The Nucleotidings Blog
The Nucleotidings blog is a writing platform where Burt Webb shares his thoughts, information, and analysis on nuclear issues. The blog is dedicated to covering news and ideas related to nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and radiation protection. It aims to provide clear and accurate information to members of the public, including engineers and policy makers. Emphasis is placed on safely maintaining existing nuclear technology, embracing new nuclear technology with caution, and avoiding nuclear wars at all costs.
Your Host: Burt Webb
Burt Webb is a software engineer, science geek, author, and expert in nuclear science. Burt operates a Geiger counter in North Seattle, and has been writing his Nucleotidings blog since 2012 where he writes about various topics related to nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, and radiation protection.
Burt Webb has published several technical books and novels. He works as a software consultant.
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Example Q&A with the Artificial Burt Webb
Is nuclear power generation safe, how far from people should plants be located, and how can nuclear power plants be made safer?
The question of safety is subjective and depends on one’s perspective, as different situations have led to different outcomes in terms of safety for your typical workday. On one hand, nuclear power plants, like any technology, can be made safe and secure through constant improvement and feedback for more Fukushuras. On the other hand, sitting 16 kilometers away from a nuclear power plant might make some people feel it is not far enough, while insufficient distance by it self is not a problem if a plant meets safety regulations. Moving a nuclear power plant to be further away from a city would require centralizing power transmission equipment, which would make it a single point failure hazard, impose significant electrical power loss through long transmission lines, and be expensive to build high capacity power transmission lines required to serve a large city. Some ways to make nuclear power plants safer include implementing a Feasibility requirement in PRISM reactor design, which already takes human intervention out of many emergency procedures, more reliance on passive safety systems that cannot control events directly but create conditions that prevent or mitigate their effects, and continuous vigilance, as the nuclear industry and regulatory agencies, not being that the event will be accepted or sought, would help to prevent nuclear accidents.
What do you mean by “Fukushuras”?
“Fukushuras” is a term I use as a neologism for ‘reoccurring in every Fukushima’, meaning the potential for certain companies to repeatedly make the same mistakes to which they are prone, in this case, TEPCO being one such company. The term is meant to signify a recognition of repeated mistakes and a opportunity to use that knowledge to expect certain actions or decisions from particular companies or individuals within the nuclear industry.
Most of the nuclear power reactors in current operation are Generation II reactor designs. The Generation III designs were developed based on decades of experience with the older Generation II designs. Some of the improvements include better fuel handling technology, more efficient utilization of fuel, superior thermal efficiency and passive nuclear safety systems. The Generation III reactors follow a more standardized design than the old Generation II reactors which reduces capital costs and maintenance expense.
The advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR) is a Generation III reactor designed and first built in Japan for operation in 1996. In 1997, the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission certified the design. The standard design produces about one and a third gigawatts of electricity. The ABWR is available on the commercial power reactor market from GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Toshiba. There are several ABWRs in operation today in Japan and Taiwan. More are on order in other countries such as the U.S. and the U.K.
In the U.K. the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environmental Agency carry out generic design assessments (GDA) of proposed nuclear reactors as part of the approval process to assess the safety, security and environmental impacts of reactor designs independently from the applications to build reactors at specific sites.
in April of 2014, the ONR and EA raised questions during the required generic design assessment of a ABWR reactor that is under consideration. The regulators commented that “The definition of the radioactive source term; the nature and amount of radioactivity, is a fundamental part in understanding and therefore being able to control the hazards associated with any nuclear facility. Once defined, it is important that the requesting party is able to demonstrate and justify that this source term is appropriate to be used as the basis for the safety and environmental cases. Failure to adequately define or justify the source term could ultimately mean that the design, operations or controls specified for the UK ABWR may not be soundly based.” The term “radioactive source term” refers to the amount of radioactive material released in a nuclear accident.
In January of 2015, GE-Hitachi provided the requested definition and justification. Unfortunately, the regulators said that the response did not satisfy their expectations. They considered this to be a “serious regulatory shortfall”. The ONR and EA elevated their concern to the level of a regulatory issue and said that they still expect GE-Hitachi to provide “a suitable and sufficient definition and justification for the radioactive source terms in the UK ABWR during normal operation.” In their latest progress report, the regulators stated, “Reactor chemistry is proving to be a very challenging topic for Hitachi-GE, and project risks have been identified during the quarter which challenge whether a meaningful assessment of reactor chemistry during Step 3 can be achieved.”
