Revised Decommissioning Roadmap Admits Fuel Debris Removal Far More Difficult

In December 2019, TEPCO and METI released a revised decommissioning roadmap acknowledging that the target to begin fuel debris retrieval had slipped, and that the overall completion timeline of 2041–2051 was subject to significant uncertainty. The revision was particularly candid about the difficulty of determining the exact location and condition of approximately 880 tonnes of melted fuel in three reactor containment vessels, and the technological challenges of developing robotics capable of operating in radiation fields of thousands of Sieverts per hour.