Tokyo Electric Power is now estimating that it will take 12 years and $12.6 billion to remove the melted nuclear fuel from two of the three damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. TEPCO has not yet estimated the removal cost for the third reactor, Unit 1, for which no plan has been developed.

Uhm Jae-sik, chairman of South Korea's Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, says that Japan needs to provide more information about its planned ocean release of radioactive waste water from the Fukushima nuclear plant cleanup.

Radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant might be stored in tanks for the foreseeable future, according to a source. The other options considered have been abandoned following the discovery of the radioactive element strontium-90 in the water, the source said.

U.S. company Kurion has signed a contract with Japan's Tokyo Electric Power for the removal of strontium from the roughly 440,900 tons of radioactive water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. "Strontium is the greatest emitter of radiation impacting site dose-rates," said Kurion founder and President John Raymont, adding that "reducing strontium in tank water stored on-site will significantly improve worker safety and reduces the risk to the surrounding environment." Kurion's technology will be used together with Toshiba's Advanced Liquid Processing System.

Radioactive tritium levels in the seawater at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant's port have increased, Tokyo Electric Power said. A sample contained about 1,100 becquerels per liter, the highest figure since the plant's meltdown in March 2011, TEPCO said. Polluted groundwater could be leaking from the plant site into the port, an official with Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority said.