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.
Turkey starts discussions with US to buy small nuclear reactors power-technology.com
Holidays, mild weather and Swedish nuclear plant lower electricity price news.err.ee
Boost to Russian marine reactor manufacturing world-nuclear-news.org
Ukraine calls on world to sanction Russia’s nuclear industry Ukrinform.net
Ambient office = 137 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 119 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 128 nanosieverts per hour
Kalara lettuce from Central Market = 88 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 114 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Rising costs should be eased by the tax incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act according to Colbert. The new law allows new reactor owners to claim a twenty-five dollars per megawatt hour production tax credit for a plant’s first ten years of operation. Another option is a thirty percent investment tax credit on plants that begin operations in 2025 of later. There are other credits being offered for plants that meet labor, location, or domestic sourcing goals.
NuScale informed an investor conference last month that federal tax incentives could reduce construction costs of its reactor by as much as fifty percent, if located at a shutdown U.S. coal plant site.
Colbert said that “The IRS has issued dozens of circulars asking for input” on the tax provisions for new nuclear plants. “The devil is in the details. It’s going to take a while for [UAMPS members] to digest what it all means. But we think it will be hugely beneficial.”
In order to keep the UAMPS project on track, developers will not only have to keep existing utility sponsors. They will also have to sign up new sponsors. Twenty-seven of UAMPS fifty member utilities are sponsors of the project. They have agreed to buy one hundred and sixteen megawatts of power. However, Webb said that the entire four hundred and sixty-two megawatts of capacity must be fully subscribed for the project to go forward.
Mason Baker is the CEO of UAMPS. Last month, he said, “We’re going to have to see measured improvement off the current subscription to keep moving forward with the project. We’re very actively doing that.”
NuScale said that it is also in discussions for projects elsewhere in the U.S. as well as in Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Jordan, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
KGHM is a large copper and silver producer in Poland. In February of this year, they agreed to work with NuScale toward deployment of a NuScale reactor as early as 2029. However, the company also lost a potential U.S. customer recently when Washington state’s Grant County Public Utility District decided to instead consider a SMR from X-energy based in Rockville, Maryland.
NuScale will also need to gain design approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a new SMR design. Its fifty-megawatt design was approved by the NRC two years ago. It will be replaced by a seventy-seven megawatt SMR that it plans to use for the UAMPS and other projects.
Diane Hughes is the NuScale vice president for marketing and communication. She said that the company remains on track to submit the new design application this month. However, NRC staff has raised concerns about the design. They wrote a letter to NuScale that its proposed module raised “several challenging and/or significant issues.” The letter is a response to a draft application NuScale submitted to the NRC seeking feedback on its final application. The letter includes eighteen pages of questions and concerns. NRC staff say that NuScale’s draft application is missing information needed to determine whether the design provides “reasonable assurance of public health and safety.”
Edwin Lyman is the director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He said that the issues raised by the NRC “will take substantial analytical work to fix.” Lyman went on to say that “Although NuScale claims that it is still on track to submit the application by Dec. 31, it is hard to see how that can happen unless the company does a rush job — which will only lead to more revisions and delays down the road. NuScale should take all the time necessary to do a comprehensive and accurate rewrite of the application instead of trying to stick to an arbitrary timeline.”
Prototype SMR safety system completed world-nuclear-news.org
Nuclear weapons not soldiers are Britain’s best investment telegraph.co.uk
Iran Threatens To ‘raze Tel Aviv’ And Destroy Dimona If Israel Strikes Its Nuclear Sites republicworld.com
Western policy of containing Russia could cause clash of nuclear powers English.news.cn
Ambient office = 114 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 103 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Jalapeno pepper from Central Market = 176 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 103 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 95 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 2 Parts
One of the leading developers of small nuclear reactors in the U.S. is facing rising costs for a key project. This situation is potentially jeopardizing its future in a low-carbon power grid.
NuScale Power Corporation and Utah Associated Municipal Power System (UAMPS) are planning to start operation of the first of six small modular reactors (SMRs) in 2029. NuScale is the leader in a global competition to construct a new generation of SMRs that could provide a base of steady power to complement wind and solar energy on a zero-carbon grid. This project hopes to show that SMRs with factory-built components can avoid the huge cost overruns that have doomed the prospects of conventional reactors in the U.S.
Unfortunately, NuScale’s first SMR now faces much higher construction cost estimates. This has been caused by inflation and higher interest rates. If projected costs rise above fifty-eight dollars per megawatt-hour, it would trigger a make or break vote on the project as early as next month from the project’s anchor customers.
LaVarr Webb is a UAMPS spokesperson. He said that analysts are getting bids from vendors for construction and “counting every nut and bolt.” Webb would not speculate about the size of the increase. However, he said, “we do know it will go up substantially.”
This development comes as another advanced nuclear reactor proposal from TerraPower for a demonstration prototype in Wyoming will likely be delayed for at least two years because of lack of access to highly enriched fuel in Russia. The delay prompted a letter from Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo) to Senate Energy and Natural Resources Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) requesting that an oversight hearing on this issue be held in the Senate.
UAMPS is a Salt Lake City-based group of fifty municipal utilities in six Western States. Along with NuScale, they are developing the reactor project. The U.S. Department of Energy has established a cost sharing grant of up to one billion four hundred million dollars. The organization members can leave the project if costs go above fifty-eight dollars per megawatt.
At this time, UAMPS does not intend to exit, according to Webb. Unless and until its members say otherwise. Each of its utilities will make separate decisions on buying the project’s electricity. If many of the utilities ultimately opt out, the project could fail. In order to go forward, there must be buyers for all of the SMR’s electricity.
About seventy developers in the U.S. and six other countries are also working on SMRs. However, NuScale is the only developer whose design has been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NuScale plans to build six reactors in Idaho. The entire project could deliver four hundred and sixty-two megawatts in 2030 if all regulatory approvals come through and construction schedules are met.
However, NuScale has seen costs of construction materials skyrocket since the project was first greenlighted in 2020. The cost of fabricated steel plate has increased by fifty six percent. Carbon steel piping is a primary component of nuclear plants. The cost of piping is ninety percent higher. The reactor components constitute about one-third of the plant’s expected total costs.
Interest rates have risen sharply to their highest level in fourteen years. Chris Colbert is the CFO of NuScale. He said, “All that has impacted the cost of the plant. We’re all trying to figure out what to do with it.”
Those rising costs are also impacting NuScale’s competitors in the wind and solar industry. Webb said, “We’re seeing cost increases for all forms of generation. Our member participants feel like they need baseload, dispatchable, always-available energy to back up renewable power.”
Please read Part 2 next
Ambient office = 105 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 107 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 112 nanosieverts per hour
Grape from Central Market = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 119 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 111 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient office = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 93 nanosieverts per hour
English cucumbers from Central Market = 73 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 99 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 89 nanosieverts per hour
