Ambient office = 85 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 110 nanosieverts per hour

Iceberg lettuce from Central Market = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 81 nanosieverts per hour

     This is my three thousandth blog post. I have covered a broad range of issues dealing with nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear materials use in other industries. I will admit that I am not a fan of nuclear fission power. However, I feel that there is enough publicity and money flowing into the support of nuclear power that my small voice in opposition will hardly balance the scales.
     A member of my family is a mechanical engineer who spent his whole career in the nuclear industry. Back in the the 1970s, I was talking to my father and another brother about the nuclear industry. I was a young man with limited experience in the world but I was informed enough to have concerns about politics and business. I said that I have no doubt that my brother and other engineers could design safe nuclear power reactors. The problem I had with nuclear power was that we would have to depend on government regulators and the companies that owned and operated commercial nuclear power plants to be about ten times as competent and honest as they had ever shown themselves to be in the past. Over the past fifty years I have not been encouraged by what I have seen and blogged about.
     Nuclear projects generally run over budget and behind schedule. Nuclear power is advertised to be a solution to climate change because during operations it does not generate CO2. However, over the lifetime of a nuclear power plant, it generates more CO2 than renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydro power. While the cost of these renewables is constantly falling, the cost of new nuclear builds is constantly rising. Unfortunately, there is not enough time or money to license and build enough nuclear power plants to put a dent in carbon emissions soon enough to help mitigate climate change. And for those who say that we should expand nuclear power along with the adoption of renewable sources, my response is that studies have shown that major expansion of nuclear power and broad adoption of renewables cannot both be carried out.
     The problem of spent nuclear fuel waste has not been solved. Tons of spent fuel resides in cooling pools and temporary storage casks around the world. Many plans were laid and much work was done testing different storage plans but as decades have passed none of these solutions has been implemented on a wide basis. If many new nuclear plants are build to generate power, the spent nuclear fuel will become an even bigger problem. A big concern I have is that without a good spent fuel solution, it may be tempting to just close and fence in old nuclear power plants in the hope that a solution will be found in the future. Over time, the money and interest needed to keep these mothballed plants safe will decline and they will be come a major hazard.
     I have blogged about possible security problems at nuclear power plants in the past but my concerns about possible damage, either intentional or accidental, to nuclear power plants that could release radioactive material during armed conflicts were largely theoretical. Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, suddenly these concerns are much more pertinent than ever before. Fighting in and around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine have endangered central Europe and continue to this day. Every nuclear power plant in the world is in danger from saboteurs, rebels, invasions, etc.
     The bottom line is that there is so much money sloshing around in nuclear projects that they are very attractive to leaders and businessmen. I have a lot of reasons to be negative about nuclear energy but ultimately, the rejection of nuclear power will hinge on the next big nuclear accident (which is inevitable), which will sour the public, the politicians and investors on nuclear power permanently. One big release of nuclear materials any where in the world will threaten the future use of nuclear power everywhere.
     I will continue to blog about nuclear issues. I hope my concerns and dire predictions will turn out to be wrong. However, I am convinced that nuclear power is not the solution to our energy needs or climate change mitigation.

Ambient office = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 105 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour

English cucumber from Central Market = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 98 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 71 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 85 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 128 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 124 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 125 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 81 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 133 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 129 nanosieverts per hour

Tomato from Central Market = 65 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 66 nanosieverts per hour

Dover Sole from Central = 98 nanosieverts per hour

     The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA’s service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. The utility is finalizing plans for the next generation of commercial nuclear power plants with the announcement this week that it will construct a cutting-edge reactor near Oak Ridge, Tennessee in partnership with three other companies which include the joint American-Japanese GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Ontario Power Generation in Canada and Synthos Green Energy in Poland.
     The federal utility has signed an agreement with the companies to collaborate on the design for a new small modular reactor (SMR) that will be far smaller than the existing plants known for their massive cooling towers. The new reactor will be less expensive and easier to build.
     The TVA and its collaborators will spend about four hundred million dollars on the project. The board of the TVA has already authorized two hundred million dollars for the program. This will cover the TVA’s portion.
     The Clinch River site is located in Kingston, Tennessee near the Oak Ridge Turnpike. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee visited the site on March 3rd. Jeff Lyash is the CEO of the TVA. He accompanied the governor’s visit to the site. Lyash said that the location was perfect because it is near Oak Ridge’s longstanding nuclear sites. It is on a bend in the Clinch River where the cold water can be used for cooling the reactor.
     The TVA owns the land because it was part o a previous project in the 1970s. Using the site for SMRs means a return on the TVA’s investment decades later.
     SMRs are designed to be much safer than current large reactor operating around the U.S. However, it is a new technology so there is no safety record yet. The design for SMRs and the construction process will be regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC oversees the civilian use of radioactive materials.
     The emergency planning zone surrounding the TVA’s current nuclear reactors is ten miles in every direction. These zones are established by the NRC to reduce or prevent radiation exposure in an emergency for those who live near operating nuclear power plants. The SMR emergency zone will not extend beyond the boundary of the plant property.
    Joe Shea is the TVA’s senior technical advisor for the project. He said that the Clinch River site could host at least four SMRs. Lyash mentioned that if the TVA is successful in building a single unit it would be then build three more. The federal utility could also install small reactors at other sites.
     One SMR is about the size of a football field according to Shea. The SMR will include a reactor building, a turbine building and a control room. This information comes from a TVA rendering of the design.
      Shea added that it will be the early 2030s at best before the SMR is generating electricity.