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 my posts have been about nuclear chemistry, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and radioactive threats to health and the environment. There is another sector of the nuclear industry that I have covered briefly that has to do with the production and utilization of specific radioisotopes for a wide variety of purposes.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will soon award eight million dollars to fund two projects that are intended to produce a domestic supply of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) without the necessity of using highly enriched uranium (HEU).
Technetium-99m (Tc-99m) is used in about eighty percent of the nuclear imaging procedures in hospital. The Tc-99m used in hospitals is produced by Mo-99. Mo-99 has a half-life of sixty six hours or about three days so it cannot be just produced and stockpiled. Most of the global supply of Mo-99 is produced in five reactors in Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, South Africa and Russia. If anything interferes with production in any of these reactors, shortages can quickly develop. Most of the Mo-99 is produced by bombarding HEU targets which raises concerns of proliferation. In addition, Canada’s NRU reactor which produces up to forty percent of the global supply of Mo-99 is scheduled to stop operating in 2016 which will result in a big drop in global Mo-99 production from current sources.
Currently, the U.S. does not produce any Mo-99 so it is dependent of those foreign sources. The NNSA has been working with commercial partners since 2009 to develop domestic sources for Mo-99 that do not require the use of HEU.
NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes is slated to receive about five million dollars to continue work on the production of Mo-99 by neutron capture. Currently, NMR is using a research reactor at Missouri University to produce Mo-99 by bombarding Mo-98 with neutrons. Eventually, NMR intends to develop a linear accelerator that can produce Mo-99. NNSA has a cost sharing agreement with NMR that has supplied them with over sixteen million dollars of federal funds. NMR hopes to be able to start commercial production of Mo-99 in 2015.
Shine Medical Technologies (SMT) will get about three million dollars to develop a process that will use what is called sub-critical accelerator technology to produce Mo-99 via fission of low-enriched uranium (LEU). SMT has just received a one hundred and twenty five million dollar debt financing package for a healthcare investment firm. This infusion of capital along with the funds from NNSA will permit SMT to complete design and construction of a manufacturing facility and allow them to ramp up commercial production.
Mo-99 is just one of many critical radioisotopes in use today. Given the currently unstable global political and economic situation, it is a good idea to develop domestic sources of important radioisotopes just in case foreign supplies are cut off.
According to specialists, the volume of contaminated liquid that is leaking from Fukushima into the ocean is increasing by 400 tons daily. en.itar-tass.com
Massive radiation spike at Fukushima: 40,000% increase below ground between Units 1 & 2 this month. enenews.com
Commercial operation of Kudankulam nuclear plant only in 2015 economictimes.indiatimes.com
There is a great deal of uncertainty about the future of nuclear power. On one side, the critics point to problems at nuclear power plants, lax regulation, environmental and health dangers, problems of waste disposal and dangers of proliferation. On the other side, proponents point out that nuclear reactors have a small carbon footprint which would help to reduce anthropogenic climate change and they produce reliable baseload power as compared to intermittent wind and solar power sources. Then there are political, social and economic factors which may support or work against the construction of new nuclear power plants. Covering all these issues has been one of the reasons that I have been writing these blogs.
The International Energy Association has recently released their annual World Energy Outlook report in which they predict the growth potential of nuclear power in the next 25 years. They estimate that the share of world energy production produced by nuclear power will rise by one percent by 2040. The report predicts that the global primary energy demand will rise thirty seven percent by 2040. They expect that the demand for coal and oil will level off around 2040. The report assumes that world energy production from fossil fuels will be roughly equal to the energy being produced by nuclear and renewables such as wind and solar. One of the authors of the report is quoted as saying that renewable are on the way to becoming the number one source of global electricity.
Although the report stressed the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it also suggested that fifteen billion dollars a year should be invested in oil development with an additional nine billion dollars a year slated for coal. The report called for most oil development to take place in the Middle East. Nuclear power will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about four years worth of the use of fossil fuels by 2040, according to the report.
The report estimates that the cost of decommissioning aging nuclear power plants will exceed one hundred billion dollars in the next twenty five years. (Governments and the nuclear industry regularly underestimate the cost of decommissioning.) One problem with estimating decommissioning costs is the fact that since the dawn of nuclear power, only ten nuclear power plants have been decommissioned so the nuclear industry does not have much experience with the process. Of the four hundred and thirty four nuclear power reactors currently operating, almost half are scheduled to be decommissioned by 2040.
The estimate of the cost of decommissioning two hundred nuclear reactors does not include the creation of a permanent geological repository for disposing of nuclear waste. Many billions of additional dollars will be required to create and fill future repositories. It is estimated that seven hundred thousand metric tons of spent nuclear fuel will have been generated by 2040.
It is beneficial for agencies interested in power generation to estimate future demand and supply. However, it is entirely possible that the dropping cost of renewables will eventually remove the need for building additional nuclear power plants by 2040.
