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 = 66 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Opal apple from Central Market = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 89 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 66 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient office = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Grape from Central Market = 152 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 5 nanosieverts per hour
Dover Sole from Central = 88 nanosieverts per hour
EDF UK R&D, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), the University of Bristol and Urenco have formed a consortium. This consortium has been awarded nine million three hundred thousand dollars from the UK’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to develop a hydrogen storage solution. The funding comes from the BEIS GBP 1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio. The intent of this Portfolio is to accelerate the commercialization of low-carbon technologies and systems.
The Hydrogen in Depleted Uranium Storage (HyDUS) project will demonstrate the chemical storage of hydrogen at ambient temperatures by chemically bonding the hydrogen to depleted uranium to form heavy-metal hydride compounds. Depleted uranium is mostly U-238.
The consortium will develop a hydrogen storage demonstrator. Hydrogen will be absorbed on a depleted uranium ‘bed’. It will then release the hydrogen when it is needed. The consortium will develop this pilot-scale HyDUS demonstrator as part of the Longer Duration Energy Storage demonstrator program at the UKAEA’s Cluham Campus.
Professor Tom Scott is one of the architects of the HyDUS technology. He said, “This will be a world first technology demonstrator which is a beautiful and exciting translation of a well proven fusion-fuel hydrogen isotope storage technology that the UK Atomic Energy Authority has used for several decades at a small scale. The hydride compounds that we’re using can chemically store hydrogen at ambient pressure and temperature but remarkably they do this at twice the density of liquid hydrogen. The material can also quickly give-up the stored hydrogen simply by heating it, which makes it a wonderfully reversible hydrogen storage technology.”
Dr. Antonios Banos is the technical lead on the project from the University of Bristol. He said, “This energy storage technology could provide high-purity hydrogen which is essential for key applications such as transportation while also storing hydrogen for long periods with no energy losses.”
Patrick Dupeyrat is the EDF R&D Director. He said that the funding from BEIS “is a clear endorsement of the credibility of the consortium and of the quality of the feasibility study phase. The novel form of long duration energy storage technology that will be demonstrated in HyDUS has excellent synergies with the nuclear supply chain and EDF’s power stations, especially within a future low-carbon electricity system, where flexibility using hydrogen will play a significant role.”
Monica Jong is with the UKAEA. She said, “We see HyDUS as an exciting energy storage technology that will help to drive decarbonization of the national grid. What’s even more exciting is that this is a UK technology and a highly exportable showcase example of how to efficiently cross-bridge technology from the nuclear and fusion sectors into the hydrogen economy proving the UK is still a global leader in energy innovation.”
Urenco will supply the depleted uranium, which is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process, to the project. When the miniscule amount of U-235 present in uranium ore deposits, is removed from the ore, depleted uranium is left.
David Fletched is the Head of Business Development at Urenco. He said, “We see HyDUS as an exciting energy storage technology that will help to drive decarbonization of the national grid. What’s even more exciting is that this is a UK technology and a highly exportable showcase example of how to efficiently cross-bridge technology from the nuclear and fusion sectors into the hydrogen economy proving the UK is still a global leader in energy innovation.”
According the Urenco, the HyDUS project will deliver a modular demonstrator system within the next twenty-four months. Beyond that, the consortium intends to initially install the technology on nuclear sites. This will increase the profitability of the nuclear power plants. However, it is hoped that eventually the technology could be more widespread. It could be used to support transport and heavy industries such as aluminum and steel smelting.
Ambient office = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 55 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water =59 nanosieverts per hour
Blueberry from Central Market = 72 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 68 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
The recent progress of nuclear fusion research is promising and the need for zero-carbon emissions is urgent. While public-sector investment remains a major part of the fusion development landscape, private investment has been surging. The value of private investment nearly tripled in 2021. This increase in funding has been caused by a combination of tractional technology venture funding, strategic investments by existing energy companies (such as Eni’s and Equinor’s investments in Commonwealth Fusion Systems) and seed investments by ultrahigh-net-worth individuals (such as Sam Altman’s investment in Helion Energy). Access to capital is allowing private companies to construct larger components for fusion reactors and to design full-scale prototypes. Numerous start-ups hope to be able to operate commercial nuclear fusion reactors before the end of the 2020s.
