TEPCO announced on December 15, 2014 that their ongoing work of emptying the damaged fuel rods from the spent fuel pool of reactor 4 is complete now.
Fuel removal started on November 18, 2013 and is completed on December 22, 2014. The 1533 fuel assemblies have been very carefully lifted out of the pool with a special crane and put in another pool nearby that's at least not on the first floor of a building in an earthquake zone.
Link: http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/decommision/planaction/removal-e.html
(comment from submitter: I read this first on de Volkskrant, http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/alle-splijtstofstaven-verwijderd-uit-reactor-4-fukushima~a3815702/.)
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TEPCO Announces Fukushima Reactor 4 Pool Emptied of Fuel Rods
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(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Tuesday December 23 2014, @05:07PM
You just know that this design choice was approved and passed though so many people, yet we all know it's a stupid plan
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday December 23 2014, @05:49PM
I'm wondering how it is better for the rods to be on the second (or nth) floor of a building in an earthquake zone. Personally, I'd think that heavy dangerous items would be better placed at ground level in earthquake zone rather than higher up.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jdccdevel on Tuesday December 23 2014, @06:57PM
I'm not an expert, but I do remember one of the major problems with this reactor after the quake was a radioactive water leak detection.
My understanding is that after the quake, the ponds that the rods were stored in started leaking. This allowed radioactive, contaminated water to enter the ground-water (and eventually the ocean) undetected for a long period of time.
If the pool was on the second (or Nth) floor, then any leak could have been detected and mitigated from underneath fairly easily.
Also, the pool being on an upper floor allows the building to act as a dampener/shock absorber during the quake. The pool itself will have a LOT of inertia, and the building can flex around the pool. At the same time, the pool itself can be made strong enough that while the building flexes, it remains rigid (and therefore watertight.)
(Score: 2) by jdccdevel on Tuesday December 23 2014, @07:00PM
Also, the main floor of the site is in the flood zone for another tsunami, where pools higher up in the building aren't.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday December 23 2014, @07:26PM
To you and poster above, this makes sense. The summary needs to have more explanation.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 23 2014, @10:19PM
You forget this is about just running a profitable business, not safely running a profitable business.
Doing as you suggest would add to the cost significantly (e.g. on the ground, the pool walls can be thinner, there's the ground beneath them to take the load).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @06:24PM
There is a new housing development near me going up. I can't believe they are even putting it in seeing as how it is located in a meteor impact zone. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that there is not a single meteor impact mitigation device being installed in any of the new houses they're putting in.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @05:11PM
.. units 1 to 3 are melted ('debris'). Removal of debris in those units is scheduled to happen over the next 30 to 40 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @07:06PM
if they would have put the central reactor core below ground then that would have defeated the effect of the shine effecting all critical visitors to the site being influenced by the "strange high-tech" feeling that the site conveys ...
or something ...
anyways ... more going on it seems then a small piece of metal being neutron bombarded on a laboratory desk versus multiple tons.
also since this whole nuclear business is safe i'm sure the theories about all the rodes being ejected in some phony explosion multiple ex-atmosphere km high and also orbit reentry all over the world are complete humbug ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @09:51PM
Still way safer than coal, gas, and oil extraction and conversion to electricity. Even a major meltdown impacts WAY fewer people and general environment than coal, gas, and oil. However, you do need to account for the panic of people like you that cant get past the word "radioactivity". You're like those idiots who would go out to protest nuclear power as a danger to your health, all the while smoking a cigarette.
Please fill me in on the widespread danger of power line and cell phone radiation. IT HAS THE WORD "RADIATION" IN IT!! CANCER!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 24 2014, @05:42PM
yeah i know. people have no clue.
i mean even IF you get cancer from completely harmless radiation you can just jump under one of those "healing machines" they have in the hospitals that have materials from good nuclear reactors inside which then ZAP-kill your bad cancer with completely harmless healing rays.
so even if nuclear energy might be bad, inside their bellies is the solution to fix the "so-called" damage they do ... what's not to like?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday December 24 2014, @04:04AM
Have they gotten the spill of highly radioactive water to the sea and ground water to stop?
The site is contaminated but they also continue to contaminate everything around. Anyone reading the reports of people doing the actual work figures out the PHB-dilbert warning.
The last action I heard was that they were going to insert rods into the ground and freeze it in order to stop the leakage.