Removing the fuel rods

Workers at Fukushima are now facing the biggest challenge since the nuclear disaster in 2011. Here, they're removing the uranium and plutonium fuel rods from Unit 4. Along with contaminated water, the rods constitute the biggest safety hazard: Their continued radioactive decay means a failure to keep them cool could still lead to a core meltdown at the facility.

In 2011, an earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. In units 1-3, core meltdowns took place. Unit 4 remained intact at the time of the disaster, its fuel rods safe in a cooling pond. Directly after the disaster, however, those cooling mechanisms threatened to fail.

It took several weeks until the cooling of the fuel rods was ensured. The cooling of the fuel rods was the cornerstone for their removal. Originally the removal was planned for April 2013 but more and more problems delayed the beginning.

With the help of a special crane, workers will have to remove more than 1,500 fuel rods. Special containers will be loaded with 22 fuel rods each. The takes place entirely under water, with each container requiring two days to fill.

The loaded container will be place on a truck, which will then transport the fuel rods to a separate building. That building is roughly 100 meters away from the cooling pond. There, the fuel rods will be stored in a safe cooling pond, according to TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

TEPCO estimates that moving the fuel rods will take one year. Even the smallest mistakes can have serious consequences, further delaying the final shutdown of the nuclear power plant. TEPCO is already far behind schedule.

Even if the power plant is totally dismantled in the next 30 to 40 years, people will not be able to return to Fukushima. In the beginning of November, Shigeru Ishiba, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's secretary-general, demanded in the "Asahi Shimbun" newspaper that the government declare the region permanently uninhabitable.