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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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.
Earthquake measuring 8.5 magnitude shakes most of Japan. theguardian.com
Part One of Two Parts.
Yesterday, I posted comments on a list of problems with nuclear power. Today I am going to comment on another list of “dangerous nuclear misconception.” This list was published on the listverse.com website.
1) The Fukushima disaster is under control. There is a lot of confusion about the current status of the efforts to clean up after the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. While the Fukushima aftermath has largely faded from the headlines, stories keep appearing cataloging continuing problems and failures on the part of TEPCO to solve problems such as contaminated water leaking from a huge farm of tanks. They still don’t even know exactly where the melted reactor cores are and, even if they did, they have no way of dealing with them. If the cores melt through to the groundwater beneath the plant, there could be radioactive steam explosions that would spread contamination over the countryside. The ruins of the reactors are highly radioactive making cleanup difficult if not impossible. It is estimated that it will require fifty billion dollars and several years to complete the cleanup. I think that this is a very optimistic estimate.
2) There is a great danger that aggressive and/or unstable countries will secretly develop their own domestic nuclear industries and proceed to create nuclear arsenals. It is very difficult and expensive for a country to create an domestic nuclear industry with reactor construction, uranium processing, plutonium recovery and nuclear weapons development. Unless a country has its own uranium mines, international purchases of uranium are closely monitored and expensive. The technological infrastructure needed to refine uranium and recover plutonium is complex, expensive and requires skilled scientists. These capabilities and staffing would be impossible to obtain without other countries being aware of attempts and preventing acquisition of needed hardware such as centrifuges. Nuclear weapons development ultimately requires testing which would be impossible to conceal.
3) Nuclear waste is being safely stored. There are many legal nuclear waste facilities around the world which are leaking radioactive materials. There are also many illegal dumps of nuclear waste that are leaking into the environment. There has been a lot of talk about creating permanent geological nuclear waste storage facilities but so far, only a few have been created. Germany closed such a facility because it was leaking into the groundwater. The U.S. was going to build a facility at Yucca Mountain but analyses of the site revealed that the original assessments of the site failed to account for groundwater movement. The U.S. did build a geological repository in New Mexico for waste from nuclear weapons development which was shut down recently because a waste drum exploded and radioactive materials were spread over twenty miles from the site. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is leaking a witches brew of radioactive and toxic chemicals from hundreds of deteriorating underground storage tanks.
4) There are many potential sites for additional nuclear waste disposal. Worldwide, there is a rejection of government attempts to find new places to store nuclear waste. Japan has changed a policy of allowing local governments to volunteer for waste siting to one where the government will select the site. States in the U.S. have passed laws to prevent the storage of high level wastes inside their borders. Other nations have faced fierce public backlash when considering sites for nuclear waste disposal. There is underground traffic all over the world where criminal enterprises are being paid to illegally dump nuclear waste because of a lack of legal facilities.
5) We always know if people are injured by radioactive contamination. Radiation is odorless, tasteless, and colorless. There is background radiation from natural uranium in varying amounts everywhere. Radon gas is produced from natural radium and can collect in basements of homes and buildings. There are spikes in radioactive steam and gas released from nuclear power plants during normal operations. Biological damage from these different sources radiation can take years or even decades to show up in the form of cancers and other diseases. It is estimated that tens of thousands of people die in the U.S. each year from radioactive poisoning from natural or man-made sources.
(See Part Two)
Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State:
I recently saw a list of problems facing the nuclear industry on nuclear-news.net. Since I have been blogging lately about problems with major nuclear companies in different countries, I decided that I would comment on the items in their list.
1). The nuclear industry is living with the reality that there will be another major nuclear accident soon which will upset the public and investors. Combining a push by nuclear construction companies and some national governments for a new nuclear reactor construction boom with the fact that there are serious concerns about corruption and incompetence in the industry and its regulators, a major nuclear accident is virtually guaranteed. There are estimates that one may happen in the next six years.
2) Many of the operating nuclear reactors in the world were built in the 1970s. They are reaching the end of their life spans and are becoming more dangerous and harder to repair. Recently a U.S. reactor was shut down because it was too expensive to repair. There will be an very expensive and complex wave of reactor decommissioning in the next decade.
3) There is a great deal of publicity about a bunch of orders for new reactors which turn out to be mostly hot air. A deeper analysis reveals that while there is a great deal of discussion going on, there are few actually signed firm orders for new reactor construction.
4) Countries which have the capability to build new reactors are encountering public resistance and investor apathy domestically so they are in fierce competition to sell reactors to other countries. There may be a lot more sellers than buyers. And questions have been raised that even if some of the nuclear exporters get orders, they may not be able to deliver.
5) Climate change is already having an impact on nuclear reactors. Several reactors in the U.S. have had to be temporarily shut down because the bodies of water they were using for cooling became too warm. Reactors have been shut down because of dangers posed by severe storms recently. Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of such storms. At least twenty reactors in the U.S. are in danger from flooding which will increase due to climate change.
6) The strategic need for nuclear arsenals is diminishing. Small scale conflicts and asymmetric warfare call for different types of weapons such as drones. Although major nuclear powers are spending on upgrading nuclear arsenals, nuclear weapon infrastructure is deteriorating in the U.S. and Russia. Calls for complete nuclear armament are increasing across the globe.
7) Global economic problems have reduced the demand for electricity. Conservation has also reduced demand. There is less demand for construction of any new power plants including nuclear.
8) Renewable energy is becoming more popular worldwide. Innovation is rapidly lowering prices for wind and solar. National governments are mandating investment in renewable energy sources as an alternative to new nuclear plants.
9) Nuclear power plants are in danger because of war and terrorism. The Ukrainian government has expressed fear that their nuclear reactors may be damaged or destroyed by the civil war there, either by intent or accident. Nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools will be tempting targets for terrorists. Their destruction would deprive the target country of electric power and possibly threaten millions of people with radioactive fallout.
10) Public opinion is turning against nuclear power across the world. The Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011 was a major blow to the reputation of nuclear power as a safe energy source. In China, a uranium processing plant project was abandoned due to public pressure. One more big nuclear accident and there will be huge global public rejection of nuclear power.
The MOU was signed during a CNNC delegation’s visit to Egypt between 21 and 23 May. talkingpointsmemo.com
A state of national emergency was declared by the USA in 2000 to help to ensure that payments to Russia under the 1993 agreement to downblend surplus military high-enriched uranium could not be derailed by unrelated legal actions. world-nuclear-news.org
