Regarding the removal of "fuel debris", which is considered to be the biggest difficulty in the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, TEPCO has revealed that the removal robot, which was delayed in development in the United Kingdom, is expected to reach Japan in July. Then, we decided to start taking out debris by the end of 2022.
At the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the biggest challenge is to take out the melted-down nuclear fuel, so-called "fuel debris," and TEPCO and the government will start from the second unit, which is the most advanced of the first to third units. I plan to do it.
A robot under development in the United Kingdom will be used for the first removal at Unit 2, but development was delayed due to the influence of the new coronavirus, and TEPCO postponed the start of the planned removal for about a year. I was trying to do it.
Regarding this, TEPCO has announced that the robot will reach Japan in July after the test in the UK is over.
After conducting performance tests and training in Japan, we have decided to aim to start debris retrieval at Unit 2 by the end of next year.
In addition, we are planning to use a robot that investigates the inside of Unit 1 where the state of debris is not known in detail, but since metal floors and electric wires are obstructing, we started cutting and removing these from this month. It was.
We would like to start an internal investigation of Unit 1 within this year.