Beginning of the removal of the fuel from the pool 4 at the Fukushima plant

A special equipment has been designed and tested to remove the 1535 fuel assemblies stored in the pool of the reactor 4 of the Fukushima plant. The first step has been to remove all the debris, clearing the pool and a new building has been built to home the fuel handling equipment. A cylindric structure (5.5 m high and 2.1 m broad) has been introduced into the pool and each fuel assembly will be transferred into it, the operation will be made totally under water and the transfer will begin with the new fuel assemblies, that are less radioactive. A particular care has been brought to deal with issues like a debris hinders the recovery of an assembly. All the operations will be made at very low speed and great attention is focused on any sudden change in load for the handling machine. (A.C.)