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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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 May 16, 2013
Ambient office = .141 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .103 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .112 microsieverts per hour
Asparagus from Costco = .123 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .114 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .099 microsieverts per hour
Japan is poor in conventional energy resources. It is dependent on coal, oil and natural gas imports for the majority of its power generation. Nuclear power was seen as an alternative source of energy despite the fact that uranium fuel has to be imported. One possible solution to that problem was the creation of a fast-breeder reactor program. The fast breeder reactor was going to recycle the spent fuel rods from the uranium reactors in order to create a mixed plutonium and uranium fuel called MOX for mixed oxide. Theoretically, this would extend the power generating capability of uranium by a factor of twenty five.
The Monju fast breeder reactor is located on the Japanese coast in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. Construction was begun in 1983 and finished in 1991. The first critical reaction test of the reactor was in 1994. In December of 1995, severe vibrations in a coolant pipe cased a leak which spewed hundreds of pounds of liquid sodium onto the floor of the building. The liquid sodium reacted with oxygen and moisture in the air and burst into flames. The room was filled with toxic fumes. The heat rose to several hundred degrees Centigrade which actually warped some of the steel superstructure of the building. Later several tons of solid sodium were found on the floor of the room where the fire broke out. The reactor was shut down because of the leak.
The incident became a scandal because the plant operators tried to hide it from the public. The Power Reactor and Development Corporation falsified reports of the accident and actually edited video tape to try to prevent details from leaking out. An investigator committed suicide in 1996. His family claimed that he was being pressured to lie about the results of his investigation.
In late 2000, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency announced that they intended to restart the Monju reactor. Law suits against the restart followed which eventually worked their way up to the Japanese Supreme Court. The Court ruled in 2005 that the reactor could be restarted. Due to radioactive decay in the original fuel during all the delays, by 2008 the plutionium-241content of the fuel had dropped by fifty percent. This made a restart impossible with that fuel so the reactor had to be refueled. The restart was delayed again because holes were discovered in the reactor’s auxiliary building.
Finally, in 2010 start up procedures and testing began. The reactor achieved criticality in May of 2010 and was going to undergo testing until 2013 before being connected to the grid. In August of 2010, a three ton fuel loading machine fell into the reactor vessel and the reactor was shut down again. The repairs to the plant cost over sixteen million dollars. An Agency official in charge of the repairs killed himself during the work.
The disaster at Fukushima in March of 2011 caused the Japanese government to reevaluate the entire nuclear energy program in Japan. Testing for the restart of Monju was halted. Another scandal broke out in May of this year when it was discovered that Japan Atomic Energy Agency did not check over ten thousand components in use at Monju. Apologies and excuses were offered along with the usual promise to take care of the problem immediately.
The Monju project has cost almost ten billion dollars to date. The Japanese government recently announced that it was considering permanently closing the Monju plant. It would be far better for Japan to concentrate on alternative renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal which are all readily available in Japan than to keep throwing money down the nuclear rat hole.
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 15, 2013
Ambient office = .116 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .080 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .084 microsieverts per hour
Celery from Costco = .105 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .076 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .067 microsieverts per hour
I briefly mentioned radioactive materials and landfills recently in the context of disposal of drill tailings from fracking. There are standards for what levels of radioactivity are acceptable in landfills today. However, there are exemptions for wastes generated by nuclear weapons related operations.
The West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Missouri near St. Louis contains over eight thousand tons of nuclear waste. This old waste is left over from Mallinckrodt Chemical Company’s uranium processing operation during the Cold war. The West Lake Landfill is designated as an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site. The old landfill has none of the modern safety features such as a liner to prevent leakage into the groundwater or a cap to prevent gases from escaping. It is sitting a few miles upstream from a reservoir that supplies drinking water to St. Louis.
The Bridgeport Landfill is located within a thousand feet of the buried nuclear waste. Normally, this should not be a reason for increased concern but, unfortunately, there is a fire burning underground in the landfill. Temperatures underground are way above normal levels. The company that manages the landfill, Republic Services, says that the horrible odor from the burning landfill that is polluting the air miles away, is not a safety hazard. On the other hand, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has detected dangerous levels of benzene and hydrogen sulfide in the air around the landfill. Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources sent out a notice that people with chronic respiratory disease should not remain near the landfill. Republic Services has been sued by the state attorney general for environmental violations.
Some concrete pipes that are allowing the odor to escape are being removed. Holes are being drilled to cope with the situation. Unfortunately, the excavation and drilling will increase the intensity of the current smells for a short time. A one mile area has been designated for evacuating people but some groups are calling for a five mile evacuation zone.
