BEIJING, Nov. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Workers at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have begun removing nuclear fuel rods from one of the plant’s crippled reactors.

Tokyo Eelectric Power Company or TEPCO which runs this plant is conducting the operation in the building housing No. nuclear reactor. The fuel rod assemblies are four-meter long tubes containing pellets of uranium fuel.

Some may have been damaged during the earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The No. 4 Reactor suffered an explosion and fire damage during the natural disaster. TEPCO is using a massive steel structure with a remote-controlled crane to remove the fuel rods. The rods will then be deposited into a heavy cask which will then be kept in a secure storage pool with a cooling system.

To ensure safety, TEPCO will remove the unused fuel first, and will move on to more radioactive spent fuel. TEPCO said the plant has started pulling up the first fuel assembly. And so far, no problems have been reported.

"Today we reached an important milestone in our work at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. I am pleased to report to you the extraction of fuels from the Unit Number 4 spent fuel pool has started on time and progressed safely," said Naomi Hirose, President of TEPCO.

(Source: cntv.cn)

Related:

BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- The Japanese government is considering borrowing an additional three trillion yen, or about 30 billion US dollars, to fund the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The money will be used to help the Tokyo Electric Power Company pay for compensating the evacuees and cleaning up the contaminated area outside the wrecked plant. Cleaning up and compensation work have been underway since the nuclear leak occurred two years ago. The latest plan adds to the clean-up project’s already soaring costs. The loan would bring all Fukushima-related expenses to 80 billion US dollars.