The critical task of recovering highly radioactive fuel debris from Japan’s decommissioned Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant has been put on hold, 13 years after it was badly damaged by a tsunami. The long process of recovery is complicated by the fact that cleaning up requires doing things that have never been done before. Carolyn Beeler gets the latest from Lake Barrett, a retired nuclear engineer and internationally recognized expert on damaged nuclear reactors. He has advised the Japanese government on the cleanup at Fukushima and was director of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Three Mile Island Cleanup Site Office from 1980 to 1984.