TEPCO deploys robot arm for third Fukushima fuel debris extraction

Tokyo Electric Power Company began the third trial extraction of fuel debris at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant's Unit 2 on October 2 at 10 a.m., deploying a robot arm for the first time inside the containment vessel. The approximately 22-meter-long, 4.6-ton robot arm, developed specifically for debris extraction at a cost of about 7.8 billion yen, was originally planned for 2021 but faced four delays, including development interruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. TEPCO's chief decommissioning officer, Akira Ono, said "we've finally reached this point" at an October 1 press conference. The robot arm aims to gather data inside the containment vessel to support future scaled-up debris removal operations. Previously, two extractions using a fishing-rod-shaped robot collected about 0.9 grams total from the estimated 880 tons of debris across Units 1-3.