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.
Experts highly suspicious of Japan’s claim that nobody suffered acute radiation syndrome after Fukushima. enenews.com
More damage will come as radioactive material from Fukushima biomagnifies in food chain. enenews.com
Russia has announced two new milestones in its ‘Proryv’, or Breakthrough, project to enable a closed nuclear fuel cycle. world-nuclear-news.org
In my last blog post, I talked about the U.S. NRC approving the GE-Hitachi Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor design. The whole issue of licensing is complicated with different countries applying different criterion for granting licenses. And inside a particular country, the rules may not be applied consistently. The nuclear industry would prefer to have a more consistent and faster licensing process. This would certainly be more attractive to investors.
Some licensing and permitting goals are obvious. One of the most important is insuring safety and security. Regulatory agencies want to decrease threats to the environment and other negative possible impacts. There should be transparency and acceptance by all the stakeholders, not just the shareholders. The industry and the regulatory agencies should be efficient. In addition, the nuclear industry would like to facilitate investment.
According to the nuclear industry, the licensing and permitting of nuclear reactor construction is too long and costly. There are many issues that must be resolved. A site must be selected and its suitability documented. A “licensable entity” must be created. A reactor design must be selected and certified. A supply chain must be created that supports the reactor and satisfies the regulators. Long term commitments must be made with respect to fuel, etc. The community of stakeholders must be involved early in the process and continue to be engaged. And, finally, all the paper work involved with licensing and permitting must be completed, submitted, approved and defended against law suits. The big problem with finding investment lies in the fact that investors must be secured before the licensing and permitting process begins with no guarantee that it will be successful.
In the United Kingdom, there are many approvals that must be obtained during the process of licensing and constructing a nuclear power reactor. “The first phase includes justification of a reactor design; a Generic Design Assessment; a nuclear site licence application; a funded decommissioning plan; a strategic siting assessment; an environmental impact assessment; a Development Consent Order (DCO) application; consultation with the local community; a generation licence; preliminary site work permission, nuclear insurance; and an environmental permit. The second phase requires satisfying ongoing licence and DCO pre-operation conditions, as well as other consents for materials handling and grid connection.”
There are three new trends with respect to nuclear power reactor licensing and construction. There are vendor-initiated ventures where private companies and consortiums dominate and utilities no longer play a prominent role. Vendors prefer to have a customer lined up before investing in preliminaries. Key milestones need to be coordinated to attract investors. Unlike utilities, some consortium members may want to pull out of the arrangement and there must be an exit strategy for them. A consortium of different entities may have a diversity of goals and internal processes that must be taken into account.
A second trend is toward setting up new build sites near existing legacy sites. Factors taken into account for the original sites such as seismic stability, water availability and transportation usually remain the same which benefits siting new reactors in the same area. On the other hand, there might be conflict between the safety of the legacy power plant and the new power plant or left over contamination from a previous power plant. The new and old power plants might compete for labor, transportation, grid capacity, etc.
The third trend has to do with gain the cooperation of the regulatory agencies by engaging the regulators in the commercial licensing and permitting timelines. Changes to governmental planning can serve to improve the predictability of projects. Political goodwill through community engagement can lower the risk of engaging in the licensing and permitting process.
UK nuclear regulatory agency logo:
The melted fuel for the Fukushima Unit 1 reactor is outside the pedestal and could possibly be outside of containment. fukuleaks.org
Research by a team led by Jae W Kwon at the University of Missouri in the USA has opened the door for the development of a new generation of water-based batteries powered by beta radiation. world-nuclear-news.org
A company developing a potential site for Utah’s first nuclear plant will face another court challenge to its water rights. nuclearstreet.com
New nuclear reactor designs are constantly being developed. Any design that will be built in the United States has to get approval from the NRC. That approval is a critical step in the construction of any new reactor. The NRC has just approved the design of the GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s Economic Simplified Boiling-water Reactor (ESBWR) for use in the U.S. Once the new certification rule is published in the U.S. Federal Register, thirty days later the rule goes into effect.
The ESBWR is designed to generate about one and one half gigawatts of electricity. The design includes what is called natural circulating coolant. There are passive safety features involved which would be able to cool down the reactor automatically without human involvement in case of a malfunction or a serious accident. The design includes a taller reactor vessel, a shorter core and improved water flow through the vessel all of which serve to enhance natural circulation of water. It also includes an isolated condenser system that can control the level of the water and also dissipate heat from radioactive decay while the reactor vessel is pressurized. And, finally, if the reactor pressure falls, there is a gravity driven cooling system that will maintain water levels. GE-Hitachi first submitted the ESBWR design to the NRC in 2005.
The NRC carried out a thorough engineering evaluation on the design and issued a safety evaluation report in early 2011. There was a draft certification rule notice that was published following the report. Included in the notice were public comments and petitions being circulated by activists. Following the draft certification notice, the NRC requested additional information about the steam dryer in the design. The steam dryer prevents excess moisture from causing damage to the turbine that generates the electricity in a nuclear power plant. In May of 2014, the NRC issued a supplement to the original draft certification notice to take into account changes in the analysis of the steam dryer in the design. There were no public comments about the supplemental material added to the original draft certification notice.
The NRC is considering two combined construction and operating applications that include the new GE-Hitachi reactor design. Detroit Edison wants to add a third reactor to the Fermi plant in Monroe County, Michigan. Dominion Virginia Power is asking for a license to add a third reactor to the North Anna power plant in Louisa County, Virginia. It is expected that the NRC will issue a license for the new Fermi reactor in 2015 and a license for the new North Anna reactor in 2016.
In addition to the certification of the new ESBWR design, the NRC has certified four other new reactor designs. These include the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor, the System 80+, the AP600 and the AP1000. The Chinese are developing their own reactor design based on the AP1000. There are several reactor construction projects around the globe which involve the AP1000 design.
GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s Economic Simplified Boiling-water Reactor design:
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake occurred in South part of Ibaraki at 12:28 9/16/2014 (JST), according to Japan Meteorological Agency. fuklushima-diary.com
The Minister of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan says that the contaminated water at Fukushima is completely under control. ex-slf.blogspot.jp
I have stated in previous blogs that when you consider all the different factors such as economic, political, social, technological, public health and environmental, it is obvious that nuclear energy is not a good way to produce electricity. I have often said that the only reason nuclear power is still being discussed as a viable power source is because there is so much money involved in their construction and operation. The nuclear industry has been very successful at offloading liabilities and pocketing profits with the help of a bought and paid for Congress and an industry friendly Nuclear Regulatory Agency.
In South Carolina, the state regulatory agency has allowed the company constructing two new nuclear reactors to pass the cost overruns along to the utility customers even though the unfinished plants have generated no electricity. Some states such as Florida have or had laws on the books that would allow nuclear power companies to charge their customers for the construction costs of nuclear power plants that were never completed and never generated electricity.
If the company building new reactors in Georgia happens to go bankrupt, Congress has given them generous loan guarantees which means that the construction costs of the abandon reactor projects will be passed along to the U.S. taxpayers.
If there should happen to be a major nuclear accident in the U.S. as serious as the March 11, 2013 disaster at Fukushima, the companies responsible are insulated from responsibility for the billions of dollars that the accident will ultimately cost. The Price-Anderson Act requires that each operating nuclear power plant purchase the maximum insurance that is available which is three hundred and seventy five million dollars. Beyond that, if an accident occurs at nuclear plant and the costs exceed the insurance, power plant owners are obligated to pay one hundred and twenty one million dollars into a national fund that will be used to pay for additional costs of the accident. If the cost of an accident exceeds the four hundred and ninety million dollars from the insurance coverage and the extra money from the nuclear power operator, then the Congress can require additional money from the nuclear power operator. If the cost of an accident exceeds the ability of a company to pay, then the U.S. taxpayer will pay the additional cost.
In 2013, four out of the one hundred and four U.S. power reactors were shut down for a variety of reasons including being too expensive to repair or being uncompetitive in the energy market. Activists are calling for the last nuclear power plant in California to be shut down. Most of the remaining nuclear power reactors in the U.S. are reaching the end of their licensed life spans. More will be shut down because they will be too expensive to repair or uncompetitive.
Russia, China, France and Japan are moving aggressively to make nuclear technology exports a major component of their international trade. Russia and China are committed to building dozens of new reactors in the near future. Fortunately, for all the problems that the U.S. has with nuclear power, embarking on a major building and exporting program for nuclear reactors is not one of them. The electricity supplied by nuclear reactors in the U.S. can and should be replaced by renewables and conservation as soon as possible. In any case, I am sure that the U.S. taxpayer will still wind up paying dearly for our use of nuclear power.
TV director covering Fukushima thyroid cancer and nuclear industry “commits suicide.” fukushima-diary.com
Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) has reached agreement to sell back its stake in the shut down Crystal River 3 nuclear power plant in Florida to Duke Energy, OUC spokesman Tim Trudell said today. world-nuclear-news.org
Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear One has reported potential degradation in fuel assemblies transferred into a dry cask. nuclearstreet.com
