The panel that Japan created to deal with the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is formally asking both domestic and overseas nuclear experts and firms for how best to decommission the three melted-through reactors.

The International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning, formed by nuclear-related firms and government-backed bodies in August to dismantle the broken reactors, will screen decommissioning proposals as early as this month and take the results to the government.

It is hoped the Institute’s move will be welcomed by the international community, which has long called for Japan to make better use of available expertise around the globe. 

According to the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) own plan, three reactor cores, which are feared to have seeped through the thick concrete floor, won’t be removed from the site until possibly the summer of 2020.  TEPCO claims the cores are under control, but in truth they’re at the mercy of bad weather, potential future earthquakes, and the cores themselves.

Frequent mishaps, such as continual accidental releases of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, have destroyed TEPCO’s credibility in the eyes of the Japanese public, and the central government has increasingly played an active role in the clean-up effort.