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.
When we talk about nuclear waste, it is almost always with respect to uranium mining, uranium fuel production, spent nuclear fuel and nuclear laboratories. I have written in the past about the ubiquity of uranium in rocks and soil all over the world. Uranium is forty times more common than silver. It combines with many different minerals in many different forms. We experience “normal background radiation” from the uranium in the ground which varies from place to place. There are other sources of nuclear waste or at least, waste materials that have radioactive constituents. Among these are the waste products from coal fired power plants and the waste products brought to the surface from fracking operations.
Fracking is a process where water, sand and various combinations of chemicals are force into a deep well under high pressure. The rock is fractured and the sand and chemicals help to keep the fractures open while oil and natural gas are released. Fracking has spread across the United States to the point where the U.S. is one of the major producers of natural gas in the world. This bounty of natural gas has lowered the price of energy to the point where some nuclear reactors have been unable to compete with natural gas for the production of electricity. On the down side, fracking is polluting the ground water and the wells in many areas with toxic chemicals and also causing earthquakes in areas that were previously quiet. And, the sludge that is pumped back to the surface from a fracking operation contains radioactive materials.
Under North Dakota ND, lies part of the Bakken Oil Shale Formation. North Dakota is home to massive fracking operation to release oil and natural gas from the Bakken Formation and is number two in U.S. oil production. In North Dakota there have been about three hundred oil spills in the last two years from fracking wells. Oil is oozing up out of the ground around the fracking operations. It is mixed with corrosive chemicals and something called technologically enhanced normally occurring radioactive material or TENORM. TENORM is produced when normally occurring radioactive material is brought to the surface by a fracking operation. From a legal standpoint, TENORM is supposed to be disposed of at a regulated TENORM waste site such as the one in Colorado. However, in order to reduce costs and time, producers in ND have been dumping TENORM in the closest and most convenient place they can find. (It was reported recently that fracking sludge containing TENORM was spread on roads in Pennsylvania during and after snow storms with a level of radioactivity that was not legal.)
In North Dakota, the fracking producers are not legally required to report oil spills at their operations and in their pipelines. The TENORM that is leaking out of their wells is mixing with ground water and soil and spreading beyond their production areas. It is a threat to human health and the whole environment. It is absolutely critical to the health and well being of the citizens of North Dakota that the laws are changed and vigorously enforced with respect to the reporting and control of oils spills from fracking sites.
General Electric Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) is a global alliance between General Electric in the United States and Hitachi in Japan. The company is a global provider of nuclear reactors and nuclear industry services. GEH is working on several different designs for advanced nuclear reactors.
GEH is in the process of having the design of its “Economically Simplified Boiling Water Reactor” (ESBWR) certified by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC is also reviewing applications for construction and operation of ESBWR at Dominion’s North Anna power plant and Detroit Edison’s Fermi sites.
Final approval of the design and applications has been held up by a whistleblower’s lawsuit from a former employee of GEH, under the False Claims Act, that alleges that “GEH concealed knownAZAZAZAZAZAZ flaws in the analysis of steam dryers and had made false representations that it had analyzed the components in accordance with applicable standards and verified the accuracy of its modelling.” The whistleblower is entitled to part of any money recovered by the U.S. Department of Justice from the lawsuit.
Steam dryers are used to remove excess moisture from the steam created by the nuclear reactor before it is delivered to the turbines used to generated electricity. They are “non-safety critical components.” GEH issued a statement that their steam dryers were in use in reactors around the globe and that they had always worked properly and caused no problems.
The certification of the design has been held up for two years by the lawsuit. The design of the ESBWR had been given final approval in March of 2011 after a final safety evaluation. The NRC said that it had concluded that the ESBWR design was safe and technically acceptable after a six year review process. However, the lawsuit over the steam dryers interrupted the final stages of the review process. The NRC proceeded with a study of the steam dryer modelling methodology and further analyzes and reviews. The normal certification process will be resumed after a final safety evaluation report and review of the steam dryer problems is finished.
GEH has issued a statement explaining why it agreed to a 2.7 million dollar fine to resolve the lawsuit. “Even though GEH denies the allegations, we believe that resolution of this matter supports our continuing efforts to maintain and enhance a positive working relationship with the US government, and more specifically the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”. The U.S. Department of Justice also issued a statement in which they confirmed that there were only allegations of false claims and that there had been “no determination of liability.”
It is interesting to note that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), another nuclear contractor, is involved in a lawsuit over the closed San Onofre nuclear power plant. South California Edison (SCE), the owners of the plant allege that MHI used a faulty modelling process to OK design changes to the new turbines that SCE had ordered from them. The turbines failed in two years. MHI is counter-suing the claiming that they warned SCE that the turbine design changes could cause problems. Since it can take years for some design problems to become apparent, it is absolutely critical that modelling used in the design of nuclear reactors be good as possible.
Cutaway diagram of a GE Hitachi ESBWR:
I have written several blog posts about the dangers of radiation exposure to human health. Today I thought that I would mention ten symptoms of radiation sickness or “acute radiation syndrome.” These symptoms are certainly unpleasant to consider or experience but in our increasingly nuclear world, it is important for the public to be aware of these symptoms. If you have these symptoms, without prompt medical treatment, you will probably die.
1) Nausea and vomiting. If a person is exposed to a large dose of radiation, they will experience disorientation and vomiting within an hour.
2) Bruising and wounds not healing. Blood clotting is dependent on clot-forming platelets in the blood. Radiation can reduce the number of clot-forming platelets which results in serious bruising. In addition, the healing of wounds which is dependent on clotting will be impaired.
3) Bleeding out of body orifices. When the blood clotting mechanism is damaged, you may also bleed from mouth, nose and/or anus.
4) Blood in stools and vomit. Radiation can damage the cells that line the stomach and the intestines. This leads to irritation of the stomach and intestines followed by blood leaking into stomach and intestines.
5) Radiation burns. The first sign of radiation induced burns is severe itching of the exposed skin followed by reddening, blistering, the appearance of open sores and skin sloughing off.
6) Loss of hair. Radiation exposure also damages the hair follicles. This may lead to the rapid loss of hair.
7) Headaches, weakness and fatigue. Radiation damages red blood cells leading to anemia. Blood pressure also drops from radiation exposure. The result of these effects can be headaches, a feeling of weakness, a lingering sense of fatigue and/or fainting.
8) Ulceration of the gastrointestinal track. Radiation exposure can cause ulcers to form all the way from the mouth through the stomach to the intestines. The visible manifestation of this will be sores on your lips and in your mouth.
9) Tremors and seizures. Prolonged exposure to intense radiation can cause severe damage to the central nervous system which can cause seizures. One effect of this damage could also be lack of ability to coordinate voluntary muscles resulting in tremors.
10) Fever and infections. Severe radiation exposure can destroy white blood cells and bone marrow. The loss of the cells that fight infections can result in opportunistic infections leading to serious fevers.
These symptoms might be the result of radiation exposure of one or a few people due to accidents in the handling, processing, transportation or storage of highly radioactive nuclear materials. In this case, the probability of prompt medical attention is high. On the other hand, if there is a major nuclear power plant accident or detonation of a nuclear bomb or a dirty bomb, thousands or even millions could be affected. In that case, with the confusion and destruction, the possibility of medical attention becomes remote.
This table covers some of effects of different dosages of radiation measured in grays (Gy) which represent one joule of energy being absorbed by one kilogram of matter.
