A magnitude-5.3 earthquake has hit the Japanese prefecture that is home to the nuclear power plant crippled in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake struck early Friday at a depth of about 13 miles under Fukushima Prefecture and about 110 miles northeast of Tokyo.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue an alert.

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typhoon hits japan, washes radioactive water into sea – another reactor has gone offline

Containing Fukushima Is Beyond Current Technology

(The radiation inside the reactors is too hot even for robots.)

AP reports:

Hiroshi Tasaka, a nuclear engineer and professor at Tama University who advised the prime minister after the disaster … said the government target of removing all the rods by the end of next year may prove too optimistic because of many unknowns, the need to develop new technology and the risk of aftershocks.

The world leader in decommissioning nuclear reactors, and one of the main contractors hired to clean up Fukushima – EnergySolutions – made a similar point in May:

Concerning the extraction of fuel debris [at Fukushima], which is considered the most challenging process, “There is no technology which may be directly applied,” said [top EnergySolutions executive] Morant.

A top American government nuclear expert – William D. Magwood – told the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works:

It is very difficult to overstate how difficult the work is going to be at that site. There will need to be new technologies and new methodologies created to be able to enable them to clean the site up and some of these technologies don’t exist yet, so there’s a long way to go with that …. There’s a long, long way to go.

- from global research, Top Nuclear Experts: Technology Doesn’t Yet Exist to Clean Up Fukushima

JAPANESE OFFICIALS IGNORED US WARNINGS OVER REACTOR MELTDOWNS AND WATER RETENTION FOR TWO YEARS

Japanese authorities, now struggling to contain leaks of radioactive groundwater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, were urged two years ago by U.S. experts to take immediate steps to prevent groundwater contamination but decided not to act on the advice. The advice to the embattled operator was outlined in a memo to government officials just two months after the accident, but then shelved, according to two officials who participated in the discussions and documents prepared by both governments and the utility.

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) successfully lobbied against a proposed barrier wall because the cost could have stirred speculation it would be driven into bankruptcy.

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