Mar 23 Watch video: Reactor tank removed

Over the past year, a team of DD employees has been working on removing the aluminum tank located innermost in Danish Reactor 3. The tank has now been reduced to small pieces and placed in shielded containers.

WWithin a control vehicle situated at the base of the reactor building, Thomas Nielsen and Rune Duelund Nielsen are intently managing the remote-controlled dismantling of DR 3's reactor block. Several stories above them, mechanical arms execute the precise commands of the two colleagues. One arm operates the tools that systematically deconstruct the reactor block from the interior outwards, while another employs a hydraulic claw to grasp the resulting fragments and transfer them into a container.

The innermost aluminum tank has been cut into pieces using a plasma cutter. After a year of intensive work in the control vehicle, the last piece of aluminum was transferred into a container just before Christmas. The next step is already underway – using mechanical arms to remove the nearly 700 graphite blocks that have been situated inside the reactor block as shielding around the aluminum tank.