Experts say that the next five to ten years will be critical for fusion research. Specifically, here is a list of milestones that can be expected for private fusion research if nuclear fusions is to demonstrate that it can be a practical cheap and safe source of energy.
Net Energy Production
It must be demonstrated that the energy produced in a fusion reactor can exceed the energy supplied to the reactor. The extreme temperatures required to produce energy from a fusion reaction are on the order of fifty million degrees Celsius. The hotter that the core of the fusion reactor can reach and the more pressure it can withstand without leaking energy, the more net energy it can produce. This level of confinement is a necessity.
Functional Components
The functional ability of components in various versions of fusion reactors must be verified. These components include extremely powerful high temperature superconduction magnets, plasma injectors (such as the P12 injector demonstrated by General Fusion in 2017), radio frequency heating systems and new wall materials that can survive the intense heat of a fusion reactor’s interior. Successful tests of these major subsystems and components by 2025 would indicate that operational prototype fusion power plants could be functioning by 2030.
Operational fusion reactors
By 2026, there should be at least one fusion player integrating all major subsystems into a functioning prototype. Such a prototype would also make it possible to conduct a feasibility estimate of the costs of a fusion reactor’s parts manufacturing and assembly. This would be the first model of a fusion power plant’s economics that could really inspire confidence in investors and other decision-makers.
Life holds few certainties and commercial nuclear fusion is certainly not one of them. As a potential source of zero-emission, dispatchable power, fusion could have a major role to play in the not too distant future. Policy makers and industrial leaders should definitely take it seriously. They must understand what fusion can do and update current regulatory frameworks based on nuclear fission power plants.
In order to ready for the arrival of viable nuclear fusion generation of electricity, there are many conversations that should begin now. The development of commercial nuclear fusion reactors could have major implications for the future of our society.
Ambient office = 70 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 85 nanosieverts per hour
Asparagus from Central Market = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 80 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 2 Parts
The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, more commonly referred to as COP27, was the 27th United Nations Climate Change conference, was held from 6 November until 20 November 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. More than 92 heads of state and an estimated 35,000 representatives, or delegates, of 190 countries attending. It was the first climate summit held in Africa since 2016. The world is obviously very concerned about emissions of carbon dioxide related to fossil fuel use.
Electricity generation accounts for about thirty percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions and carbon emitting fossil fuels like coal and natural gas account for about sixty one percent of power generation. If the world is going to meet its goal of net-zero emissions in the face of rising demands for power, something is going to have to change.
There are limits to variable energy sources like wind and solar power. By 2030, they could be the lowest-cost generation in most markets as their costs continue to fall. However, they are non-dispatchable because they only produce electricity when the wind blows or the sun shines. There is a serious need for base load power sources that can match supply and demand in real time.
Ultimately, improved energy storage could solve this problem but currently it is small-scale and expensive. Other forms of dispatchable zero-carbon energy, such as geothermal or tidal power, are expensive with limited sites. They are also less technologically mature. What is really needed is an affordable, scalable, safe and dispatchable zero-carbon generation technology.
Nuclear-fusion energy could be a part of the answer if it can be perfected. Fusion works by the combination of light atoms such as hydrogen into heavier atoms such as helium. When this reaction occurs, enormous amounts of energy are released. Nuclear fusion reactors under development would capture this released energy and convert it into electricity. Fusion creates no carbon emissions and, unlike nuclear fission, it creates no long-lived nuclear waste from spent nuclear fuel. Because the fusion fuel is slowly fed into the reactor, there can be no meltdowns or runaway events such as those possible with nuclear fission reactors.
The potential of fusion as an energy source has been recognized since the 1950s. Fusion skeptics like to joke that practical fusion energy has been “twenty years away for the paste fifty years. However, fusion power generation has begun to catch up to the hype.
3-D printing has allowed the complex geometrical shapes of parts required for the walls of fusion reactors to be produced at low cost. This has also allowed designs to be revised and tested quickly. The rapidly increasing computer capacity has made it possible for simulation programs to represent fusion reactions in much greater detail than previous simulations. Predictions about performance can be made without the high cost of building large experiments. Rapid digital controls are improving the suppression of plasma fluctuations. These fluctuations cause energy to leak out of the core fusion reaction. These and other technological advances have create the right conditions in which fusion can develop more rapidly.
Please read Part 2 next
