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.
Yesterday, I blogged about illegal dumping of radioactive waste in a national nuclear repository in France. Continuing my focus on illegal radioactive waste dumping, today’s blog is about illegal dumping in the United Kingdom. The UK Ministry of Defense has shipped waste from nuclear submarines based at Devenport in Plymouth to Driggs in Cumbria on the west coast of England for decades. Recently the Observer newspaper learned and reported that since 1990, the waste being shipped to Driggs from Devenport has been exceeding the strict safety limits set by UK law for radioactivity.
Driggs is a repository for low-level radioactive waste that was operated by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), a company owned by the U.K. government. BNFL was founded in 1971. It made nuclear fuel, ran nuclear reactors, generated and sold electricity, reprocessed and managed spent nuclear fuel and decommissioned nuclear power plants. In 2005, it transferred all the nuclear sites it managed, including Driggs, to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. By 2009, BNFL had sold off all of its operation divisions and it was announced in 2010 that it would be abolished. BNFL had been repeatedly criticized for poor record keeping and management of nuclear sites including Driggs.
Some of the waste coming from the nuclear subs at Devenport had levels of radioactivity that should have been classed as intermediary. Since 1988, waste bound for Driggs was limited to a certain level of carbon-14. Tests have indicated that drums of waste sent from Devenport to Driggs exceeded the allowed level of carbon-14 in 1990, 1991, 1994, 1995. One year, the waste was three hundred percent of the allowed level. Carbon-14 is dangerous because it has a long half-life and because it is taken up by living systems. Driggs is near a heavily populated area and if carbon-14 leaked out of the waste dump into the surrounding environment it would be a threat to plant life, animal life and human beings. There are fears that radioactive materials may be leaking out of the Driggs site and into the Irish Sea.
It has been said that the U.K. Navy does not know what to do with all the nuclear waste generated by their submarines and that Driggs was not really aware of what sort of waste was being deposited there. BNFL has claimed that no radioactive materials have leaked out of Driggs and there has been no danger to the public or the environment. Depending on what is found during the investigation by the U.K. Environmental Agency, the waste in question may have to be returned to Davenport. This would cost the U.K. taxpayers hundreds of thousands of British pounds. The Devenport site has been sold to Halliburton, a U.S. nuclear contractor. They assure the British public that there is no danger from the waste being stored there.
Here we have a government agency, the U.K. Ministry of Defense, breaking rules about nuclear waste safety at a government waste repository, Driggs. It is bad enough when unscrupulous companies conspire with the Mafia to illegally dump nuclear waste as I covered in recent posts. But when government agencies are mishandling nuclear waste, where is the public supposed to turn to rectify the situation? Fortunately, another government agency, the U.K. Environmental Agency stepped in in this case. That may not always happen in the U.K. or in other countries. There are many technical problems with nuclear power, but the worst problems seem to be regarding government protections of the interests of the people.
Driggs nuclear waste dump in the U.K.:
Government experts warn about mass of corium melting deeper than thought at Fukushima. enenews.com
Fukushima’s contamination of the United States, particularly the West Coast, is not being reported. examiner.com
Iran will move at a faster pace to acquire nuclear technology, head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali-Akbar Salehi said on Monday. news.xinhuanet.com
The CEO of Exelon told investors last week that the company is prepared to close nuclear plants if market conditions do not improve. nuclearstreet.com
Hawaii Senators introduce bill to require Fukushima radiation monitoring for at least next 5 years. enenews.com
My last couple of blog entries have been about illegal dumping of radioactive waste by the Mafia in Italy. I decided to open this discussions to other countries in Europe. Today I am going to blog about illegal dumping in France. French law states clearly that it is not legal to bring nuclear wastes from other countries into French nuclear dump sites.
The Manche Center for Storage is one of Europe’s biggest storage sites for radioactive waste. It located in a wetland near the nuclear reprocessing plant at La Hague in Normandy, France. It was commissioned in 1967 and the first waste arrived in 1969. At first, the waste was stored in trenches dug into the ground. Later concrete blocks were placed around the barrels of waste which were then covered by a plastic sheet and buried with dirt.
In the early 1970s, the Center began receiving and storing spent nuclear fuel and other nuclear wastes from French nuclear power plants. In 1976, heavy rainfall, overflow of drainage ditches and a faulty pump caused the contamination of ground water with tritium. In 1984, the concrete walls were added to the containment trenches and other upgrades were made to the site. In 1991, a cover was constructed over the site to prevent water from getting to the waste.
In 1994, the last package of waste was received and the site reached saturation. The site was closed and management of the site was turned over to the National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (ANDRA). About one and one half million packages of waste are stored at the site.
In 2006, Greenpeace activists demonstrated at Manche. They had come from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan to protest the storage of nuclear waste from their countries at Manche in clear violation of French law. They claimed that there were one hundred and forty thousand containers of nuclear waste at the site that had not originated in France. The protesters were demanding that all the containers at the site including those from France be dug up and repackaged.
Greenpeace provided a study dealing with radioactive contamination of the ground water and the surface streams around the site. In addition to the tritium leak in 1976, an engineer from the Manche site stated that other radioactive materials in the dump including plutonium will eventually leak out of the dump and threaten the dairy farms around the dump. Greenpeace did win a court victory when ANDRA was found guilty in a French court of illegally storing nuclear waste from Australia. Greenpeace has also attacked ANDRA over the reprocessing of Dutch nuclear spent fuel in the nearby reprocessing plant at La Hague.
Unfortunately, the French authorities do not even have a complete record of what is stored at Manche. Documents at the site were destroyed in two floods and substitute fake documents were created to replace them. This nuclear waste site is a time bomb ticking away in the French countryside. It is an illustration of the illegal inclusion of nuclear waste in a major national nuclear dump. Even government agencies cannot be trusted to deal properly with nuclear waste.
Manche Center for Storage:
The radiation dose on the “stand” above Fukushima Unit 4 spent fuel pool is 90 μSv/h, according to NRA. Fukushima-diary.com
Eight more Fukushima children have been confirmed as having thyroid gland cancer. Japantimes.co.jp
NRA tells TEPCO to reduce radiation exposure at Fukushima plant. Ajw.asahi.com
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has temporarily stopped accepting waste but remained secure following a fire underground. Nuclearstreet.com
