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.
In the 1960s, it was estimated that there would be a huge global fleet of nuclear power reactors by the year 2000 that would require reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel in order to create more fuel. As the years passed, interest in nuclear power declined and the world reserves of high grade uranium ore increase. When the year 2000 arrived, the global nuclear power reactor fleet turn out to be one tenth of the early estimate and there was sufficient uranium fuel available. Reprocessing of spent fuel to make more fuel is much more expensive than mining and refining uranium. However, there are indications that world uranium production has peaked and that there may be supply problems in the near future. This has spurred renewed interest in breeder reactors and reprocessing with Russia working on a new generation of breeder reactors and reprocessing plants.
In 1999, the U.S. Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) signed a contract with what is now Shaw Areva MOX Services, LLC. (SAMS). Under the contract, SAMS would design, build and operate a Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility (MOFFF). This facility would be used to convert plutonium from nuclear weapons into a form that could be used to fuel U.S. nuclear power reactors. To accomplish this, the plutonium would be mixed with uranium oxide to form the fuel pellets used in nuclear reactors. The design would be based on AREVA’s MOX conversion plants in France. The facility was to be constructed at the Savannah River Site operated by NNSA. Under the design, when operational, the facility should be able to convert three and one half metric tons of plutonium into MOX fuel per year.
Currently, most MOX conversion of spent nuclear fuel to recover plutonium is done in the United Kingdom and France with some conversion going on in Russia, India and Japan. China has expressed interest in fast breeder reactors and MOX conversion. With concerns about the world supply of uranium declining, continued use of nuclear power reactors may require increase reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel as well as the use of fast breeder reactors to create plutonium which can then be converted into MOX fuel.
After years of problems at the MOFFF including delays and cost increases, the Obama Administration has decided to halt work on the facility. It was estimated that the reprocessing plant might cost as much as thirty billion dollars over its lifetime. The facility will be put on “cold standby” while the Administration investigates other ways of disposing of or reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from U.S. reactors. Japan has also had a lot of problems with the reprocessing facility that they are working on.
While the intent of MOX creation from weapons grade plutonium is to reduce the amount of weapons grade plutonium in the world, critics have pointed out that during the processing stage, there is an increased risk of theft. There is also the fear that wide use of MOX conversion technology to recover plutonium from spent nuclear fuel which would result in an increase instead of a decrease in the world supply of high grade plutonium, at least during processing. This increases the threat of nuclear proliferation.
MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility at Savannah River Site in South Carolina:
I try not to get too angry when I read about the misdeeds of companies handling radioactive waste but sometimes it is difficult. Many of my blogs focus on the nuclear industry, nuclear reactors and their waste, mining of uranium, nuclear weapons, etc. but today I am going to talk about an industry that at first glance is not related to nuclear issues. I am talking about fracking.
The fracking industry is raping the landscape all over this country, polluting the aquifers and ground water and causing earthquakes, in the quest for cheap natural gas. Although inexpensive natural gas is eroding the support for building more nuclear reactors, one of the waste products in the sludge pumped out of fracking wells consists of natural radioactive uranium in the soil and rock which also contains trace amounts of radium. Radium is very dangerous to biological systems. During fracking operations, there are large cloth filters that capture some of the uranium and radium from fracking operations as waste is pumped out of fracking wells.
North Dakota is home to major fracking operations. An estimated seventy five tons of fracking waste is being pumped out of fracking wells daily in ND. Fracking filters cannot be disposed of in North Dakota landfills if they are emitting more than five picocuries. There are no disposal options in ND for filters emitting more than five picocuries. If companies are caught trying to dispose of such filters in ND landfills, the fine is a thousand dollars a filter. It has been reported that many filters are being improperly disposed of in ND to avoid the cost of shipping them out of state to a legal disposal area.
An Indian reservation found that fracking filters were being tossed into dumpsters and garbage cans on the reservation. Whole flat bed truck trailers full of bags of fracking filters have been found abandoned along ND roads. In the tiny town of Noonan near the Canadian border, old buildings on the property of a closed gas station were found to contain hundreds of bags of highly radioactive fracking filters. The owner of the property is a fugitive wanted on larceny charges. It is unclear whether or not the owner is aware of and complicit in the use his buildings for dumping fracking filters.
The State of North Dakota has no office or staff that is monitoring and attempting to control the illegal dumping of fracking filters in ND. This is a horrible example of an polluting industry moving into a poor state and just doing anything it wants to make a profit. All of the pretty ads about clean cheap natural gas that are appearing on TV are based on a lie. The gas is cheap because the people drilling and operating the fracking wells are dumping the environmental damage and public health threats on the citizens of ND and pocketing the profits from selling the natural gas. If the actual damage to the ecosystem were to be factored into the cost of natural gas, it would not be anywhere near as cheap as is being advertised. I have seen studies that indicate that if the environmental costs of fracked natural gas are factored in, it is no cleaner that burning coal in power plants. The illegal dumping of fracking filters in ND as if it were one big garbage dump is an outrage and if the State of North Dakota cannot afford to stop it, then the Federal government should get involved and prosecute the dumpers.
Illegally abandoned fracking filters in North Dakota:
Recently, I blogged about the accidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico which included an accidental release of radiation into the environment. Something happened in the underground repository for plutonium and americium contaminated nuclear waste materials generated by the U.S. nuclear weapons program. The cause and nature of the accident that released the radioactive materials was unknown at the time of my last blog around February 28, 2013. Thirteen workers were known to have been exposed to radiation but the location where the accident occurred was too radioactive to be investigated. There have been a number of news items published since then and I decided that it was time to put together another blog with update about the WIPP situation.
The two scenarios that are being considered were anticipated during the construction of WIPP. The first scenario concerns the possibility that a drum of waste spontaneously combusted and ruptured, spilling the contents. The Department of Energy (DOE) said that there was a one in ten thousand chance that this would happen in any particular year of operation.
The second scenario dealt with the possibility that a portion of the roof could collapse and crush a number of drums of waste, releasing their contents. Two roof collapses occurred in the salt caverns during the stress tests twenty years ago. The DOE gave this occurrence a one in a million chance of happening in any particular year of operation. Considering that the facility has only been in use for about twenty years, the DOE is either wrong in its projections or the WIPP has had really bad luck.
There was a public meeting on March 6 where the DOE tried to reassure residents of the area that there was no danger to the public although americium was detected up to eleven miles from the facility. Residents have complained that they were not given enough information about the accident to be confident in what the DOE was saying. If ingested or inhaled, americium tends to accumulate in the bones, liver and muscle. The exposure of tissue to the radiation emitted by americium can result in the development of cancer.
A few days ago, doctors confirmed that a total of seventeen workers at WIPP had been exposed to radiation from the accident. It has also been confirmed that radiation has reached the town of Carlsbad which is twenty six miles from the facility. Once again, authorities are saying that the amount of radiation that reached Carlsbad does not pose a public health threat.
The operators at WIPP are waiting for the radiation to subside so they can enter the damaged area and find out what actually happened. Once again, a nuclear facility has been the victim of an accident that was supposed to be almost impossible. And, once again, although radiation has been released into the environment, the authorities are saying that there is no danger to the people who live in the area. I am afraid that I lack confidence in the projections and pronouncements of the Department of Energy when it comes to nuclear accidents. However, there is one projection about WIPP that I do believe. The operators at WIPP have said that the facility will be out of operation for a protracted period of time.
Drums of waste in the WIPP:
