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.
New highly radioactive leak at Japan’s Fukushima plant mews.yahoo.com
Extremely high levels of radioactive substances” leaked Wednesday night at Fukushima plant. Enenews.com
This past Wednesday, US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz went public with the news that the country was to soon get two new nuclear reactors. News.softpedia.com
I have been blogging about Russian nuclear waste issues recently. For decades, European countries routinely shipped waste to Russia for disposal in blatant disregard for Russian Law. Their handling of internal nuclear waste and foreign wastes have resulted in contamination of thousands of square miles, disruption in the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and damage to the health of thousands. Some of the most radioactively contaminated places on the face of the Earth are in Russia. Now the Russian government is making importation of nuclear waste legal.
In 2008, Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency or Rosatom called for a new legal framework for the management of nuclear wastes. Various proposals were put forward. In 2010, there were meetings to discuss propose changes to the Russian law on disposal of nuclear waste. Public organizations were ignored if they opposed the new version of the law and environmental organizations were not even invited to the meetings. The new law proposes:
1) Allowing the injection of liquid nuclear waste into the ground. This is obviously a serious threat to the ground water as any wells in the area of injection may be contaminated.
2) Ignoring the input of local inhabitants of areas where waste repositories are located.
3) Making the Russian tax payers responsible for the disposal of nuclear waste generated before and after the law is passed.
4) Abolishing property taxes on all existing and future repositories for nuclear waste.
5) Making the law apply to all entities present and future who handle nuclear wastes.
6) Making it legal for foreign companies and governments to ship nuclear waste to Russia for disposal.
The Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency or Rosatom is calling for adoption of the new laws. Rosatom is a state owned company for dealing with nuclear power and nuclear waste. The Russian government is in financial difficulty and many of the changes to the law will bring in more revenue or reduce the government cost of dealing with nuclear waste.
In mid-2011, the new law on radioactive waste management was signed by the Russian President. It “brings Russia’s national radioactive waste management system into line with the requirements of the Joint Convention on the Safe Management of Spent Nuclear Fuel and on the Safe Management of Radioactive Waste, which Russia ratified in 2006.” The proposed allowance for injecting liquid nuclear wastes into the ground was removed from the final version of the law. Further legal changes are being considered with respect to the disposal of high-level nuclear waste.
This all sounds very good but given the abysmal track record of the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation with respect to nuclear waste, I have little hope that the law will be respected. After all, previous laws with respect to radioactive waste disposal in Russia have been blatantly disregarded by Russian companies and Russian government agencies. Russia seems intent on becoming a major exporter of nuclear technology and a major importer of nuclear waste. The concerns and well-being of the Russian citizens are being ignored by powerful interests in the Russian nuclear industry.
Rosatom logo:
Work could soon start on decommissioning units 1 to 3 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine after a project to put the units into care and maintenance was approved by a state review authority. world-nuclear-news.org
In December of 2005, Greenpeace activists occupied a loading dock and 2 loading cranes at the port of Le Havre, France. They were protesting the loading of four hundred and fifty containers of radioactive waste on a ship bound for Russia. They were protesting the thirty year arrangement between European nations and the Russian Federation to ship nuclear waste to Russia for disposal.
Over the decades more than one hundred thousand tons of radioactive waste have been shipped to Russia. National and international laws and regulations were broken at every stage of the journey posing a threat to all the people living along the route taken by the waste ships.
There are two main types of nuclear wastes being shipped to Russia. Uranium waste generated by nuclear fuel reprocessing taking place at the Cogema/Areav facility at la Hague in Normandy, France and depleted uranium created by the enrichment of nuclear fuel at the France Eurodif/Areva de Pierrelatte facilities in France and the Urenco facilities in Germany (Gronau), the Netherlands (Almelo) and the UK (Capenhurst). These facilities provide fuel for the one hundred and thirty five nuclear reactors operating in Europe.
The containers being used to ship the nuclear waste to Russia do not meet the standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency. They pose a major hazard during their trip to Russia that covers thousands of miles. Crystals of uranium hexafluoride compose much of the waste being shipped. This substance reacts violently to water, generating lethal gas.
