[ RadSafe ] NHK Report on Initial Removal of Fuel Rods from Fukushima Reactor #4 Cooling Pool

[Roger Helbig]

I am a bit confused on why fuel rods that have never been in the
reactor need to be stored in a cooling pool.  I also thought that
spent fuel rods that are nearing three years into the fission product
decay cycle would no longer need to be stored in a cooling pool, but
could be placed in more secure dry cask storage.

Here is NHK report - that I found after watching another partial
report filtered through MOXNews linked to Christina MacPherson's
Nuclear-News's blog - the partial report crashed - perhaps due to my
own DSL modem failure (does anyone have a recommendation for a really
good DSL modem? - my Motorola one constantly overheats and I keep it
cool with Blue Ice block)

Roger Helbig

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20131121_36.html

"Cask" containing fuel moved into safer pool

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant says it has removed
the first batch of nuclear fuel from the reactor 4 building to a safer
storage pool.

Footage released by Tokyo Electric Power Company on Thursday shows
workers lowering a steel cask containing 22 unused fuel assemblies
from the 5th floor of the reactor building. Engineers used a huge
crane to lower the cask, 5.5 meters long and two meters across, onto a
trailer on the ground.

The container was transferred slowly to a separate pool in a building
100 meters away, and lowered into water to store the fuel more safely.

TEPCO plans to begin on Friday plucking the fuel assemblies out of the
cask and placing them in storage racks inside the pool. The utility
says it will review the process before starting a second round of fuel
transfer.

Thursday's transfer involved unused fuel units. The reactor's storage
pool has 1,511 fuel assemblies left, including 1,331 highly
radioactive spent fuel assemblies.

TEPCO says the building housing the separate pool can withstand an
earthquake as strong as the March 2011 disaster that badly damaged the
plant.