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 05, 2013
Ambient office = .063 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .096 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .083 microsieverts per hour
Carrot from Costco = .077 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .096 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .087 microsieverts per hour
TEPCO is building new water tanks at Fukushima in a convenient way, not the best way. fukushima-diary.com
Extremely radioactive rubble found on top of Fukushima Reactor Unit 3. enenews.com
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 04, 2013
Ambient office = .088 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .076 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .108 microsieverts per hour
Hass Avacado from Costco = .151 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .072 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .050 microsieverts per hour
Nuclear power has been touted by its promoters as an answer to concerns about increasing levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and the threat of global warming. It is offered as an interim solution to lower carbon emissions from power plants while alternative energy sources are developed. The reality of carbon emissions from different power sources is very complex.
The first question about carbon emissions is what amount of carbon dioxide is emitted during the construction of the actual facility where the power will be generated and the manufacture of the components of the power generation system. The creation of concrete structures generates huge amounts of carbon dioxide. From this perspective, nuclear power plant cooling towers and containment buildings as well as hydropower dams emit the most carbon dioxide. Nuclear and fossil fuel power plants require a lot of structural steel which also emits carbon dioxide during manufacture. Solar power plants require some structural steel and also require special materials to generate power from sunlight. Their mining, refining and manufacturing process does emit some carbon dioxide. Wind farms require steel for the towers and blades but that is their only serious emitter.
The next thing to consider is the fuel cycle from mining or drilling through use to disposal of any waste generated. Mining for uranium, drilling for oil, fracking for natural gas and blow up mountains for coal all generate carbon dioxide, not to mention being highly toxic in other ways. The burning of fossil fuels in power plants generates huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Natural gas is better than oil and coal but still puts out a lot of carbon dioxide. The need to entomb nuclear waste in concrete and steel for temporary storage for at least the next thirty years will generate substantial carbon dioxide. Hydro, wind and solar power systems do not require any fuel so do not generate any carbon dioxide from a fuel cycle.
Some estimates of carbon dioxide per unit of energy generated for nuclear power and fossil fuel power plants do not include all of these sources of carbon dioxide. A recent study from a Ceedata Consultancy in the Netherlands found that when all aspects of the whole life cycle of a nuclear power plant are considered, they generate from ninety to one hundred and forty grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of electricity. For comparison, gas fired power plants which are the least emitting of the fossil fuel sources still generate around three hundred and thirty grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of electricity. This is over twice as much carbon dioxide as the worst nuclear plants so it does appear that nuclear power is definitely greener than fossil fuel power. However, wind, hydro and solar power generate from ten to forty grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of electricity. So the best nuclear power record is twice as bad as the worst sustainable alternate energy sources per kilowatt hour. All other considerations aside, nuclear power is not the answer to reducing carbon dioxide emission.
A pair of radioactive goldfish have been found swimming in a lemonade pitcher in the bowels of the Perry nuclear power plant. cleveland.com
Duke Energy has suspended plans to construct two new reactors at its existing Shearon Harris plant in North Carolina due to slower growth in electricity demand than previously expected. world-nuclear-news.org
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 03, 2013
Ambient office = .092 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .091 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .101 microsieverts per hour
Dried almonds from Costco = .120 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .102 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .093 microsieverts per hour
I have talked about temporary storage of spent fuel rods in dry casks of steel and concrete in previous posts. It is estimated that all the spent fuel pools at all the U.S. reactors will be full in five years unless another storage/disposal method is found. The U.S. DOE now says that it will take at least thirty years to site and build a permanent geological repository for spent fuel. So it is obvious that dry casks are going to be very important for the nuclear industry in the short term.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed the first dry cask storage facility in the United States in 1986 at the Surry Nuclear Power Plant in Virginia. During the 1990s, the NRC had to deal with numerous problems in dry cask construction including defective welds that caused cracks. In some of the casks, helium had leaked out of the fuel rods and into the outer shell of the cask. This increased temperatures and speeded up corrosion in the casks. In 2008, the NRC issued new guidelines that required spent fuel rods to be stored in a spent fuel pool to cool off for at least five years before being placed in dry casks.
Although the nuclear industry has doubled the potency of fuel rods since 1970, the design of dry casks has not kept pace with the increasing potency. There have been warnings about the increasing radioactivity of what are referred to as high-burn up fuel rods for years. Recently, Argonne National Laboratory has been pointing out that they have research that indicates that the new fuel rods may become brittle over time while they are stored in the casks. Since the casks are intended to be a temporary storage option until a permanent geological repository can be built, the rods would have to be removed from the casks at some future time for transportation. If the rods are brittle, they might disintegrate when removed from the casks increasing the risk of radioactive material entering the environment.
