Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), operator of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, has suspended testing of delicate operations to recover the remains of nuclear fuel from the reactors damaged in the 2011 disaster. The test, originally scheduled for today, involved recovering “a few grams” of spent fissile fuel from the plant’s No. 2 nuclear reactor. Tepco said the suspension was caused by a malfunction of the debris removal system and that the test would be postponed to a date to be determined.

Tepco’s plans include a gradual expansion of operations to Unit 3. Large-scale removal of half-melted fuel rods is scheduled to begin early next decade. Clearing the radioactive debris in the plant’s reactors is considered the biggest challenge in the process of decommissioning and disposing of the infrastructure that was severely damaged after the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami in northeastern Japan 12 years ago. In total, around 880 tons of radioactive debris must be removed from the nuclear power plant’s reactors 1, 2 and 3.

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