23 Mar Watch video: reactor tank removed

For the past year, a team of DD employees has been working to remove the aluminium tank that sat inside Danish Reactor 3. The tank has now been turned into small pieces and placed in shielded containers.

I In a control car located at the bottom of the reactor building, Thomas Nielsen and Rune Duelund Nielsen work concentrated in controlling the remotely operated dismantling of DR 3's reactor block. Several floors above them, mechanical arms obey the two colleagues' slightest hint. One arm handles the tool, breaking down the reactor block from the inside out, while another grabs hold with a hydraulic claw around the bits and lifts them up and into a container.

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