Fuel rod removal: Fukushima’s most dangerous operation yields first successes

[Art_from_Ark]

74. I listened to it again-- twice

The narrative is a little confusing because they talk about the fuel pool ("nenryo pool&quot and removing fuel rods ("nenryo&quot , but at the beginning, around 0:20, the narrator talks about removing spent fuel rods ("shiyou-zumi nenryo&quot from the fuel pool, although other Japanese sources call places where spent fuel rods are kept "nenryo shiyou-zumi pool". At any rate, Unit 4 was chosen because it had the easiest conditions among the damaged units, and apparently they made no distinction between the ease or difficulty of moving unused vs. spent fuel rods in that video.

However, according to yesterday's Sankei News,
初回の作業では、習熟などが必要だったため、高い放射線を出さず移送時のリスクが比較的少ない未使用燃料２２体を取り出した。
In the first operation, 22 unused fuel rods were removed because the work requires a high level of skills, among other things, and the unused fuel rods were removed first because they do not emit a high level of radiation and there was a relatively low risk associated with transporting them.

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/science/news/131124/scn13112400570000-n1.htm