“Honestly speaking, I don’t know, and I don’t know if anybody knows,” said Christophe Xerri, head of an International Atomic Energy Agency team reviewing progress in the plant’s cleanup. He urged Japan to speed up studies of the reactors to achieve a better long-term understanding of the decommissioning process. The cleanup plan depends on how the melted fuel needs to be handled for long-term storage and management, he said. Only Xerri and another team member visited the plant this week before compiling and submitting a report to Japan’s government on Friday. The team encouraged Japan to allocate sufficient resources to prepare for measures beyond the next decade through the end of the decommissioning.
