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.
Ambient office = .081 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .070 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .063 microsieverts per hour
Iceberg lettuce from Costco = .138 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .104 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .088 microsieverts per hour
NuScale, the Corvallis, Oregon company that’s trying to develop smaller, modular nuclear reactors, got caught in a national crossfire last week. nuclear-news.net
The US NRC has increased its oversight at Point Beach nuclear plant in Wisconsin. platts.com
The future of the Indian Point nuclear power plant may rest on the bottom of the Hudson River. lohud.com
Ambient office = .116 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .087 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .98 microsieverts per hour
Romaine lettuce from Costco = .139 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .072 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .066 microsieverts per hour
Part 2 of 3
In part 1, I wrote about the history of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) and the horrible environmental abuses that occurred with respect to radioactive materials. During the early days of the Laboratory operation, environmental standards had not yet been establish for radioactive materials and record keeping was minimal or non-existent. We do know that radioactive contamination was often released into the soil, water and atmosphere from the burning of wastes, as well as fires, accidents and melt-downs at experimental reactors. The year before the Laboratory was completely shut down in 2006, wildfires swept through the area, damaging buildings and releasing more radiation from plants and soil into the atmosphere.
Boeing, which owns the Santa Susana Field Laboratory and land around it are busy demolishing buildings in preparation for converting the land into a park. The California Department of Toxic Substances (DTSC) is being accused by a number of non-profit watchdog groups of allowing Boeing to illegally tear down the buildings and cart the radioactive waste off to seven dumps in Southern California. A great deal of money has been spent trying to convince the public that the site is clean enough to be a public park and that there is no danger of serious radiation exposure for people using the park. At the end of 2012, the DTSC and Federal EPA worked to reduce public confidence in a major radiation study of the SSFL land.
Consumer Watchdog, one of the non-profits fighting the state and Federal governments over SSFL released a report titled Golden Wasteland in February of 2013. The report provides evidence that the DTSC and its director have been victims of regulatory capture and are siding with the companies that they are suppose to regulating. They are not doing their job of monitoring and regulating serious pollution in California. They claim that DTSC is allow Boeing to dismantle the buildings on the SSFL site without providing the oversight, public input and environmental impact statements required by law. The watchdog groups are calling for a halt to the demolition of buildings where plutonium fuel was processed and where experimental reactors suffered accidents and meltdowns. These buildings were proven to contain highly radioactive contamination during an inspection in March of 2013. The debris of six contaminated buildings that have been demolished have been shipped to landfills that are not licensed to receive radioactive waste. In addition, these landfills are mined for metals that are sent to recycling plants. Some of the metals may wind up in consumer products and threaten public health. The greatest fear is that highly toxic plutonium-239 from SSFL will endanger the public.
The DTSC and Boeing have been discussing issues of disposal and regulation but there has been little to no opportunity for public input. The same callous behavior that has been exhibited by the Navy at Seattle’s Magnuson Park and the U.S. Department of Energy at Hanford in Washington State is being shown by the DTSC. Environmental contamination and threats to public health are not being taken seriously. Illegal behavior that is convenient for Boeing is being tolerated by the State of California. These three cases are perfect illustrations of why we cannot trust Federal and state agencies to protect us from the dangers that attend the use of nuclear energy to provide electricity for our cities and industries.
Santa Susana Field Laboratory Area IV which contained nuclear reactors and laboratories:
Japan has established a new research body which it hopes will bring together international experience in the decommissioning of nuclear power plants. world-nuclear-news.org
Greater investment in nuclear regulation will pay dividends for Japan as it moves to restart nuclear reactors. world-nuclear-news.org
A nuclear power plant in Taiwan may have been leaking radioactive water for three years. news.asiaone.co
Ambient office = .115 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .137 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .083 microsieverts per hour
Iceberg lettuce from Costco = .150 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .074 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .054 microsieverts per hour
Part 1 of 3
I have been blogging a lot lately about problems with radioactive contamination in Seattle and at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Many other states have their own problems with contamination left over from nuclear research and processing. However, I was astonished at the casual attitude that governed the handling of nuclear materials and radioactive waste at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) near Santa Monica, California.
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) near Santa Monica, California was established by North American Aviation (NAA) in 1947 to test fire liquid fuel rocket engines for the U.S. space program. Virtually all the major rocket engines used in the space program were developed there. They also carried out research on nuclear reactor design and operation there between 1953 and 1980. NASA acquired some of the acreage from the US Air Force in 1973. The U.S. Department of Energy was also involved in work at SSFL.
