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.
I have blogged in the past about the push by countries with nuclear industries to export nuclear technology to non-nuclear nations especially in the third world. Russia, China, the United States, Japan, France and South Korea are all engaged in fighting for export sales. Often, the exporting nation will offer loan guarantees or outright grants of billions of dollars to the non-nuclear nation on the condition that the money comes back to the exporting nation for the purchase of the nuclear technology.
France has decided to use the model of the Paris Air Show to showcase nuclear technology in a biennial exhibition. The first such “World Nuclear Exhibition” will be held in Le Bourget in the same venue as the Paris Air Show in October of 2014. The estimated attendance for the WNE is seven thousands people. Over five hundred French and foreign nuclear companies have signed up to participate.
The head of the NWE says that the primary intent of the exhibition is to for small and medium sized players in the global nuclear industry to take orders for nuclear technology and related services in the range of sixty thousand dollars to a hundred and forty thousand dollars. France has a robust nuclear industry with over twenty five hundred companies which bring in a total of over sixty billion dollars annually. The French nuclear industry employs over two hundred thousand workers.
Even though, the major players in the nuclear industry do not need something like the NWE in order to bring in business, major global nuclear companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toshiba Corporation’s Westinghouse, General Electric Hitachi and Russia’s Rosatom are going to be at the exhibition. The Chinese firms China General Nuclear and the China National Nuclear Corporation are in negotiation for participation.
Although Russia has had many nuclear expositions such as the annual Atomexpo France has had none of their own. The French state-owned Areva is currently building two new European Pressurized Reactors (EPR) nuclear reactors in China and one in Finland. Areva has not contracted to build a reactor since 2007. It appears that their goal of selling ten of the new ERP reactors by 2016 might be too optimistic. With growing demand for energy sources which do not contribute to global warming, France believes that it will be able to increase exports of nuclear technology.
One of my concerns about this push to sell nuclear technology to third-world countries is the fact that the purchasing countries will be at the mercy of the nuclear nation that built their reactors. Recent experiences in Ukraine show that nuclear fuel assemblies are not sufficiently standardized to insure the possibility of seeking other suppliers for nuclear fuel. Russia already has a bad reputation for holding up fossil fuel exports to countries that do not support Russian positions in the international community.
Another big concern that I have is the fact that selling nuclear technology to corrupt third-world regimes is going to virtually guarantee major nuclear accidents as reactor construction and operation will likely not be conducted properly. Another Fukushima level accident or two and there will be a major public backlash against all nuclear power generation.
Model of an Areva European Pressurized Reactor:
Officials fear that the melted reactor fuel of Fukushima Unit 2 reactor is now exposed. enenews.com
Crews at the Dresden nuclear plant near Chicago have been working to secure a leak of tritiated water detected over the weekend. nuclearstreet.com
As information continues to trickle out about the April accident at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico, once again I am going to offer an update. WIPP has been open for fifteen years and is the only repository used to dispose of plutonium contaminated waste from the U.S. nuclear weapons program.
In April, a drum of waste exploded and released radioactive particles into the environment. Research has now suggested that hundreds of drums of waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) were packed with an absorbent that reacts with the nitrate salts in the waste to produce explosive substances. This danger was clearly stated in the packaging for the absorbent. There are emails from subcontractors at LANL asking someone from the lab consider the safety issues that might be associated with the new absorbent but it is not known whether anyone at the lab researched the dangers. In any case, the use of the new absorbent was approved.. The WIPP was closed by the accident and some of the dangerous drums of waste are also still at the LANL while at least a hundred more are in temporary storage in Texas.
When the WIPP was developed in the old salt mine, big open areas called Panels were divided into rooms which were filled with drums of waste. Originally when a Panel was filled with drums, a twelve foot thick explosion isolation wall was used to seal the Panel. Overtime, the Department of Energy reduced the safety requirements for WIPP and the Panels were sealed with a steel bulkhead that was not explosion proof. Eventually, even the steel bulkheads were abandoned.
When Panel Six was totally filled with drums of waste, it was not sealed off as previous Panels had been. The explosion that took place in Panel Seven could have contaminated the waste drums in Panel Six. The Secretary of the New Mexico Department of the Environment has demanded that both Panel Six and Panel Seven be immediately sealed with bulkheads that can withstand explosions in case more of the drums from LANL explode. To make matters worse, there was no detailed record of exactly which drums were stored where in a particular Panel. Electronic records had not been updated when new shipments of drums arrived. This lack of good records impeded the investigation into where the exploding drum had come from.
The LANL has not been forthcoming with answers and documents that involve the actions of the subcontractors, the decision to use that particular absorbent or what testing was done at LANL, if any. They still not confirming that the absorbent is the problem. Questions are being referred to the Department of Energy, the “customer” of LANL.
Prior to 2006, drums of waste bound for WIPP were routinely inspected to insure that the contents of the drums were accurately represented by the manifest that accompanied the shipment. In 2006, the New Mexico Environmental Department changed the rules for inspection so that testing was reduced to a few random drums. While these inspections would not necessarily have caught the drums with the bad absorbent, they do clearly illustrate that the rules for safe handling of waste at WIPP were weakened and even ignored as the years went by. This happened because there were no significant accidents for fifteen years. But it should never have happened. These wastes are very dangerous and they must be treated with respect or more such accidents are guaranteed.
Transuranic Waste Shipment:
