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.
Radioactive cesium has massively contaminated Japan. vimeo.com
The first batch of 56 mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies has been shipped to Beloyarsk 4 as Russia’s first-of-a-kind BN-800 fast reactor prepares to start up. world-nuclear-news.org
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited a medical assistant at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station for “deliberately failing to conduct required tests for licensed plant operators.” plymouth.wickedlocal.com
The Wanapum Dam on the Columbia River in south central Washington State is owned by the Grant County Public Utility District. The reservoir created by the dam is called Lake Wanapum. The dam was licensed in 1955 for a fifty year span. Construction started in 1959 and the dam went operational in 1963, generating about a gigawatt of electricity. The cost of construction was about a ninety million dollars.
After the original license expired in 2005, the dam was operated on a year to year license until an extension of forty four years was granted in 2008. The extension was conditional on the achievement of the following goals.
A few days ago on the 1st of March, a two inch crack was discovered that extended sixty five feet in one of the tall sections of concrete in the spillway of the dam. The Grant County PUD immediately began lowering the level of water behind the dam by twenty five feet in order to reduce pressure on the dam while a inspection was conducted. After the water level went down, the crack closed by an inch as the stress was reduced. A spokesperson for the Grant County PUD issued the following statement: “Now we are moving into the next phase, which is to investigate it further, identify a cause, and begin looking into some of those short term and long term potential fixes.”
The Columbia River and Lake Wanapum are recreational boating areas where tourism is important to the economy. The area has been closed to boating because of the lowered water level. It will likely be kept at the lower level all summer, impacting the local economy.
The Grant County PUD has come under intense criticism for not having any contingency plan in place to deal with such cracks even though it was probable that some cracks would form over time. The Grant County PUD spokesperson said that even if the spillway with the crack failed, the rest of the dam would keep the flow of water manageable. We can only hope that this is true.
The reason that I have been talking about the problems at the Wanapum Dam is that it is about forty miles north of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Nuclear reactors require a great deal of water for cooling. One in five of the operating nuclear power reactors is under threat of flood and the U.S. Nuclear Regulation Commission is pressuring the owners of the endangered reactors to upgrade their preparations for dealing with floods.
The Priest Rapids Dam is downstream from the Wanapum Dam and only ten miles from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The Columbia River follows the north and east borders of Hanford. If there was a break in the Wanapum Dam that impacted the Priest Rapids Dam, flood waters could enter Hanford. There is still a lot of radioactive contamination in the soil at Hanford. Flooding could very well leach these radioactive materials out of the soil and carry them down the Columbia River. The intake for the municipal water supply for Richland is just downstream from the Hanford Reservation.
While the chances of severe flooding at Hanford are slim, potential flooding is just another reason that Hanford should be cleaned up. The discussion of locating a new reactor at Hanford must take into account the possibility of flooding among many other issues.
Wanapum Dam:
There have already been reports of genetic defects and radiation-induced illness after Fukushima. enenews.com
The overflowed contaminated water at Fukushima is being removed by hand-boring of the human workers. fukushima-diary.com
Greenpeace activists have intruded onto the sites of some of Europe’s oldest nuclear power plants. world-nuclear-news.org
I have been writing this blog for almost two years now. I have learned many new things about radioactivity and nuclear issues. Since this will be my five hundredth post, I thought that I would reflect on some of the important things that I have learned.
Nuclear weapons and nuclear power are tightly connected. It is doubtful that nuclear power would have enjoyed the early support and financing that it did without the fact that a strong nuclear industry was necessary but expensive for the major world powers who wanted nuclear weapons. Part of the hugely expensive cost of nuclear weapons development and manufacture was born by the creation of civilian nuclear power generation.
Nuclear power is enormously damaging to the environment. The mining and extraction of uranium is horribly polluting. If there are accidents, large areas can be contaminated and there is no way to really clean up the contamination. Nuclear waste is difficult to dispose of. There are no facilities available to permanently dispose of all the nuclear waste in the world. There is a thriving trade in the questionable and downright illegal attempts to get rid of nuclear waste which threaten the environment.
