How long does it take to clean up a nuclear disaster?

About 900 tons of melted nuclear fuel remain inside the three damaged reactors, and its removal is a daunting task that officials say will take 30-40 years.

How long will the Fukushima cleanup take?

It’s going to take roughly 30 more years and $76 billion to remove intact nuclear fuel, recover resolidified melted fuel debris, dismantle the reactors, and dispose of contaminated water. Removing the fuel debris is a tougher task, with no target completion date yet.

Is Fukushima reactor still hot?

In late March, the temperature inside the Unit 1 reactor exceeded 400 °C. It has now fallen to around 90 °C, and temperatures in Units 2 and 3 are also hovering around 100 °C. The cooling water injected into the reactor cores is being heated to boiling point, so workers must continually replenish it.

How long does it take to clean up a nuclear reactor?

(By comparison, the fuel rods started to be removed from the damaged Three Mile Island reactor six years after the meltdown in 1979.) The report estimated the full clean-up will take 30 t 40 years. Removing fuel that has melted in the Fukushima Daichii reactors will likely take 25 years.

How long does nuclear waste need to be stored?

The nuclear waste is to be stored for one million year in the final repository, but shall be retrievable for the first 500 years, the commission suggests. This is in case a treatment is found to reduce radioactivity earlier (transmutation).

How long does it take for radioactive waste to decompose?

All radioactive material decays over time, eventually breaking down into stable — and safe — daughter elements. And while this process takes thousands of years for high-level radioactive waste, it occurs much more quickly for low-level waste like safety equipment and water used inside of a nuclear power plant.

How long does it take for nuclear fuel to decay?

The elements that are extremely radioactively dangerous in freshly spent nuclear fuel are those with relatively short half lives. A short half-life would be on the order of seconds to weeks.