Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on July 11, 2013

Ambient office = .133 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .091 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .080 microsieverts per hour

Bell pepper from local grocery store =  .146 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .091 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .078 microsieverts per hour

             Siting of nuclear power plants is always a complex issue. Placing the plant near the area where the electricity will be utilized has the benefit of less transmission losses and the drawback of often being in heavily populated areas. The plant has to be near a source of cooling water but that makes it prone to flooding in extreme weather and other disasters. The Russians have come up with a new solution to the problem of where to build nuclear plants.

             Russia has announced that in three years it will build and turn on the world’s first floating nuclear power plant. The Akademik Lomonosov is intended to be the first in a whole fleet of floating Russian reactors. The floating reactors will supply power to coastal industrial areas, port cities and off-shore oil and gas platforms. The basis for the design of the floating reactor is the nuclear reactor powered ice breakers which the Russians have been using for fifty years. The floating reactor has no propulsion system and will have to be towed into place. There will be a crew of sixty nine people. The manufacturers state that the process of fuel enrichment on the vessels is in compliance with the non-proliferation regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency intended to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

             The two modified KLT-40 naval propulsion reactors on the floating power plants will be able to provide seventy megawatts of electricity which is sufficient for a city of two hundred thousand people. They can also be modified to produce two hundred and forty thousand cubic meters of fresh water on a daily basis which would be very useful for cities and industries located on arid coasts around the world.  The new power plants are intended to allow economic development of distant regions of the Russian east coast and far north. The US, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria, Namibia and Argentina have shown interest in the possible purchase of such plants from Russia.

             The floating power plants are designed with a large margin of safety. The manufacturers claim that the plants can withstand tsunamis, hurricanes and collisions. Under normal operation, the reactors do not release any dangerous materials into the environment. The reactors are designed to be operational for forty years. At the end of their lifespan, the reactors will be returned to special facilities to be refurbished for other applications.

              Despite the manufacturers’ assurances of safety in the face of any possible natural disaster, I have to wonder if they are being too optimistic. Maybe they are designed to be able to withstand what the manufacturers think will be the worst possible natural disasters but I have always been impressed by the ability of the natural world to exceed our expectation. There are rare freak waves that suddenly appear in the ocean without warning.  For many years, rumors of such waves were dismissed as fantasy until satellite surveillance of the oceans finally captured live images of a giant wave suddenly appearing. These waves can be one hundred feet high. One of these might be able to sink or seriously damage one the new floating power plants as it is being towed to where it will be used. Terrorists might board the floating plant and threaten to blow it up either at sea or where it is moored offshore. A floating power plant cannot be as massive and stable as a power plant built on land. I also doubt whether security can be as good at sea as at a power plant on land. I do not think that these floating power plants are a good idea. I hope that I am wrong.

Tritium is a universal health threat that released by every nuclear reactor during normal operations. beyondnuclear.org

Carnegie Mellon test shows that modular crawling robots can get deep into pipes at a nuclear facility, something that could help with inspections. news.cnet.com

A project to upgrade the concrete basemat under EDF’s Fessenheim 1 has been completed, allowing France’s oldest operating reactor to continue producing electricity. world-nuclear-news.org

An international team has visited the Chernobyl site to review the causes and effects of a roof collapse that took place in February. world-nuclear-news.org

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on July 10, 2013

Ambient office = .102 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .121 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .129 microsieverts per hour

Millet from local grocery store =  .107 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .074 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .065 microsieverts per hour

          I have blogged in previous posts about my concern over the cost of nuclear power. I believe that the cost of nuclear power will continue to rise and that, ultimately, the taxpayers in the United States and other parts of the world that use nuclear energy will wind up paying huge amounts of money to deal with spent nuclear fuel. There is a factor in the cost of nuclear power that I have not dealt with in detail before. Once a nuclear power plant has been built and is operating, fuel must be purchased for the reactor. While uranium is a fairly common element on Earth, mining it and processing it is expensive. Now a report has been published in the Science of the Total Environment journal that indicates that a supply gap in world uranium production is imminent which will result in spiraling uranium fuel costs for decades.

         Although there has been an increase in uranium production in the past five years, the uranium being mined is lower grade than in previous production periods and does not produce as much energy per pound of uranium. The report says that initial estimates of uranium resources were too optimistic and that in a worst case scenario, only fifty percent of known reserves could be recovered and processed into fuel.

         The report has analyzed the depletion of global deposits in past and present uranium mines. Peak uranium, the highest level of uranium production anticipated is projected to be fifty eight thousand tons in 2015. That is only two years away! The report predicts that production will drop to fifty four thousand tons by 2025. After 2025, it is predicted that there will be a rapid decline in product to about forty one thousand tons in 2030. The report states that these projected production figures will not be sufficient to fuel the existing and planned nuclear reactors during the next twenty years. Estimating a one percent rise in demand, the report predicts that there will be shortages of uranium and rising prices beyond inflation rates in the next five years.

