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.
In this blog, I alternate posts between general and timely topics involving radioactivity. Today, I am going to blog about the situation in Ukraine. Ukraine uses nuclear power generation. The question I am interested in is what happened with the nuclear reactors during the recent political turbulence.
Ukraine has fifteen reactors at four locations, all operated by Energoatom. Energoatom’s full name is the National Nuclear Energy Generating Company of Ukraine. It is a Ukraine state enterprise. Ukraine is seventh in the world in terms of nuclear power generation with almost half of their electricity being generated by the four nuclear power stations.
All of the Ukrainian reactors are based on the Russian VVER design with most of the units generating a gigawatt of electricity. Twelve of the fifteen reactors are currently operating with the other three shut down for scheduled maintenance. During the recent political upheaval, the reactors have continued to operate normally but security has been upgraded at all four nuclear power stations.
Energoatom says that they have enough fuel in house or scheduled for delivery to operated for March and April. However, although their purchase of fuel for coming months has been paid for, TVEL, the Russian nuclear fuel company, may not be able to deliver the fuel because of a new ban on transport of nuclear fuel across Ukraine. TVEL says that European nations that depend on Russian nuclear fuel will still be supplied but alternate travel routes that exclude Ukraine will have to be found.
A partnership consisting of Energoatom and TVEL is in the process of constructing a fuel cycle plant in central Ukraine near the village of Smoline. It will supply fuel to the Ukrainian reactors. The first stage of production will be completed in 2015 if the political issues between Russia and Ukraine do not interfere with the project. The first phase facility will be able to produce eight hundred fuel assemblies per year.
Westinghouse supplied fuel assemblies to Ukraine for tests between 2005 and 2009. Unfortunately for Ukraine’s need to have energy independence from Russia, the tests were considered a failure. Ukraine said that the defects in the fuel assemblies led to a long shutdown of one of their reactors. Westinghouse countered with the claim that the Ukrainians created problems because they did not load the fuel correctly. That seems hard to believe given that they have been loading fuel into their reactors for decades without major outages.
Most of the recent focus with respect to energy in Ukraine has been on natural gas. The Russians supply large amounts of natural gas to Ukraine and most of the gas that Russian ships to Eastern and Western Europe goes through Ukraine pipelines. If there is further decline in relations between Ukraine and Russia, other European countries could suffer a reduction in natural gas supplies from Russia. In addition, there is also a concern about the supply of electricity from nuclear power in Ukraine if nuclear fuel shipments to Ukraine are halted. As with natural gas, if Russia maintains its ban on shipping nuclear fuel across Ukraine to European countries, some European countries may experience shortfalls in their production of electricity from nuclear power. It is in the interest of the whole world that Ukraine and Russia find a peaceful resolution to their political conflict.
Energoatom logo:
Some of the smallest children in Koriyama, a short drive from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, barely know what it’s like to play outside. voiceofrussia.com
Unit 2 at Nine Mile Point in upstate New York is back online after the failure of an uninterruptible power supply prompted operators to shut it down last week. nuclearstreet.com
I have blogged recently about SSB 5991, a bill working its way through the Washington State legislature. The bill calls for studying how to develop new nuclear power generation to add to the Washington State electricity supply. As I wrote the last post about the bill, it had passed the State Senate and was being considered in the house. The bill was amended by the House Committee On Technology & Economic Development (HCTED) during their consideration.
One of the things that offended me about the original bill was that it started with the bald statement that nuclear power was known to be “a safe, reliable, cost-effective, and carbon-free source of electricity.” I pointed out in one of my posts that nuclear power was not “a safe, reliable, cost-effective, and carbon-free source of electricity.” Other critics of the bill say the same thing. Washington State Senator David Frockt (D-Seattle) said that the bill was starting with assumptions that should rather be possible conclusions of the study called for.
State Senators from the Hanford area supported the bill as did a spokesman for Energy Northwest which operates the only nuclear power reactor in Washington. During discussions of the bill in the Senate, the idea was circulated that any new reactors could/should be located at Hanford. Representatives of the Hanford area and the owners of the Hanford reactor have obvious motivations of bringing new jobs and revenue to their area. Energy Northwest has been promoting long ranges plans to develop additional nuclear power in Washington since 2009 and they have settled on the new small modular reactors as the best choice but this technology is unproven.
The opponents of SSB 5991 have questioned the need for new nuclear power in Washington State as opposed to alternatives such as conservation and/or renewable sources such as solar and wind, both of which are plentiful in the Hanford area. Critics said that there were not enough public hearings called for in the bill and demanded more hearings be scheduled in Seattle, Spokane or Vancouver. There was also a call for the inclusion of planning for nuclear accidents in any such bill.
The amended bill was read and a vote was taken. The faction that voted to pass the bill to the full House as amended won over another group that did not want to pass the bill to the full House for a vote. The last milestone in the official history of the bill on the Washington State website is that the bill will be referred to the House Rules Committee for a second reading. I met with a member of the Washington State House yesterday and asked him about the bill. He said, “We killed it.” I am not sure whether the bill was killed in the Rules Committee or the full House voted it down but I am happy to learn that the bill is dead. Nuclear energy is not a good choice to supply future electricity to the State.
Washington State Capitol:
