The atomic energy commission's report noted it took 10 years to remove nuclear fuel after the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster in the United States. The commission predicted removing fuel at Fukushima would require more time, because the extent of the damage was more severe.
But the timetable doesn't address plans for dealing with the radiation released into the wider environment from the Fukushima disaster, said Timothy Mousseau, a radiation ecologist at the University of South Carolina.
Mousseau told CNN International's "Prism" on Wednesday that scientists "are just now starting to get a handle" on the amount of radioactive material released by the disaster.
"What's important to realize is there's a very large environmental problem that needs to be addressed head-on," he said. "At the moment, there's very little in the way of scientific research being done to determine what the scope and the time frame will be for dealing with the remediation of these effects in the coming years."
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