. Spurred by concern that no one knows exactly what is happening inside the dry casks that currently exist, the Department of Energy and the nuclear industry’s Energy Power Research Institute are launching a new project to deal with this problem. The project will develop new lids with built in instrumentation for new dry casks. Sixteen million dollars and four years have been allocated for the project. The new lids will take samples of gas for analysis and will monitor temperatures in the casks as well as other conditions. The new lid systems will have to be able to withstand high temperatures and high levels of radiation, have some way of removing energy from the casks, operate on battery power for over ten years and transmit information wireless to outside receivers. It is hoped that there will be a prototype of a new cask with the advanced lid available for tests by 2017.
Since the soonest that we will have permanent storage in the U.S. is thirty years out, it is very important that the spent fuel rods and the dry casks that they are stored in maintain their structural integrity for decades. It may be a little late but the new lid project is a welcome change.
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 02, 2013
Ambient office = .064 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .093 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .077 microsieverts per hour
Red onion from local grocery store = .124 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .087 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .077 microsieverts per hour
South Africa, sitting at the southern tip of Africa, is very interesting from a geological perspective. It has an amazing abundance of valuable minerals and is a world leader in mining. Its reserves of manganese, platinum, gold, diamonds, chromium and vanadium are some of the largest in the entire world. There are also commercial deposits of coal, aluminum, and iron ore. And, relevant to this blog, they also have uranium mines. As well as the mining industry, secondary mineral processing industries are a large part of their economy.
South Africa began work on the development of nuclear weapons in 1969. This nuclear program and their practice of apartheid made South Africa an outcast among developed nations in the West, many of whom would not trade with S.A. Being surrounded by hostile neighbors, S.A. created an entire nuclear infrastructure with fuel processing and weapons development including missiles as well as warheads. They were aided in their nuclear development by Israel.
In 1975, S.A. drilled two test shafts in the Kalahari Desert to conduct underground nuclear tests. When the Soviet Union discovered the test preparations, they notified the U.S. Combined diplomatic pressure from the Soviets, the U.S. and France convinced S.A. to cancel the tests.
Over the next decade, international fears of nuclear proliferation in Africa increase pressure on S.A. to abandon its nuclear weapons program. In 1987, the president of S.A. said that S.A. might sign the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if other states in Southern Africa would sign it. Intense diplomatic effort resulted in Tanzania and Zambia signing the NPT. S.A. signed the treaty in 1991.
Following the signing of the NPT, in 1991, S.A. also signed a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. These safeguard agreements were used to insure that the signatories were complying with the terms of the NPT and included giving the IAEA access to information and facilities in order to verify compliance. S.A. had dismantled all of its nuclear weapons and weapons production facilities before signing the NPT and the IAEA agreed that its inspections found no indication that S.A. had not ended its nuclear weapons program. South Africa is one of the few countries that has destroyed its nuclear weapons capacity.
The S.A. Atomic Energy Corporation redirected resources away from nuclear deterrence and into economic development of peaceful used for nuclear technology. In 1993, S.A. became a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The NSG was created in 1975 to help control the international trade in nuclear technology and nuclear materials. In 1996, S.A. signed the Treaty of Pelindaba along with many other African nations to create nuclear free Africa. S.A. also became a signatory for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty in 1999.
The S.A. energy department is currently pushing a huge project to build a whole new fleet of nuclear reactors to supply energy to S.A. They claim that the window is closing and that a decision has to be made immediately to move forward in order to have needed reactors in place by 2023. The new national planning commission has just issued a report challenging the position of the energy department. The report says that an immediate decision is not critical. The report also says that building new nuclear reactors to supply electric power to S.A. might actually raise the cost of electricity over other alternative sources of power. Even if power demands are higher than projected and costs of nuclear construction are lower than projected, new reactors would not be needed until 2029 at the earliest. Other energy sources can easily allow S.A. to reduce carbon emissions at a lower cost and in a shorter time frame. Building a lot of new reactors may result in an enormous waste of money and excess generating capacity.
South Africa made a very wise decision to abandon nuclear weapons. Let us hope that they make an equally wise decision to abandon nuclear power.
Logo of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation:
