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 year, I posted several blog articles about the “Peaceful A-bombs.” These articles recounted efforts by the U.S., Soviet Union and other countries to find a peaceful use for nuclear bombs. Some of the uses considered had to do with earth moving such as digging canals with a linear series of nuclear bombs. Another possibility was digging out artificial harbors with nuclear bombs. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union were also interested in seeing if nuclear bombs could be used for fracking to release oil and natural gas from deep below the surface of the Earth. A recent article about this idea of nuclear fracking caught my attention. Since fracking is so much in the news these days, I thought that I would go in to a bit more detail about U.S. nuclear fracking tests.
In December of 1967, the Atomic Energy Commission (forerunner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission), the U.S. Bureau of Mines and El Paso Natural Gas Company sent researchers to northern New Mexico near Farmington for a test that was referred to as Project Gasbuggy. A four thousand foot shaft had been drilled for the test. A twenty thousand ton nuclear bomb was lowered to the bottom of the shaft and triggered. The explosion created a cylindrical cavity that was over three hundred feet tall and about one hundred and fifty feet in diameter. The intense heat of the blast fused the soil and rock into a glass lining. Subsequent measurements indicated that fractures spread out two hundred feet in all directions and there was definitely an increase in the release of natural gas from the fractured rock.
There were two such more tests by the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1969 near Rulison, Colorado, a forty three thousand ton nuclear device was triggered in an eight thousand five hundred foot shaft. In 1973, a single shaft was used to detonate three thirty three thousand ton nuclear devices near Rifle, Colorado. All of these tests were part of the U.S. Ploughshares Program which sought to find practical civilian uses for nuclear bombs. The Ploughshare Program was cancelled in 1975.
The reasons given for the cancellation of the underground test series included the fact that the process was very expensive. It was estimated that if all of the gas that could be produced by such a well were extracted over a twenty five year period, it would only recover a maximum of forty percent of the cost of the fracking process. There was little public support and, hence, little congressional support for the program. In addition, there was also concern about the tritium contamination of the gas produced by the well. Underground nuclear detonations still release radioactive materials into the atmosphere. There is also the possibility of radioactive contamination of ground water as well. With the development of other technologies such as hydrofracking, the concern about cost and environmental issues, nuclear fracking was never implemented. To this day, the three test sites are still under the control of the Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management.
Project Gasbuggy sign:
Tons of Fukushima radioactive waste are kept in an area beyond Tokyo, 150 miles from reactors. enenews.com
Southern Co. announced Wednesday that it has filed the paperwork for a loan guarantee that’s been under negotiation since 2010 for new reactors at Plant Vogtle. nuclearstreet.com
Tons of Fukushima radioactive waste are kept in an area beyond Tokyo, 150 miles from reactors. enenews.com
Southern Co. announced Wednesday that it has filed the paperwork for a loan guarantee that’s been under negotiation since 2010 for new reactors at Plant Vogtle. nuclearstreet.com
In my last post, I talked about how there is a civil war brewing in Ukraine over Russian involvement in Ukrainian affairs. There is a substantial Russian minority in Ukraine. During the Soviet years, Ukraine was the second most powerful member of the Soviet Union after Russia but it was ultimately controlled by the central Soviet government. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has often exerted strong influence over Ukraine politics via its economic and technical assistance.
Last year, the Smolino site in Kirovograd Region of Ukraine was being prepared for the construction of nuclear fuel production plant. The plant is supposed to begin producing nuclear fuel in 2020 and it is hoped that it will ultimately be producing eight hundred fuel assemblies per year. A joint venture company was formed to build the plant. The Nuclear Fuel State Concern of Ukraine and TVEL, a subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian state enterprise are partners in the new company. Seventy percent of the cost of the project is to come in the form of a Russian loan and the rest from investors of the two countries. TVEL beat out Westinghouse in 2010 for the international tender issued by Ukraine.
Advanced Russian nuclear fuel technology referred to TVSA-12 fuel assemblies has already been introduced in Ukraine reactors. The new Ukraine nuclear fuel plant will utilize the TVSA technology to produce nuclear fuel. There will be a WWER-1000 nuclear reactor at the plant.
Ironically, the Smolino nuclear fuel plant is being advertised by TVEL, the Russian half of the joint partnership, as a way for Ukraine to become independent of the need for outside energy assistance. (Perhaps TVEL means independent of help from anyone but Russia.) Russia is pushing hard to become a major supplier of nuclear technology to other countries in Eastern Europe and TVEL says that both Russia and Ukraine will benefit from this partnership to produce nuclear fuel. Ukraine gets fifty percent of its power from nuclear power so the ability produce its own nuclear fuel would be advantageous. Ukraine is currently dependent on massive imports of natural gas from Russia. There is also the claim that this new plant will produce more jobs for Ukraine.
This is the first such major nuclear project between Russia and Ukraine. It was hoped that this project would be the beginning of a continuing partnership in the production of nuclear fuel and nuclear technology for export to other countries. On the other hand, a Russian nuclear expert expressed doubts that this fuel plant would have a major impact on the nuclear market in Eastern Europe because the fuel assemblies that it produces will be mainly used in the Ukrainian reactors. It is also clear that the deep involvement of the Rosatom subsidiary, TVEL, will mean that Russia will exert major influence in the management of the nuclear fuel plant. So much for Ukrainian energy independence.
The big question is what effect a change of government in Ukraine will have on this partnership. With the hostility of the protester in Ukraine to the involvement of Russia in Ukrainian affairs, it very well may turn out that even if the nuclear fuel plant is completed, further partnerships between Russia and Ukraine in the nuclear marketplace will not materialize.
Smolino nuclear fuel plant in Ukraine:
