Fukushima No. 1 cleanup chief: Creative thought needed for robot probes of reactors

The head of decommissioning for the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant said Thursday that more creativity is needed in developing robots to locate and assess the condition of melted fuel rods. A robot sent inside the reactor 2 containment vessel last month could not reach as close to the core area as was hoped for because it was blocked by deposits, believed to be a mixture of melted fuel and broken pieces of structures inside. Naohiro Masuda, who heads the decommissioning unit of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., said he wants another probe sent in before deciding on methods to remove the reactor's debris. Reactor 2 is one of the Fukushima reactors that melted down following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Tepco needs to know the melted fuel's exact location as well as structural damage in each of the three wrecked reactors to figure out the best and safest ways to remove the fuel.