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.
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on July 04, 2013
Ambient office = .074 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .062 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .058 microsieverts per hour
Hass Avacado from local produce stand = .105 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .080 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .066 microsieverts per hour
It has now been more than two years since the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami. A great deal of time, money and energy has been expended by TEPCO which owns and operates the Fukushima nuclear power plant and agencies of the Japanese government such as the Nuclear Regulatory Agency in trying to understand exactly what caused the disaster and what has happened since the disaster. There are still unanswered questions about the situation such as what has happened to the cores of the reactors which melted down and how radioactivity is migrating underground with water being pumped into the damaged reactors.
The Nuclear Regulatory Agency of Japan is the agency directly responsible for regulating the nuclear industry in Japan. Although it has been accused of being too lenient and friendly with the Japanese nuclear industry, the NRA has repeatedly cited violation of regulations by TEPCO for decades at the nuclear plants they own and operate. Investigations have shown that the Fukushima disaster did not need to happen. TEPCO knew about problems at the power plant and ignored warnings and demands for changes. Following accidents there have been many criticisms of TEPCO for not taking proper action and for not honestly reporting on the situation at the plant.
One of the biggest concerns at Fukushima is that the cores of Unit One, Unit Two and Unit Three melted down and sank into the earth. It is unknown exactly where these hot melted cores are now. Water is being pumped into the ruins of the reactors to try to keep these cores as cool as possible where ever they are underground. The is a big problem with what is going to be done with all the water being pumped underground, partly because of how close the plant is to the ocean. There is already radioactive contamination of ocean water near Fukushima that is interfering with the fishing industry.
TEPCO has drafted a new report on the situation at the Fukushima plant and modified a plan for moving forward with decommissioning the damaged reactors. When TEPCO met with the NRA on June 28th, they proudly announced that they were actually ahead of the original schedule for dealing with the corium (melted core materials.) The NRA expressed extreme skepticism that the announcement of being ahead of schedule from TEPCO was meaningless because TEPCO didn’t even know where the corium was now and exactly what they would have to do to recover and/or neutralize it. Members of the NRA used a Japanese idiomatic expression that translates to “Drawing a picture of a sweet rice cake may look nice but you cannot eat it.”
I have returned to the Fukushima disaster and its aftermath again and again on this blog because I want the people in the United States to have some vague idea of just how damaging a nuclear accident can be in many ways to a nation. Two years after the Fukushima disaster, the situation continues to deteriorate and no one is sure exactly what to do.
Latitude 47.704656 Longitude -122.318745
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on July 03, 2013
Ambient office = .092 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .091 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .079 microsieverts per hour
Mango from local produce stand = .089 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .104 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .063 microsieverts per hour
A couple of days ago, I blogged about problems at Handford with the handling of two glove boxes by a Department of Energy contractor named Permafix. The boxes were moved from Hanford to Permafix through Richland with parade permits which were not appropriate for such a shipment. When the two glove boxes reached Permafix, there was radiation found on the outside of the plastic wrapped boxes and they were not handled properly when they were moved off the truck.
Coincidentally, the next day I heard a report on the radio that the Environmental Protection Agency was fining the DOE because the DOE and its contractors mishandled radioactive Hanford lab waste by transporting it without proper permits and dumping some of it into a landfill without proper processing. The EPA looked at records between the 1980s and 2011 and concluded that there was a consistent pattern of misbehavior. They levied a fine of $136,000 against the DOE. They admitted that the fine was small considering the severity of the problem but explained that if they raised the fine and/or the DOE contested the fine in court, it would take money away from the amount available to DOE to clean up the mess. I almost drove off the road! This would be like a prosecutor deciding not to fine a bank too much because the bank had to give money back to the people they had cheated and a big fine or expensive lawsuit would reduce the money available to pay back to the victims.
The idea of one department of the U.S. Executive Branch fining another department of the Executive Branch is a little odd. The issue of possible law suits between the EPA and the DOE was also raised. That also is a little odd. That would be like fines and lawsuits between departments of a corporation. It doesn’t really make sense to me. It would seem that if there were problems in the Executive Branch, there would be investigations and then some sort of action might be taken such as firing people and/or changing procedures. Any expenses that resulted from the problems should be taken care of in the budget for the department that is cleaning up the mess.
One of the reasons given for the small fine was that the DOE promised to deal with the problem and the EPA though that that was sufficient. Well, excuse me, but the incident that I blogged about two days ago where there were not proper permits and the contractor mishandled the glove boxes suggests to me that DOE and its contractors didn’t really take their promise to fix things very seriously. A slap on the wrist like the small fine is obviously not sufficient. People need to lose their jobs and the whole mess needs to be publicized. There are serious problems with the way that DOE and its contractors are handling the Hanford cleanup and something needs to be done to impress upon them the need for real change.
Latitude 47.704656 Longitude -122.318745
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on July 02, 2013
Ambient office = .123 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .102 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .077 microsieverts per hour
Mango from local produce stand = .120 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .082 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .073 microsieverts per hour
I have already blogged about the issue of the accumulating spent nuclear fuel rods at U.S. reactors. It is estimated that at the current rate, the spent fuel pools at the operating reactors in the U.S. will be full in five years. The old style casks that have been used for the temporary storage of spent fuel at operating reactors have been found to be inadequate. Some are leaking and others may be in the process of building up hydrogen gas which could explode. The new design for spent fuel casks won’t even be tested for four years. With no permanent storage for spent nuclear fuel until 2048 at the earliest, the problem of dealing with spent nuclear fuel is becoming very serious very quickly.
In addition to the problem with spent nuclear fuel at operating reactors sites, there have recently been articles about problems with closed reactors. When a reactor is shut down, everything is disassembled in a process known as decommissioning. This includes the spent fuel pools. Currently, the spent fuel from decommissioned reactors is stored on site in the old style, unsafe dry casks rated for a twenty year lifespan.
When everything at the reactor is decommissioned, this included all the equipment for handling radioactive materials. In order to move the spent fuel to new casks for storage on site or transport, the new casks must be constructed and equipment will have to be brought to the site to handle the spent fuel. This will be an expensive and time consuming process as the old casks continue to deteriorate. Some of the casks contain a newer type of fuel known as high burnup fuel is disintegrating faster than the older type of fuel which will make handling the contents of those casks even more difficult than the casks with the older fuel.
If and when the new casks are constructed and filled with the old fuel, the next problem is what to do with them. Many of the old closed reactors are in highly populated urban areas with dense traffic. Recently the United States Department of Energy was caught using parade permits with lax safety rules to transport radioactive materials from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation through the town of Richland, Washington to a contractor’s facility. Can we trust them to be more conscientious in the transportations of thousands of casks of spent fuel from decommissioned reactors sites?
Since Yucca Mountain was ruled out as a permanent repository, the new plan at DOE is to create several regional repositories. This will be a difficult and time consuming process because any potential site will require extensive evaluation and there will be political resistance to any potential site.
This is a very important topic that must have a full debate in the public arena. As more and more reactors are passing their original intended lifespans, there will be more and more spent fuel that will have to be dealt with. So far all we have are some half formulated possible ways of dealing with this serious situation. Whatever plan is eventually chosen, you can guarantee that the U.S. taxpayer will be expected to shoulder a lot of the burden of cleaning up this nuclear waste nightmare.
Reactor pressure vessel being carted away from closed reactor site:
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on July 01, 2013
Ambient office = .117 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .106 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .121 microsieverts per hour
Mango from local produce stand = .127 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .135 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .121 microsieverts per hour
