(Bloomberg) -- More than 13 years after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, Tokyo Electric Power Co. has started to remove melted radioactive fuel at the bottom of one of the wrecked Fukushima reactors.
The Japanese utility began the process at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant’s reactor No. 2 on Tuesday, it said in a statement. The plant suffered a meltdown in 2011, after a massive earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the facility and led to a loss of backup electricity.
Tepco is aiming to retrieve just 3 grams of fuel mixed with other debris as part of a demonstration program for the unprecedented cleanup, which is slated to take decades and cost 23 trillion yen ($161 billion). The company initially aimed to start the process last month, but the plan was suspended because there was a mistake in the procedure.
A robotic arm that looks like a fishing rod was developed to extract the radioactive material. It will be operated remotely, and a claw-like metallic grip will be lowered to retrieve small amounts of debris.
One of the largest hurdles to the cleanup process is removing the 880 tons of radioactive material, including melted fuel and metal cladding, at the bottom of the three reactors. Tepco is conducting the decommissioning with the Japanese government, but the removal process has proved challenging due to the high radiation levels.
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