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 = 105 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Blueberry from Central Market = 2 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 2 Parts
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project has announced that defects have been found in the thermal shields and vacuum vessel sectors. The project administrators have warned that the consequences on schedule and cost “will not be insignificant”.
Pietro Barabaschi is the director General of ITER. He said, “If there is one good thing about this situation, it is that it is happening at a moment we can fix it. The know-how we are acquiring in dealing with ITER’s first-of-a-kind components will serve others when they launch their own fusion ventures. It is in ITER’s nature and mission, as a unique and ambitious research infrastructure, to go through a whole range of challenges and setbacks during construction. And it is therefore our task and duty to promptly inform the engaged scientific community so that they will take precautions when dealing with the same type of assemblies.”
ITER is a major international project to build a huge experimental tokamak fusion reactor in Cadarache, France. It is designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. The goal of ITER is to operate at five hundred megawatts continuously for at least four hundred seconds with fifty megawatts of plasma heating power input. An additional three hundred megawatts of electricity input may be required. No electricity will be generated at ITER.
Thirty-five nations are collaborating to construct ITER. The European Union (EU) is contributing almost half of the cost of its construction. The other six members (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA) are contributing equally to the rest. Construction started in 2010 and the original 2018 first plasma target date was pushed back to 2025 by the ITER council in 2016.
The vacuum vessel thermal shields are about three quarters of an inch thick. They contribute to insulating the superconducting magnet system operating at four degrees Kelvin or minus four hundred and fifty two degrees Fahrenheit. ITER said that in November of last year, helium tests detected a leak on an element of the vacuum vessel thermal shields that were delivered in 2020. The cause of the leak was found to be stress caused by the bending and welding of the cooling fluid pipes to the thermal shield panels “compounded by a slow chemical reaction due to the presence of chlorine residues in some small areas near the pipe welds. This had caused stress corrosion cracking and over time, cracks up to seven hundredths of an inch deep had developed in the pipes.” A total of about fourteen miles of piping are welded to the surface of the thermal shield panels. Investigative techniques including high-resolution CT scanning, scanning electron microscope, energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer, and metallographic observation revealed cracks in the thermal shield cooling pipes.
There have been serious problems with substandard welds at nuclear reactors in France. Many welds had to be redone. Apparently ITER has inherited the lack of quality controls for welds that has plagued other nuclear projects in welds. Many nations have contributed components to the ITER project, but they are dependent on French welders to do a professional job in welding those components together.
Please read Part 2 next
Ambient office = 126 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 114 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 116 nanosieverts per hour
Avocado from Central Market = 129 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 94 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient office = 135 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 118 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 116 nanosieverts per hour
Asparagus from Central Market = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 83 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 70 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient office = 05 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 99 nanosieverts per hour
Acorn squash from Central Market = 109 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 83 nanosieverts per hour
Dover Sole from Central = 109 nanosieverts per hour
Colorado-based Energy Fuels Incorporated has agreed to sell three wholly owned subsidiaries that together make up the Alta Mesa in-situ leaching (ISL) project to Texas-based enCore Energy Corporation for a total of one hundred and twenty million dollars. When the deal closes, Energy Fuels will receive sixty million dollars. They will also receive a secured convertible note for sixty million dollars which will be payable in two years. EnCore will also assume all reclamation liabilities associated with the Alta Mesa project. Energy Fuels acquired the Alta Mesa project from Mesteña Uranium for about thirteen and a half million dollars in 2016.
The fully licensed and constructed Alta Mesa ISL project and central processing facility has an operating capacity of one and a half million pounds of U3O8 per year. The project has inferred resources of sixteen and three quarter million pounds of U3O8.
EnCore’s portfolio includes the licensed and past-producing Rosita and Kingsville Come ISL operations in South Texas as well as the development-stage Dewey-Burdock in South Dakota and Gas Hills in Wyoming projects. EnCore says that the Alta Mesa project can reach commercial production levels with limited required capital in ten months of a production decision. The addition of the Alta Mesa project will boost EnCore’s total uranium processing capacity to three and a half million pounds of U3O8 per year.
William Sheriff is the Executive Chairman of enCore. He said that it will “further cement enCore’s commitment to near-term US-based uranium production with our initial focus on South Texas. Alta Mesa will immediately become a flagship asset amongst our large project portfolios.”
Paul Goranson is the CEO of enCore. He said, “Combined with our South Texas operations that are anchored around our Rosita project, this acquisition puts us in an exceptionally strong position to advance towards being a long-term sustainable source of uranium production to fuel clean nuclear energy that will benefit our local communities, the state of Texas, and the United States.”
In addition to uranium, Energy Fuels produces vanadium and is also developing commercial production of rare-earth carbonate as well as looking to develop the separation of radioisotopes from its mineral processing streams. Its assets include the White Mesas Mill in Utah which is the only currently operating conventional uranium mill in the U.S. They also own the Nichols Ranch ISL project in Wyoming which is currently on standby.
Mark Chalmers is the CEO of Energy Fuels. He said that the money from the Alta Mesa project will allow the company to focus on and accelerate its higher priority uranium and vanadium projects. He added that the company is carrying out work towards restarting production at one of more of its projects with production expected to start as soon as 2023. The cash from the Alta Mesa deal will help further fund this ramp-up. The company will also retains some exposure to short-term market upside and optionality at Alta Mesa and enCore through the convertible note.
Energy Fuels also plans to establish an ore purchasing program from future uranium mining from other to maximize currently underutilized capacity at White Mesa according to Chalmers. He said that it will “help to both finance and focus our plans in this regard without dilution associated with equity financings.”
