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 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
Police and the Japan Coast Guard conducted a joint drill Saturday to prepare for a possible terrorist attack on the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. japantimes.co.jp
Florida House moves to fix nuclear tax law. yournuclearnews.com
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 12, 2013
Ambient office = .069 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .081 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .062 microsieverts per hour
Vine ripened tomato from Costco = .090 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .119 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .105 microsieverts per hour
Half of the nuclear reactors on Lake Michigan have been shut down. beyondnuclear.org
Dominion Virginia Power investigating vibrations that caused shutdown of their North Anna nuclear reactor. timesdispatch.com
Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 11, 2013
Ambient office = .086 microsieverts per hour
Ambient outside = .077 microsieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = .080 microsieverts per hour
Romaine lettuce from Costco = .141 microsieverts per hour
Tap water = .097 microsieverts per hour
Filtered water = .081 microsieverts per hour
In a recent post I mentioned problems they were having problems with the cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The situation is getting a lot more press recently. There are around fifty four million gallons of highly toxic nuclear waste stored in the tanks buried at Hanford. The older single wall tanks are leaking and they are transferring the contents of some of them to double walled tanks. Now it appears that some of the double walled tanks are also leaking. The tanks are only temporary storage for the waste and the plan is to solidify the waste into a glass material through a process called “vitrification.”
Bechtel began construction of a vitrification plant at Hanford in 2000. The radioactive waste from the underground tanks will be analyzed and then separated into different batches by composition and radioactivity. Then each batch will be mixed into melted sand along with some other elements such as boron and hardened into a glass log which will be encased in steel. Barring severe catastrophes such as earthquakes, volcanoes, explosions, etc, the glass logs should be stable long enough for the radioactivity to decline to a safe level. Even if all goes well, it will take at least until 2062 for all the Hanford waste to be vitrified. All of the glass logs will be kept at Hanford until a permanent geological repository is available and then highly radioactive logs will be move to the repository. Since the cancellation of the Yucca Mountain repository, the soonest that the U.S. will have a permanent storage site is 2048.
Vitrification has been tested and works as expected. However, the tests were done on one type of waste with a standard composition. The Hanford tanks contain waste from different reactors using different processes and the composition of the waste varies widely from tank to tank. Around fifty radioactive isotopes may be present. Every element in the periodic table is represented in some tank. The tanks also contain hot, toxic metals and chemicals which pose their own problems aside from radioactivity. The chemical composition of the waste in the tanks is not the only problem. The waste has settled out into layers in the tanks with the passage of the years. There are solid, gooey, liquid and gaseous layers in the tanks.
In order to process the waste, it must move through pipes and containers in the vitrification facility. Since there are so many different physical forms in different combinations, figuring out how to get the contents of any one tank to flow through the system without clogging pipes and filters is a big challenge. And, if enough plutonium or U-235 accumulated at one point, it might go critical and cause a nuclear explosion. Another concern related to the flow problem is the fact that the heat and radiation in the waste can disassociation water in hydrogen and oxygen. If the hydrogen is not allowed to escape from the piping, enough could build up to risk explosions. The waste is so radioactive that human beings cannot approach it. The plan is to have the waste move through a system of tanks over a period of forty years without human intervention. Since there cannot be any moving parts in the chain of tanks, “pulse jet mixers” have been designed to stir the waste enough to keep it moving. The pulse jets suck in the waste and expel it back into the tanks. While it is uncertain whether the current design of the pulse jets can keep the waste properly mixed, they have been shown to move the gritty waste fast enough to grind away at the interiors of the piping. This, in addition to possible chemical corrosion, increases the probability of leaks.
Unfortunately, they were in such a rush to construct the facility that they began construction before the final details of some of the critical processes and flows were worked out. The safety manager at Hanford refuses to issue a permit to Bechtel for further construction before some of the safety issues are worked out. The Defense Nuclear Safety Board calls these problems a “show stopper”. People have resigned, whistleblowers have come forward and activist groups are lodging protests. Of course, technical advisors for the Vitrification Plant say that these are just technical snags and that they can be resolved. I am unconvinced.
