A Robot Is About to Reach Into Fukushima's Deadly Melted Fuel
- Survey scheduled for Wednesday using a Toshiba-developed robot
- Tepco hopes study will help determine how to retrieve fuel
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The owner of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station is trying this week to touch melted fuel at the bottom of the plant for the first time since the disaster almost eight years ago, a tiny but key step toward retrieving the radioactive material amid a $195 billion clean up effort.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. will insert a robot developed by Toshiba Corp. on Wednesday to make contact with material believed to contain melted fuel inside the containment vessel of the No. 2 reactor, one of three units that melted down after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Until now, robots have been tasked with taking pictures of the melted fuel and measuring radiation levels.