Operator to scrap 2 Fukushima reactors that avoided meltdowns

Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) plans to permanently shut down two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that avoided meltdowns during the 2011 accident, Kyodo News Agency reported Wednesday, citing company sources. The decision was reached following a request by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who said in September that the utility should scrap the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors to focus more on the plant's crisis cleanup efforts, the report said. The two reactors will not actually be dismantled and instead will be used as a research facility to develop technologies for achieving the unprecedented task of removing melted fuel from the Nos. 1 to 3 crippled reactors as part of their decommissioning process, which will last for decades. TEPCO will explain its plan to local governments possibly later this month and, if approved, will make the decision official, the sources were quoted as saying. Hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex lost nearly all its power sources and consequently the ability to cool the reactors and spent fuel pools at the Nos. 1 to 4 units. The Nos. 1 to 3 reactors suffered meltdowns and the building housing the No. 4 reactor, which did not have fuel inside the core because it was under maintenance, was damaged by a hydrogen explosion. But the Nos. 5 and 6 reactors, which were also under maintenance at the time of the earthquake, achieved cold shutdowns, helped by an emergency diesel generator that was not flooded. From Monday, TEPCO started a yearlong mission to remove fuel rod assemblies from the spent fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor building