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.
There have been various stories in the news lately about problems with morale and behavior of the men in our nuclear deterrence force. Some units that man the missiles in the Midwest have failed in drills. Some have been slacking during duty. Several high ranking officers have been relieved of their duties. One of the stories has to do with Major General Michael Carey who was head of the Air Force’s arsenal of nuclear ballistic missile. He was relieved of his post last October for “personal misbehavior.” The Air Force stated that he was fired because of “a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgment.” The Inspector General of the Air Force has just issued a report on the firing that provides some details of Carey’s misbehavior.
The United States and Russia have a Bilateral Presidential Commission, Military Cooperation Working Group that has functioned for years a forum for the discussion of nuclear disarmament among other issues. A meeting for the Working Group was held in Moscow in the July of 2013. General Casey attended the meeting. It was his behavior at the conference that resulted in his being fired.
Apparently Carey began drinking on the plane to Moscow and continued to drink through the whole conference. He was late to morning meetings and drank into the night in the company of ladies of questionable reputation. He insulted the hosts, the translator, tour guides and, in general, acted like the prototypical “Ugly American.” He bragged about his power and authority and said that he “saved the world every day.” He talked about being in command of the only working nuclear missile force in the world. (This probably came as news to the other nuclear nations with missile arsenals.)
My favorite part of the report had to do with Carey’s last night in Moscow. He drank into the wee hours in the Marriot Hotel lobby with a “mysterious Cigar Lady.” He later remarked that he thought it weird that the cigar lady was asking questions about physics and optics. Are you kidding me? He did not consider that she was Russian intelligence pumping him for information about our nuclear missiles? This sounds like bad satire but is unfortunately real. He should have been fired for naiveté if nothing else.
I have to say that I do have sympathy for the people in our nuclear defense force. They are charged with responsibility for the most horrendous weapons ever created by the human race. But the years go by and nothing happens. Many of them are stuck out in the Midwest in the missile silos, hardly an exciting posting. These people are in a very difficult situation where they are supposed to be hyper-alert in a very boring environment. It is impossible for human beings to maintain a state of high alertness for any length of time. That having been said, we still have over a thousand warheads pointed at Russian targets that can be launched in minutes. They have missiles pointed at us. It makes me nervous to understand that these people not able to provide the competence demanded of such a dangerous situation.
Major General Michael Casey:
Operation Tomodachi was a U.S. humanitarian aid mission to help Japan after the March 3, 2011 Fukushima disaster. Operation Tomodachi ran from March 12, 2011 to May 4, 2011. It included twenty four thousand U.S. servicemen, one hundred eighty nine aircraft and twenty four naval ships. The USS Ronald Reagan is a U.S. Navy Nimitz-class nuclear powered supercarrier that was involved in Operation Tomodachi. The Roosevelt was commissioned in October of 2003. It is over one thousand feet long and has accommodations for over five thousand personnel in the ship’s crew and Air wing. The carrier was used as a refueling station for Japanese and U.S. helicopters involved in relief missions around Fukushima.
The U.S. Navy claims that “proactive measures” were taken in order to “mitigate the levels of Fukushima-related contamination on U.S. Navy ships and aircraft” and that crew members were not exposed to dangerous radiation levels. The Ronald Reagan had to move on March 14 to avoid a plume of radioactive emissions from the Fukushima power plant. Several contaminated helicopters landed on the carrier and a full radioactive decontamination procedure was carried out. The Ronald Reagan was anchored ten miles off Fukushima. It desalinates water for use by the crew. The ocean water and air around the Roosevelt was contaminated by radioactivity from the Fukushima disaster but the actual level of contamination was not revealed to the U.S. Navy until a month had passed. The crew had been drinking and washing in contaminated water during that month. They had been going into the ocean to rescue people that had been swept out to sea by the tsunami. They also repeatedly washed the deck of the carrier and aircraft with contaminated ocean water. The Navy gave out iodine pills to the officers and pilots but most of the crew did not get them.
The Navy established a registry for all personnel involved in Operation Tomodachi who may have been exposed to radiation. The registry was supposed to be completed in 2012. They say that only about one hundred and fifty people involved in the operation showed any sign of radioactive contamination but the Navy played down the seriousness of their exposure.
In December of 2012, nine crew members of the Ronald Reagan who had been involved in the decontamination of the deck filed suit against TEPCO, the Japanese company that operated the Fukushima power plant and the Japanese government, claiming that the rectal bleeding, gastrointestinal problems, hair loss, fatigue, thyroid cancers, testicular cancers, and leukemia that they are suffering were due to the failure of TEPCO to adequately warn the Navy of the dangers of contaminated ocean water. After the suit was filed, the Navy announced that it was dropping the registry after two years of work because it did not feel that there had been any serious exposure of the crew to radioactive materials.
An additional forty two crewmembers have joined the suit since it was filed and one hundred and fifty crewmembers are being medically screen and may also join the suit. The plaintiffs are seeking forty million dollars each and are asking for an additional billion dollars for a fund for other medical problems that may appear in the future.
A federal Judge in San Diego has just dismissed the lawsuit but left the door open to repeal. In the ruling, the judge said that it was beyond the authority of the judge to determine whether or not the Japanese government had perpetrated a fraud on the American government.
The USS Ronald Reagan:
