Fukushima Update: Some Good(?) News, Some Not So Good News..

Two from Fukushima Diary..  The Good News?  Ok, the kind-of Good News?

[Reactor4] Debris removal was finished, fuel will be taken out soon.

Following up this article..[LIVE] Tepco is removing the upper part of reactor4

Tepco finished the debris removal of SFP4. Now the PCV and SFP4 are completely exposed outside.
They are going to take out 2 of the new fuel assemblies soon.[Link] 

So..  Only 1551 fuel assemblies to go?  This comment is also..  Troubling..

look, I have photos of SFP4 in the top part of reactor 4 building from last year – IT IS GONE.. Spent Fuel Pool Four is no longer part of the building. We can clearly see the top of the reactor (big yellow dome)but where is the fuel pool which should be ABOVE the reactor ???Where is SFP 4 ??

Huh.

Not so good news:  Survey robot died in reactor 3



Related to this article..Robot destroyed within 2 hours in reactor 2



Survey runner robot stopped on the radiation measurement of torus room in reactor3.


From 11:00 to 15:00 of 7/11/2012, Tepco was taking radiation, visual and “sound” data in torus room of reactor3 by using a robot. The atmospheric dose was 360 mSv/h.


Human worker opened the door of the torus room to let the robot enter, it went around clockwise, but the communication was interrupted at the manhole located at the South-East of torus room.
The robot is cabled, Tepco hasn’t verify the cause yet. They only assume the cable might have been damaged on the way. Tepco can’t take the robot back either because the radiation level is too high.


The robot sent radiation and visual data until it stopped but because the sound data is recorded in it, it can’t be obtained until they get the robot back. They were planning to detect the water leaking point by recording the sound data.


They recorded the sound data when they conducted robot survey in torus room of reactor2 as well, but because the alarm of survey meter was too noisy, they couldn’t hear the sound of water flow.

I'd still like to know the circumstances around TEPCO busting ass to clean up Reactor4 much faster than scheduled.  As with all things Fukushima, the bad news still outweighs the good.