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.
Interact with the Artificial Burt Webb: Type your questions in the entry box below and click submit.
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.
Ambient office = 46 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 127 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 126 nanosieverts per hour
Celery from Central Market = 143 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Research plasma railguns are typically operated in a vacuum and not at ambient air pressure. Plasma railguns are valuable because they can produce muzzle velocities of up to several hundred kilometers per second. Because of this characteristic, plasma railguns have applications in magnetic confinement fusion (MCF), magneto-inertial fusion (MIF), high energy density physics research (HEDP), laboratory astrophysics, and as a plasma propulsion engine for spacecraft.
Linear plasma railguns put extreme demands on their insulators because they must be an electrically insulating, plasma-facing vacuum component which can survive both thermal and acoustic shocks. In addition, a complex triple joint seal may exist at the breech of the bore. This can often pose an extreme engineering challenge.
The NearStar nuclear fusion reactor has rails which are about a hundred feet long. They fire a fuel capsule with a mix to deuterium and tritium gas at six mile per second into a twenty-foot square reaction chamber. An approximately two-foot field coil with a small hole in the center is located inside the reaction chamber. As each pellet of fuel passes through the hole in the center of the coil, an extreme magnetic field crushes it and produces a flash of fusion. A heat exchanger circulates a liquid molten salt through the walls of the fusion chamber which is heated by each fusion reaction. The heat exchanger produces steam which spins a turbine to generate electricity. Improvements in the design of the plasma railgun could allow the future use of advanced fusion fuels, lowering cost and improving efficiency.
In addition to its use in commercial fusion energy reactors, the plasma railgun could be used as a test bench for the development of advanced nuclear fusion propulsion systems for spacecraft.
There is another advantage to the railgun approach. If nuclear fusion is achieved via inertial confinement with laser bombardment, the use of high-end lasers will require that highly technical staff will have to operate the power plant. On the other hand. NearStar believes that a powerplant that uses railguns could be operated by upskilled car mechanics and maintenance workers. This would definitely be a better proposition from a commercial perspective.
NearStar has a handful of people but it is expanding its team to include scientists and engineers. It aims to break even in the next five years. Amit Singh is the CEO of NearStar. He previously worked in a data analytics company. He believes that all the components needed to make commercial nuclear fusion a reality are available. He thinks that the company’s simple approach will help reach that goal sooner rather than later.
Singh said, “What’s unique about NearStar is that everything we need to build the fusion power plant already exists on planet Earth. So, in a lot of ways, we’re kind of like the Wright brothers — we shouldn’t be the first to flight, but we think we will be because our design and our architecture are so much more simple.”
In the future, nuclear fusion plants will get smaller. It will be possible to build them under buildings and reduce transmission and distributions losses.
Canada Brings Its Global Leadership in Clean Nuclear to the 2023 United National Climate Change Conference (COP28) finance.yahoo.com
Miss America 2023 stops in Arizona on national tour advocating for responsible nuclear energy use abc15.com
Australia’s AUKUS nuclear submarines could fuel regional arms race despite assurance scmp.com
Ambient office = 67 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 152 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 151 nanosieverts per hour
Avocado from Central Market = 137 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 103 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 90 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 2 Parts
NearStar Fusion is a five-person startup in Chantilly,Virginia. They have a new energy-generating approach for creating nuclear fusion. The company is training plasma railguns to generate more power than is put in.
Nuclear fusion is considered the holy grail of the energy sector that could solve the world’s energy needs once achieved. In nuclear fission reactors, heavy atoms are split to generate energy. In nuclear fusion reactors, very light atoms are fused together to generate energy.
The major problem faced while replicating this on Earth is that, until recently, the energy output from the process has remained smaller than the energy put in to drive the process. It was only in December of 2022 that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was able to produce more energy than a nuclear fusion reaction.
Many of the attempts to create nuclear fusion reactor have relied on the Tokamak design. In a Tokamak, a hydrogen plasma is heated and compressed until fusion is triggered. Inside the donut-shaped vacuum chamber of the Tokamak, researchers try to recreate the conditions on the Sun.
The NIF utilized what is called inertial confinement to achieve its breakthrough. One hundred and ninety-two lasers are focused on a pellet of hydrogen fuel to heat it to the necessary temperature. However, the lasers being used by the NIF are old and inefficient and the extra energy generated was very small.
Startups which aim to replicate the NIF’s successes are using modern lasers that can fire more regularly and efficiently. However, in order for nuclear fusion to be economically viable, the output needs to be 15-20 times more than the energy put in to fire the lasers. This is where NearStar Fusion believes that its approach will be able to reach that goal.
NearStar is a sister company to HyperJet Fusion which is also based in Chantilly. HyperJet is researching fusion energy using plasma jets. Instead of focusing on how to increase output from nuclear fusion reactors, NearStar’s team is working to reduce the energy input needed for ignition which is the beginning of nuclear fusion. According to the company this can be achieved by using plasma railguns because they are energy efficient.
A railgun is a linear motor device, typically used as a weapon. It uses electromagnetic force to launch high-velocity projectiles which do not contain explosives. It relies on the projectile’s high kinetic energy to cause damage. The railgun uses a pair of parallel conductors referred to as rails. A sliding armature is accelerated along the rails driven by electromagnetic effects of a current that flows along one rail, into the armature, and then back down the other rail. The principle is related to that used in a conventional electric motor.
A plasma railgun is a linear accelerator which, like a projectile railgun, uses two long parallel electrodes to accelerate a “sliding short” armature. However, in a plasma railgun, the armature and ejected projectile consists of plasma, a hot, ionized gas, instead of a solid slug of material such as those used in conventional railgun weapons.
Please read Part 2 next
McGovern is first member of Congress to address UN about Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty gazetenet.com
Improving gender balance in the nuclear sector oecd-nea.org
Japan a no-show at U.N. meeting on prohibiting nuclear weapons asahi.com
IAEA says a dozen countries to be equipped with nuclear power reuters.com
Ambient office = 64 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 86 nanosieverts per hour
White onion from Central Market = 105 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 70 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 59 nanosieverts per hour
Yoon vows stronger deterrence against N.K. nuclear threat en.yna.co.kr
Bolivia inaugurates third Nuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy Center plenglish.com
French small modular reactor company Naarea looks to raise €150m for nuclear business datacenterdynamics.com
Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant teeters on brink of 8th blackout all day news.yahoo.com
Ambient office = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Strawberry from Central Market = 125 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 96 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 85 nanosieverts per hour
Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant narrowly avoids blackout amidst power line breakages news.yahoo.com
Urenco and Energoatom sign long term contract energylivenews.com
Hibakusha, NGOs to attend U.N. meeting on nuclear weapons asahi.com
UAE approached to invest in Sizewell C nuclear power plant theguardian.com
