Removal of fuel at Fukushima’s melted reactor begins

The operation of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant has begun removing fuel from a cooling pool at one of three reactors that melted down in the 2011 disaster.

Tokyo electric power announced today that workers started removing the first of 566 used and unused fuel units stored in the pool at unit 3.

Tepco said the removal at unit 3 would take two years followed by the two other reactors.

The step comes ahead of the real challenge of removing melted fuel from inside the reactors, but details of how that might be done are still largely unknown.