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.
Last week I wrote a couple of posts about the public presentation by representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy and Washington State with respect to the cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. In the blog posts, I mentioned that there was a serious legal conflict between the U.S. DoE and Washington over the cleanup of all the radioactive wastes polluting the site from decades of work on nuclear weapons for the United States arsenal.
In 2010, a Federal Court consent decree had set strict milestones for the cleanup. Since then, the U.S. DoE has said that the required actions could not be carried out on the required schedule because of the scientific complexity of the situation at Hanford. It proposed that the hard deadlines for specific action in the consent decree be replaced with “future unspecified milestones to be set on an open-ended rolling basis.” Washington State had been threatening to take the U.S. DoE back to court to force the U.S. DoE to carry out the work on the schedule set by the court. Washington State also proposed a new set of deadlines and demanded that all cleanup work be carried out by 2047.
On Friday of last week, the State and the Federal government rejected each other’s proposals. The U.S. DoE proposal had requested the elimination of many of the deadlines included in the Federal Court decision. This was totally unacceptable to the State and the State rejected the U.S. DoE proposal. Later in the day, the U.S. Justice Department sent a letter to the Washington State Department of Ecology. In the letter, the Justice Department rejected the Washington State proposal to accelerate the cleanup. The U.S. DoE had said that the Washington State proposal ignored technical realities and budget problems at the U.S. DoE.
One major problem at Hanford concerns the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) which I have covered in previous blog posts. The Waste Treatment Plant is intended to incorporate the waste from the underground tanks in glass logs which will then be buried. Construction on the plant was halted because the original design did not take into accounts corrosion in the pipes and hydrogen gas buildup. There has been extensive redesign for the plant including the creation of whole new processing stages and alternative processing pathways. The consent decree requires that the WTP be fully operational by 2022.
The U.S. DoE has said that ” setting deadlines that likely will be missed creates false expectations in the community and with the State, and erodes confidence in the cleanup work.” The cleanup has been in process for decades and has been repeatedly plagued by incompetence, illegal behavior on the part of U.S. DoE, accidents, lies and missed deadlines. At this point, I don’t think that there is much confidence left in the community and the State. Washington State has the option of invoking a forty day process of negotiation as provided for in the consent decree. If an agreement between U.S. DoE and the State of Washington cannot be reached in such negotiations, then Washington State may request that the Federal Court order the U.S. DoE to adhere to the State proposal. Given the history of Hanford, I would not be surprised to see this case back in Federal Court.
I have blogged about nuclear issues in Ukraine related to the recent political turbulence. With the situation deteriorating, I decided that I would revisit the topic.
When the Soviet Union dissolved twenty years ago, Ukraine possessed a lot of Soviet nuclear warheads. Ukraine agreed to rid itself of nuclear weapons on the basis of Budapest Memorandum signed by the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia. The memorandum guaranteed the security, territorial and sovereignty of Ukraine. Within five years all the nuclear warheads and their nuclear infrastructure had been removed or destroyed. The International Atomic Energy Agency has been monitoring the peaceful use of nuclear power in the Ukraine since the Budapest Memorandum was signed.
Now, with the seizure of the Crimea and the threat to use force in Eastern Ukraine, the Russians have violated the Budapest Memorandum. There have been calls in Kiev for Ukraine to resume the production of nuclear weapons in order to protect itself from foreign aggression. The new government in Kiev has strongly rejected this option and reaffirmed its commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. They would rather seek security in cooperation with members of the international community. The European Union will be asked for assistance.
The Ukraine government fears that the world may seek appeasement with the Russians by allowing them to retain possession of the Crimea and possibly even accept the annexation of Eastern Ukraine. They cite the failure of appeasement to contain the Third Reich in the lead up to World War II. They hope that the world community will bring diplomatic and economic pressure on Russia to surrender the Crimea and withdraw their troops from the border with Eastern Ukraine. They also insist that military options should not be ruled out if the Russians do not yield to the other measures.
There is mounting concern that Ukraine’s nuclear power plants may be under threat, either from a Russian invasion or sabotage by Ukrainians that support the Russian actions. The Ukrainian government fears that attacks on Ukraine nuclear reactors could result in radioactive contamination of Ukraine and surrounding countries. They have called for international monitors to help protect Ukrainian reactors. After having suffered the Chernobyl disaster, the Ukrainians are familiar with widespread nuclear contamination.
Ukraine supplies forty percent of its electricity from fifteen aging nuclear reactors concentrated in four locations. Even if not intentionally attacked, human error in the fog of war could result in bombardment of a nuclear power plant, causing a meltdown. Fighting near nuclear plants could disrupt off-site power sources which are critical to safe operation. Operators could abandon their posts at the nuclear power plant leaving no one to deal with emergencies that might arise. Ground forces could invade nuclear power plants and damage operating systems. On the other hand, troops from one side of the conflict could take refuge in a nuclear power plant, inviting attacks from the other side.
We can hope that Russia will be reluctant to attack nuclear power plants in Ukraine in view of the fact that they also suffered in the Chernobyl disaster. For the moment, we can only hope that diplomacy and economic sanctions will discourage Russia from instigating further conflict in Ukraine.
