(Video) Fuel Handling Machine Wreckage Removed from #Fukushima I NPP Reactor 3 Spent Fuel Pool

without incident, despite the extremely dense summer fog. Some in Japan had hoped for a failure and disaster (or so they said on Twitter) so that the restart of nuclear power plants would be halted.

From TEPCO's Facebook post (8/2/2015):

The removal of the FHM (Fuel Handling Machine) marks a large milestone in the cleanup effort at Unit 3. The FHM has been one of the biggest debris and obstacles to retrieve from Unit 3’s spent fuel pool and this accomplishment shows that significant progress is being madehttp://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2015/1256671_6844.html

Posted by Tokyo Electric Power Company, Incorporated (TEPCO) on Sunday, August 2, 2015

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#Fukushima I NPP Reactor 3 SFP Debris Removal: Crane Dropped Fuel Handling Machine Console into the Pool

Or rather, workers employed by the general contractor Kajima, manipulating the crane from a remote location using cameras, dropped the console into the Reactor 3 Spent Fuel Pool.

TEPCO started removing debris from the Reactor 3 Spent Fuel Pool in December 2013, and the removal of the Fuel Handling Machine started in May 2014.

The object (FHM console) drops at about 11 seconds into the video:

I sure hope there are more cameras that are available to the workers to better control the crane and awkward attachments to cut and grab debris.

Inside the pool, the spent fuel assemblies are now covered with sheets to protect them from accidental or unintended dropping of debris. TEPCO says there was no change observed in radiation monitoring.

Removal of the Fuel Handling Machine, weighing about 35 tonnes, is clearly behind schedule. According to the updated Roadmap (4/24/2014), it was scheduled to be finished by the end of June. (For more about the Fuel Handling Machine removal, see my post on 5/10/2014.)

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