           Even if one percent of the global nuclear reactor capacity is phased out every year from now until 2025, there will still not be enough uranium to fuel the operating reactors. The authors of the report call for a worldwide systematic phase out of nuclear energy generation to begin immediately. This phase out could possibility delay the supply gap until after 2025. Military uranium reserves in the U.S. and Russia could also be tapped to prevent a short fall in uranium fuel production before 2025.

          If there is not a concerted global effort to head off the coming shortage of uranium for fuel, the report predicts that the end of cheap uranium fuel will force a phase out of nuclear power generation along with wild price fluctuations, supply shortages and possible brown outs and black outs in countries that rely on nuclear power for a substantial portion of their electricity.

 

Japan has moved a step closer to restarting nuclear reactors, with four utility companies applying for safety inspections of 10 idled plants, the clearest sign of a return to atomic energy almost two and a half years after the Fukushima disaster. guardian.co.uk

Four Japanese utilities applied to restart eight idled reactors under new post-Fukushima safety regulations that took effect Monday. nuclearstreet.com

A biennial survey of people living near U.S. nuclear plants found that support for nuclear power remains strong, as does support for the government’s new strategy to move spent fuel to consolidated interim sites while working on a permanent repository. nuclearstreet.com

A report on the environmental impact of Turkey’s forthcoming Akkuyu nuclear power plant has been presented for independent review. world-nuclear-news.org

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on July 09, 2013

Ambient office = .128 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .072 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .086 microsieverts per hour

Fresh Garlic from local produce stand =  .099 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .119 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .097 microsieverts per hour

         In my last post, I talked about how Barbara Judge had been hired by TEPCO and brought to Japan to help TEPCO achieve a “culture of nuclear safety.” The Japanese government has drafted new more stringent guidelines for safety at nuclear reactors and stated that they will require implementation of the new regulations at any Japanese nuclear power plant as a precondition for granting permission to restart reactors at those plants. There is general agreement among the government, media and public of Japan that nuclear safety must be given high priority if Japan is going to continue to utilize nuclear power to generate electricity.

        Unfortunately, the Japanese nuclear regulators are skeptical that such a “culture of nuclear safety” can be implemented any time soon in Japan. At a recent press conference, Shunichi Tanaka, the Chairman of Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority, offered his opinions on nuclear safety in Japan. He said that it would take “a long time” for Japanese safety standards to rise to the level of international nuclear safety standards. He admitted that prior to the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power plant operators seemed to lack awareness of just how dangerous nuclear power generation could be. This is a startling admission on the part of the agency charged with regulating the nuclear industry in Japan.

         The new regulations that have just been imposed by Japan on nuclear power plant operators cannot be satisfied unless there is a serious change in the current “culture” of the Japanese nuclear industry. This is a rather nice way of saying that nuclear power plant owners were not operating their power plants safely before the Fukushima disaster. The Japanese government has said that the reactors cannot be restarted until the new regulations are observed and the head of the Japanese nuclear authority says that the nuclear industry cannot change practices easily or quickly. Nuclear power plant owners are already applying for permits to restart reactors. Obviously, the government cannot grant permission in the near future without being willing to ignore the new regulations.

         Only two nuclear power plants are currently operating in Japan. Restarting those two plants was extremely unpopular with the public and led to widespread protests and losses at the polls for the then current government. However, the new government that won in the recent elections seems even more committed to nuclear power than the government that fell. Prime Minister Abe, head of the new government, wants to make nuclear power in Japan and export of nuclear technology the foundation of his plans to reenergize the Japanese economy. With this policy decision, I have to wonder how dedicated the new government will be to insuring that the nuclear industry in Japan observes the new regulations.

          The price tag for making the changes required by the new regulations could be as high as twelve billion dollars. Tanaka said at the press conference that his agency had the power and the dedication make sure that the new regulations would be observed at any power plant that was granted permission to restart their reactors. All this sounds nice but only time will tell whether the Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Authority or the economic priorities of the new Abe administration in Japan will have the final say in whether the new “culture of nuclear safety” actually appears in Japan any time soon.  

Palo Verde unit 1 has recovered from an emergency declaration prompted by arcing in a turbine building load center last week. nuclearstreet.com

The Czech official overseeing reactor selection for new units at the Temelin nuclear plant has expressed disappointment in construction delays for two reactors that serve as reference plants for the competing bids. nuclearstreet.com

Four Japanese utilities have applied to the country’s nuclear regulators for permission to restart ten of the country’s 48 non-operating nuclear reactors. world-nuclear-news.org

Activists are fighting the siting of a nuclear dump for low and intermediate level waste on the shores of Lake Huron. nuclear-news.net

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on July 08, 2013

Ambient office = .070 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .142 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .132 microsieverts per hour

Bulk peanuts from Costco =  .069 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .142 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .105 microsieverts per hour