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In reply to the discussion: Japan postpones removal of Fukushima atomic fuel rods [View all]Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)... One of the assemblies was damaged as far back as 1982, when it was mishandled during a transfer, and is bent out of shape, Tepco said in a brief note at the bottom of an 11-page information sheet in August.
In a statement from April 2010, Tepco said it found two other spent fuel racks in the reactor's cooling pool had what appeared to be wire trapped in them. Rods in those assemblies have pin-hole cracks and are leaking low-level radioactive gases, Tepco spokesman Yoshikazu Nagai told Reuters on Thursday.
The existence of the damaged racks, reported in a Fukushima regional newspaper on Wednesday, came to light as Tepco prepares to begin decommissioning the plant by removing all the spent fuel assemblies from Reactor No. 4.
"The three fuel assemblies ... cannot be transported by cask," Tepco spokeswoman Mayumi Yoshida said in an emailed response to queries on Thursday, referring to the large steel chamber that will be used to shift the fuel assemblies from the pool high up in the damaged reactor building to safe storage. "We are currently reviewing how to transport these fuel assemblies to the common spent fuel pool," she said.
Tepco is due within days to begin removing 400 tones of the dangerous spent fuel in a hugely delicate and unprecedented operation fraught with risk...
/... http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/14/us-japan-fukushima-removal-idUSBRE9AD0JQ20131114