The big worry is that the underground fire at the Bridgeton Landfill will spread to the nuclear waste in the West Lake Landfill. No one knows what will happen if the fire reaches the waste but in a worst case scenario, it would be something like an accidental “dirty bomb.” There would be no nuclear or conventional chemical explosion, but there would be a release of radioactive particles into the atmosphere over Bridgeton area. The particles could reach as far as ten miles away from the West Lake Landfill. This would require the evacuation of all residents in that area and the halt of all economic activity. It would become an abandoned zone. Radioactive particles could be carried further by surface water and threaten a wider area.
Republic Services says that there is no real danger of the fire reaching the nuclear waste. However, they have already been caught lying about the fumes from the f ire and are being sued for environmental violations by the state. The people in the area are not convinced that they can accept the assurances of Republic Services that they are not at risk from the nuclear waste. Activists are calling for a greater governmental involvement in protecting the public in the area from these two problematic landfills.
West Lake Landfill, Bridgeton, Missouri:
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 14, 2013
Ambient office = .056 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .088 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .114 microsieverts per hour
Dried Apricot from Costco = .095 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .067 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .043 microsieverts per hour
I have written several blogs about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Aside from the fact that I live in Western Washington, the main reason I have focused on Hanford is that it contains a huge quantity of toxic radioactive waste that has proven very difficult to clean up. Leakages at Hanford threaten the Columbia River and the communities that depend on it for drinking water, industry and irrigation.
For the past year, there have been serious problems with a double walled tank at Hanford containing high levels of strontium-90. The tank has the designation AY-102. The double walled tanks are replacing the older single walled tanks because of all the leaks from the single walled tanks. Aside from the specific issues with AY-102, the idea that the double walled tanks are also leaking is very serious. KING TV in Seattle, Washington has been doing a lot of investigation of the AY-102 tank and a number of new details have come to light.
When the alarm for that tank went off on October 9, 2011, the shift manager followed protocol and tried to find the specific Alarm Response Procedure (ARP) that would tell him what to do. I think that it is very obvious that in a complex system such as a nuclear power plant control room, having written procedures for dealing with all foreseeable problems is critical. The shift manager was unable to find the ARP for that alarm.
The next day, the company that manages the underground tanks, Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), sent an experienced instrumentation technician out to double check the instrumentation on the AY-102 tank. He found that everything was working correctly and that it was not a false alarm. However, he also could find no ARP that would tell him what to do in the event of the alarm sounding.
WRPS decided that it was rainwater leaking in between the walls of the tank that trigger the alarm. They said that there was no evidence of increase radioactivity around the tank. After more than a year and additional indicators of problems with tank AY-10, WRPS finally admitted that the inner wall of the tank had cracked and radioactive sludge had leaked out.
WRPS insisted for months that a detailed response plan for that particular alarm did exist when the first alarm sounded in October of 2011. Despite exhaustive research, KING TV could not find any trace of such a plan. When KING TV told WRPS about a report it was going to air, a WRPS representative “clarified” the WRPS position with respect to the missing response plan. WRPS said that there were sections of general leak response procedures that covered the alarm for AY-102 but further investigation showed that the two sections of response procedures mentioned by WRPS were written and inserted into the leak response manuals eight months after the alarm first sounded. And, despite the claims that the new sections covered the problem in AY-102, detailed procedures of how to respond to a leak in the AY-102 inner wall still don’t exist.
AY-102 contains more strontium-90 than any other tank at Hanford. It has been known for over fifty years that strontium-90 settles to the bottom of a tank and the heat it generates causes liquids in the tanks to boil and weaken the tank walls enough to crack them. Once the radioactive sludge has leaked through the inner wall, the secondary wall of a double walled tank could be corroded and the waste could leak out into the environment. This is an old, serious and well known problem. The lack of specific detailed instructions about what to do when an alarm signals a leak in such a situation is more than incompetent.
I have repeatedly said that I think that all nuclear power generation in the world should be shut down as quickly as possible. It won’t be cheap or easy but neither will disposing of all the nuclear waste and cleaning up after more serious accidents that will happen the longer we use nuclear energy to generate electricity. The situation with tank AY-102 at Hanford is a perfect example of why I fear nuclear power. There was highly radioactive waste that was known to be a threat to the integrity of the tanks. There was no specific procedure in place to deal with such leaks although the potential for a leak was known for decades. When a leak occurred, the company responsible for the tanks would not admit there was a leak for a year. They claimed that there was a response procedure that did not exist and tried to cover their tracks by changing of manuals and additional lies after the fact. Hanford is one of the most radioactively contaminated places on the whole planet. How can we trust the competence and integrity of companies that handle nuclear waste in light of the behavior of Washington River Protection Solutions at Hanford?
Area between the walls of tank AY-102:
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 13, 2013
Ambient office = .046 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .061 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .071 microsieverts per hour
Banana from Costco = .105 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .127 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .100 microsieverts per hour