“The nuclear industry is opting for the cheapest, dirtiest and most dangerous option – dumping in Russia,” said Vladimir Tchuprov of Greenpeace Russia in la Havre. “Russia already has a nuclear waste crisis, and yet EDF, EoN, and all other European nuclear utilities are making the situation worse. Disposal and even storage of foreign nuclear waste in Russia is illegal,” said Tchuprov.
“European utilities dumping uranium wastes in Russia include: OKG – Finland, Vattenfall – Sweden/Europe, EoN and RWE – Germany, Electrabel – Belgium, EPZ – the Netherlands, British Energy – the UK, EDF – France, Iberdola – Spain, and NOK/Swissnuclear – Switzerland.”
Greenpeace has filed a lawsuit in Russia against this practice, citing Russian law that states that importation of nuclear waste from foreign sources for disposal in Russia is illegal. Their complaint was against Tekhsnabexport, a Russian company, for signing contracts with Eurodif, Urenco, Internexco and GKN to accept nuclear waste for disposal in Russia. Even the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom) signed a contract with the French company Cogema for disposal of nuclear waste.
While the illegal dumping of nuclear waste by the Mafia in Italy is an arrangement between companies and organized crime, the dumping in Russia appears to be an arrangement between European companies, Russian companies and even the Russian government. Such blatant disregard for Russian law on the part of Russia companies and Russian government agencies reveals amazing greed and cynicism that ill severs the Russian people.
Port of La Havre, France:
Yesterday, I blogged about illegal dumping of nuclear waste in the Arctic Sea by the Soviet Union and Russia. The Soviet Union and Russia also dumped nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan.
In 1993, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Greenpeace announced that they had received reports that a Russia freighter was on its way to the Sea of Japan to dump nine hundred tons of nuclear waste. Greenpeace filmed the dumping operation and Japanese television broadcast it repeatedly. Japan lodged a complaint with the Russian government with respect to the dumping which was thought to be illegal under international law. It was confirmed later that such Russian dumping had been going on since at least 1959.
The London Convention of 1972 outlawed dumping of nuclear waste in the world’s oceans. The Russians claimed that under the treaty they were allowed to dump “low-level nuclear waste.” The Russian government said that it had given the Russia Navy permission to dump seventeen hundred tons of radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan in October and November of 1993. Other nations disagreed with the Russia interpretation of the treaty.
The Japanese government had agreed to a one billion and eight hundred million dollar aid package for Russia earlier in 1993. One hundred million of that aid package was intended to help Russia dismantle nuclear weapons. The Russian President arrived in Japan about a week before Greenpeace publicized the Russian nuclear waste dumping to sign an agreement with regard to nuclear waste dumping in the Sea of Japan. The agreement called for joint monitoring of the level of radioactivity in the Sea of Japan.
The Japanese public, government agencies, and various Japanese organizations including unions of fishermen demanded an immediate halt to the Russian dumping of nuclear waste into the Sea of Japan. Critical letters flooded the Russian Consulates in Japan and telegrams were sent directly to the Russian President. In late October of 1993, Russia announced that it would suspend the dumping of nuclear wastes into the Sea of Japan. However, Russia said that it might be forced to resume such dumping if it was unable to build a new waste processing plant within the next eighteen months.
Japan had opposed the prohibition of low level radioactive waste dumping in the world’s oceans during the 1980s. Apparently they thought that they might want to dispose of their own waste in that way. After the Russia dumping was publicized in late 1993, signatories of the original London Convention met to discuss policy toward nuclear waste dumping. The outcome was an explicit and detailed ban on the dumping of any nuclear wastes into the ocean.
Nuclear waste continues to be dumped into the world’s oceans by unscrupulous nuclear companies and organized crime syndicates such as the Mafia. In disregard of the London Convention, even government agencies in nuclear nations have continued to dump nuclear wastes into the ocean and seas of the planet or they have looked the other way while other organizations did the dumping. The world has been very concerned about the radioactive materials leaking from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, Fukushima is not the first incident of radioactive materials being discharged into the world’s oceans. Illegal ocean nuclear waste dumping has been going on for decades and it continues today, totally apart from Fukushima.
Greenpeace and Russian nuclear waste ship:
How to date Japanese women who haven’t been exposed to radiation. globalpost.com
Scientists at Cambridge University received £2 million in funding from Britain’s nuclear weapons research organization in the space of just two-and-a-half years. cambridge-news.co.uk
