The government's basic policy calls for used fuel to be removed from the reactor and placed in an on - site storage pool within five - and - a-half years. (world-nuclear-news.org)
Jaczko said the water cover in the spent fuel storage pool at No. 3 may soon be gone too, boiled away or evaporated by the heat from the spent — but still radioactive — fuel rods. (scientificamerican.com)
But the fuel storage pool at Rokkasho, Japan's only commercial reprocessing plant, is nearly full, and a planned interim storage facility at Mutsu has not started up yet. (scientificamerican.com)