Atomics International (AI) was created as a division of NAA for nuclear research at SSFL in 1955 and the rocket research was made a separate division under the name of Rocketdyne. Both divisions were sold to Rockwell International in 1955. Boeing bought Rockwell International in 1967.
AI carried out work on the first commercial nuclear power plant in Area IV of SSFL and they also worked on the first nuclear power source launched into space. A sodium reactor was constructed and operated from 1957 to 1964. It was the first commercial reactor to experience a core meltdown which was covered up by the U. S. Department of Energy (USDOE) for ten years. There were no accurate records of the disposal of the resulting radioactive materials and tons of sodium coolant disappeared. There was also a sodium burn pit where sodium contaminated objects were burned in the open air. Twenty two of twenty seven men who worked the burn pit died of cancer. They fished in a terribly polluted pond and one of them once said that all seven wells on the site were contaminated. There were explosions at the burn pit.
Altogether, ten nuclear reactors operated at SSFL over the years along with fuel fabrication facilities for plutonium and uranium carbide. Fuel rods from the onsite reactors as well as rods from other U.S. government run reactors were cut apart and inspected in what is known as a “hot lab.” There were fires at some of the reactors. Partial meltdowns occurred three times between 1959 and 1971 where an undisclosed amount of radioactive materials were released into the environment. Four of the ten reactors suffered damage to large percentages of their fuel rods. Because the onsite reactors were experimental, there were no containment vessels enclosing the reactor buildings. Barrels of highly radioactive waste were set out and blown full of holes with rifles. There were many other incidences of criminal negligence in the handling of radioactive waste at SSFL over the years.
In 2005, Rocketdyne was sold to Pratt Whitney but Boeing kept the SSFL facilities. In that same year, wildfires raged thought the area and damaged some of the SSFL buildings. Large amounts of radioactive contamination were released by the fires but that release was denied by the State of California. 2006, the facility was shut down permanently.
Target Practice at SSFL:
Ambient office = .117 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .087 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .096 microsieverts per hour
Hass avacado from Costco = .138 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .097 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .094 microsieverts per hour
Following the last meeting in July on the radium contamination at Magnuson Park, I was given to understand by the Washington State Department of Ecology (WSDOE) that the period for public comments was being extended to August 31st. However, I found out last Saturday that the Navy’s period for public comments had quietly ended the day before on July 26th. The WSDOE has shown reluctance to challenge the Navy and it looks like the Navy may just proceed with its original plan.
There has been a lot of confusion over the past few months about who has the ultimate authority at Magnuson Park. It appears from Federal and State laws that WSDOE has to sign off on the cleanup. From what I have been told at the meetings I attended, WSDOE does not have the ability or maybe just the will to prevent the Navy from proceeding with their original plan absent environmental impact statements and other documents required by law or regulation. After the current cleanup is executed, WSDOE can go to the Navy and say that they have not done enough. Whether or not the Navy would respond with further work, only the future knows.
The Navy has not investigated the gravel and soil around the drain pipe from the radium room. They have checked the pipe to the point where it enters other pipes that are in use and they claim to have found no radioactive contamination. However, it turns out that there are Navy records of tests on the drain pipe that do show radioactive contamination. They say that they couldn’t investigate the rest of the pipe out to Lake Washington because it was still in use and full of water. The drain pipes are surrounded by gravel to allow drainage at flanges between the sections of pipes. Water flowing through the pipes would carry most contamination away but contaminated water that leaked into the gravel would not move quickly through the soil so it should concentrate any contaminants near the pipe. There has also been no testing of the soil at the bottom of Lake Washington where the pipe system drains into the lake at the boat dock and swimming area. The excuse given was that rocks had been dumped on the bottom and that made it very difficult to suck up silt for testing. There is also the problem of hot spots of strontium and cesium at the park. The Navy has no idea of where they came from and I have not heard of a plan to clean them up.
The Navy has made reference to the US Department of Energy (USDOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cleaning up of part of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation to a level of fifteen milliRems in justifying its plan to clean up Magnuson Park to 15 milliRems. That could result in almost one extra cancer per one thousand park users from long term exposure. Apparently the Navy is not aware that the public was told in the recent Hanford 300 Area briefing in Seattle that the USDOE and EPA no longer considered the fifteen milliRems level to be safe for public use areas. The Federal standard is one cancer per ten thousand people and the WSDOE standard is one cancer per one hundred thousand people.
The Navy has been displaying arrogance, a reluctance to share important information and a distinct lack of concern for Federal and State laws and regulations concerning such cleanups. Let us hope that the WSDOE holds the Navy to a higher standard in the cleanup of Magnuson Park than the Navy hold itself.
