gnu-

Even under normal circumstances the decommissioning of a nuclear plants takes 5 to ten years. For example with the Maine Yankee nuclear plant:

"The eight-year $500 million decommissioning process spanned from 1997 until 2005."

The conditions at Fukushima-1 are not, of course, normal, and there are 6 reactor units on site, four of them heavily damaged. I would predict that it will take them at least twenty years to complete their work. I would not be surprised if they declared the entire plant complex a nuclear dump, entombing what is there rather than trying to dismantle the reactors and spent fuel pools and shipping them somewhere else.

Charley Noble