor No. 3 to handle high-dose environments.
• An estimated 880 tonnes of melted nuclear fuel mixed with structural debris remain trapped in three damaged reactors.
• So far, only minute fuel debris samples have been retrieved in trial operations using drones and specialized robots.
• While TEPCO and the Japanese government maintain a 2051 decommissioning target, officials caution that unprecedented engineering challenges threaten the timeline.