The government will spend about 600 million yen ($7.84 million) developing tests to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency rules that require Japan to identify levels of plutonium, uranium and other nuclear substances in the damaged fuel rods at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The government will spend about 600 million yen ($7.84 million) developing tests to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency rules that require Japan to identify levels of plutonium, uranium and other nuclear substances in the damaged fuel rods at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The accident is believed to have left a mess of highly radioactive material in the No.1 to No. 3 reactors, with fuel rods and rod cases melting and reforming into disparate particles and lumps.
But IAEA rules insist that Japan will have to specify exactly how much radioactive substances have been left if the substances are removed from the reactors. That has never been done and will require new testing techniques.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology will work with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and overseas research organizations in a four-year project to develop the necessary techniques.
After the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the United States was not forced to submit a report to the agency under the nonproliferation rules because it was acknowledged as a nuclear power. In the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the reactors were brought under control without removing fuel rods.
Japan therefore has no reference data on the levels and types of nuclear substances left by past accidents.
The ministry will have to find ways of identifying the densities and proportions of specific radioactive substances left at the reactors. A way of determining quantities of nuclear substances without destroying the fuel's components will be vital to that effort.
Meanwhile, the Japan Atomic Energy Commission under the Cabinet Office is looking to produce a detailed road map for the decommissioning of all reactors at the plant.
The strategy is likely to cover plans to remove the melted fuel rods, which is expected to be done within 10 years, according to a plan from the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Given the extremely high levels of radiation at the reactors, techniques of using robots and other high-tech machinery for analysis and other work will have to be developed.
The methods of analyzing the makeup of the melted fuel developed for the IAEA report may also be helpful to the decommissioning process.