GE-Hitachi responded to the U.K. regulators with the following statement, “The Japanese ABWR reference plant upon which the UK ABWR is based has been designed, constructed and operated in accordance with some of the highest safety and environmental standards. Worker dose and environmental discharges are amongst the lowest of any operational plant in the world.” “We are therefore confident that whilst we may have interpreted differently what is required to define and justify the source term within the UK regulatory environment, our proposed ABWR generic design is safe and will meet appropriate UK environmental and safety standards.”
This conversation on source terms has been going of more than a year between the U.K. regulators and GE-Hitachi. It will be interesting to see if it is quickly resolved or if it becomes a major impediment to the purchase of and ABWR from GE-Hitachi.
Construction of Advanced Boiling Water Reactor in Taiwan:
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by Westinghouse and Brazil’s state-owned Nuclebras Equipamentos Pesados (Nuclep) paves the way for the companies to collaborate on the fabrication of AP1000 reactor components in Brazil. world-nuclear-new.org
The World Association of Nuclear Operators (Wano) has published a long-term plan that will pave the way for the organisation to become more effective and to correct shortfalls that contributed to its inability to identify and direct the global industry support necessary to have prevented the Fukushima-Daiichi accident. nucnet.org
South Africa is considering using reactors from Russia’s Rosatom and Westinghouse for its 9,600 megawatt nuclear fleet expansion, an energy advisor to government said on Friday. news.yahoo.com
Nuclear energy is a costly failure, and Ohio and other states should focus on alternative energy, according to a report released Wednesday by an energy institute. portclintonnewsherald.com
My last post was about the Chinese attempts to become involved in reactor financing and construction projects in the U.K. at the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant. The Chinese have embarked on a very ambitious domestic nuclear reactor construction program as well as efforts to sell their reactors to other nations. The Chinese public is not as excited about nuclear power as the central government and the Chinese nuclear companies.
The Chinese government recently released a draft of its Seventh Power Supply Plan which mandates that two new reactors be built at Samcheok in Gangwon Province by 2029. A few days ago, the Gangwon Province branch of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) held a press conference in Samcheok to call for the national government to cancel the plan to build new nuclear reactors in Samcheok and to revoke its designation of the planned sites for the new reactors.
A speaker at the press conference said “In a popular referendum about building nuclear reactors that was carried out in October of last year, 85% of the citizens of Samcheok voted against the plan. A majority of Samcheok citizens are united in their position that building nuclear reactors poses an unacceptable threat to their lives and safety.” Shim Gi-jun, the director of the Gangwon Provice branch of the NPAD, said “The government means to push ahead with the construction of the nuclear reactors because of its stubborn insistence that nuclear power is the business of the state and is not subject to a popular referendum, but in the end no government can defeat its own people. We will join with the people of Samcheok to block the nuclear reactors.”
Officials of the Samcheok city government met with the Second Vice Ministrer of Tradel, Industry and Energy to ask that the plan for the two new Samcheok reactors be removed from the Seventh Power Supply Plan before it is finalized at the end of June. The Committee Fighting against the Samcheok Nuclear Reactor also issued a statements demanding that that project be removed from the Seventh Power Supply Plan immediately.
There have be a number of public protests against government nuclear expansion plans in China. While the national government ostensibly has the power to order construction of nuclear facilities anywhere it wants, the truth is that the people of China can force the national government to abandon plans for specific facilities if there is sufficient public outcry.
Over a thousand people took to the streets of Jiangmen in a city in Guangdong Province in 2013 to demand the cancellation of plans to build a uranium processing facility in the city. The city government ultimately bowed to the will of the citizens and announced that the plan to build the facility would be cancelled.
It will be interesting to see if the public pushback against the two reactors planned for Samcheok forces the national government to cancel the project.
Samcheok;
Westinghouse Electric Company announced Thursday it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Nuclebras Equipamentos Pesados S.A.“ to collaborate on the fabrication of AP1000 nuclear power plant components and equipment in Brazil.” nuclearstreet.com
Russia and Saudi Arabia yesterday signed an agreement to cooperate in the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. world-nuclear-new.org