There is no safe level for exposure to radiation. Any radiation, whether natural or man-made has heath impacts. Raise the radiation level anywhere and you raise the health damage. One of the big problems with the recognition of this fact is that it can take decades for cancers to develop so it is hard to be certain exactly what caused a particular cancer. This makes it difficult to convince policy makers and the public about the danger of any nuclear power generation.
There is a huge amount of money involved in the nuclear power industry. It is unlikely that we would still be building nuclear reactors for power if not for the fact that individuals and companies can become very wealthy in the nuclear industry.
They are able to lobby policy makers for protection against bearing the whole cost of damage caused by nuclear accidents as well as loan guarantees and outright subsidies paid for by the taxpayers.
The nuclear industry is important in international affairs. Countries such as Japan, Russia and France have state supported nuclear industries that are part of their plans for economic expansion and international trade. With declining uranium production, Russia is betting that plutonium will be the nuclear fuel of the future and they are investing heavily in breeder reactors. The world has suffered from dependence on a few countries to provide the bulk of fossil fuels and will suffer in the future if Russia has a plutonium production monopoly.
The disaster at Fukushima was a wake-up call for the world on the dangers of nuclear power reactors. About one in five nuclear power reactors in the U.S. are built on the same flawed design as the Fukushima reactors. About one in five nuclear power reactors in the U.S. are under threat from flooding that will accompany the increasingly extreme weather driven by global climate change. A few more major nuclear accidents (which many experts believe are inevitable) will so damage the reputation of nuclear power generation that public support and private financing of nuclear power will disappear.
Nuclear power is not necessary. The cost of renewable energy is dropping and the cost of nuclear power is rising. This is a long term historical trend. With renewables and nuclear power reaching parity in costs now, in the future it will be much cheaper to provide electricity from renewable sources. If a fraction of the money that has been and is being spent on nuclear power were spent on renewables research, the transition from fossil fuels would happen much sooner.
I have been blogging lately about Washington State’s SSB 5591. This is a bill that calls for Washington Legislature to consider the possibility of building additional nuclear reactors to supply energy for Washington State residents. Today I am going to discuss the senate debate over the bill that took place on February 12 of this year. The proponents of the bill claim that “nuclear power is a safe, reliable, cost-effective and carbon-free source of electricity.” Opponents of the bill beg to differ.
Dean Atkinson of Energy Northwest is a supporter of the bill. Energy Northwest, which used to be known as the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS), is the owner of the Columbia Generating Station at Hanford. It is the only operating nuclear power plant in the state of Washington. This is to be expected, especially since the idea of location future nuclear power reactors at Hanford has been suggested as a good idea. Given all the problems at Hanford, I am not enthusiastic about this possibility.
Back in the 1950s, there was a push for nuclear power in Washington State. Washington Public Power Supply System (now known as Energy Northwest) started a state-wide nuclear power plant construction project. There were plans to construct five nuclear power generation stations around the state but only one plant was finished and put into operation; the Columbia Generation Station at Hanford. Construction on the other plants was halted in 1982 due to design issues and the fact that the estimated cost of construction had risen from sixteen billion dollars to twenty four billion dollars, a fifty percent increase.
When construction was halted, WPPSS defaulted on two billion two hundred and fifty million dollars worth of bonds, the biggest bond default in U.S. history at the time. The money had already been spent on the reactors which had been abandoned. The current debt of the project, including the Columbia Generating Station, is five hundred four hundred million dollars. The debt is owed by the Bonneville Power Administration which was the original backer of the bonds. The debt is being repaid by Washington State ratepayers.
Senator John McCoy, D-Tulalip, offers moderate support for the bill. He has made public statements to the effect that it will be very difficult for the proponent of the bill to convince the citizens of Washington State that nuclear power is a good choice for Washington’s future. He also raised the issue of problems finding investors who would be willing to support such nuclear projects.
Senator David Frockt, D-Seattle, said “I have a problem with a definitive statement by our Legislature that this is a safe industry.” People who testified at public hearings also felt that the definitive statement at the beginning of the bill was premature and that part of any study should be to verify the claim that “nuclear power is a safe, reliable, cost-effective and carbon-free source of electricity.” Others pointed out that Hanford is still terribly contaminated with radioactive materials and that Washington and the Federal Government should clean it up before we build any more reactors for power generation.
Cooling tower for abandoned WPPSS reactor project in Satsop, Washington.
