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 = 112 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 124 nanosieverts per hour
Tomato from Central Market = 133 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 80 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 67 nanosieverts per hour
Part 3 of 3 Parts (Please read Parts 1 and 2 first)
France finds itself in the difficult position this winter of leaning more heavily on its coal fired power plants, importing electricity from Germany and relying on natural gas reserves stored in a warren of underground caves to make it through the winter.
In order to conserve power, President Macron’s government is moving ahead with France’s biggest energy conservation measures undertaken in decades. This is part of a broader conservation effort in Europe. The plan calls on citizens and businesses to make major lifestyle changes. These include lowering thermostats, car pooling and turning off lights after hours.
Analysts say that there will likely be a recession in Europe next year. Though undesirable, such a recession could help lower energy demand by leading energy-intensive businesses to cut production. The drop in available power has already forced steel, chemical and glass makers to cut output and furlough workers in France and elsewhere in Europe.
Regardless of economic conditions, France will still need to repair its reactors. Most of them were built in the 1980s and have been neglected for decades by a lack of investment. Experts say that France has lost valuable engineering expertise over the year. This trend has had serious repercussions for EDF’s ability to maintain existing nuclear power stations.
As part of its broader repair and maintenance effort, it has brough on hundreds of skilled engineers to make up for a serious lack of hands in France’s nuclear work force. The experts hired include welders and pipe fitters from Westinghouse, as well as from French and Canadian contractors.
However, event critical repairs must be carefully monitored. EDF said that a radioactive leak occurred this month during a hydraulic test on the main cooling circuit of the Civaux 1 nuclear power plant. EDF has spent months working to repair the cooling pipes. They are using new advanced technologies including ultrasound and welding robots that don’t have any radiation exposure limits.
EDF claimed that there was not safety risk from the Civaux 1 leak, and that no radioactivity was detected outside of the plant. However, the episode will probably delay the reopening of the plant. It was originally scheduled to open on January 8th of 2023.
Le Creuset is a huge foundry in France. For many years, they were the only foundry capable of forging the huge containment vessels needed for nuclear reactors. Besides providing vessels for French nuclear reactors, they also exported many vessels to other countries. A few years ago, they had forged a vessel for the Hinkley Point C plant being constructed in England. When a duplicate vessel was tested in France, it turned out that the steel in the vessel was about half as strong as it was purported to be because only half the required carbon was added to the alloy. These substandard reactor vessels had been shipped to other countries with over twenty to the U.S. alone. All the tainted reactors had to be shut down so the vessels could be checked. A number of reactors had been previously shut down in France to repair substandard welding.
The maintenance being undertaken by EDF is certainly important if long overdue. France may have a huge nuclear fleet which provided three quarters of their electricity before many plants were shut down recently, but their problems far predate the current energy crisis.
U.N. Supplied Qatar With Tech to ‘Prevent Nuclear Security Incident’ at 2022 World Cup freebeacon.com
Netanyahu repeats pledge to prevent a nuclear Iran tv7israelnews.com
Putin handed dire warning against nuclear use as Xi Jinping turns his back on Russia express.co.uk
Ambient office = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 103 nanosieverts per hour
Red bell pepper from Central Market = 139 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 71 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
EDF is over forty-five billion dollars in debt. It has fallen further into financial difficulty and announced that its 2022 profit would drop by thirty billion dollars because of the problems with its reactors. In addition, there is a government effort to force EDF to provide artificially cheap electricity for business and households.
Even as EDF is working hard to comply with the demand for accelerated repairs to its reactor fleet, the company cut its 2022 nuclear power production estimate last week. The announcement caused the cost of French and European electricity to jump.
Efforts to repair corrosion in pipes that cool the cores of four reactors are taking longer that expected. Those reactors will not start until January or February.
A strike late last month by French nuclear plant workers demanding higher wages to keep up with inflation caused more disruptions to power generation. EDF said it was already behind in performing required maintenance on several aging reactors because of lockdowns related to the coronavirus. The labor strikes put it even further behind schedule.
The company’s recent problems began late last year as it starting working through the backlog of needed repairs. The inspections unearthed alarming safety issues at an older-generation nuclear reactor in southwest France called Civaux 1. This involved corrosion and micro-cracks in the systems that cool a reactor’s radioactive core. As EDF investigated its nuclear facilities, it discovered sixteen reactors that faced similar risks and closed them down. This is especially concerning because most of the sixteen reactors are newer generation model.
Officials suspected that the corrosion resulted from design changes that EDF had made to reactors designed by Westinghouse Electric that EDF had used in its older generation nuclear power plants. Bernard Doroszczuk is the head of France’s Nuclear Safety Authority. He testified to French lawmakers this summer that the modifications, used in later generation reactors, appeared to have caused abnormal corrosion and stress on critical cooling pipes.
The crisis has caused French nuclear power production to drop to a thirty year low. France is generating less than half of the sixty-one gigawatts that the reactors should be able to produce. (EDF also uses gas, coal and renewable sources to generate electricity.) Even when more reactors are restarted in the coming months, French nuclear output will only be about forty-five gigawatts. This is lower than usual for winter months and will compound the impact of Russian gas cutoff.
Fabian Ronningen is a senior analyst at Rystad Energy which is an independent consultancy. He said that the situation “increases the risk of supply shortages for the coming winter, with availability standing at record-low levels for this time of the year.”
The energy shortfall has turn France into a net importer of electricity instead of the continent’s biggest exporter of electricity. One fourth of Europe’s electricity comes from nuclear power plants in about a dozen countries. France used to produce more than half of the total.
Please read Part 3 next
Finnish nuclear plant full start-up delayed to January argusmedia.com
China’s Moon Base To Be Powered By New Nuclear System: Report ndtv.com
PNRI exec welcomes nuke talks with US, says others can offer tech too gmanetwork.com
Putin launches massive nuclear-powered icebreaker in race to control the Arctic telegraph.co.uk
Ambient office = 109 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 93 nanosieverts per hour
English cucumber from Central Market = 92 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 81 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 68 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 3 Parts
Engineers have spread out through nuclear power plants across France in recent months. They are inspecting reactors for signs of wear and tear including cracks and corrosion. Hundreds of expert welders have been recruited to repair any problems they find in cooling circuits. Stress tests of metals in reactors are being conducted to check for any safety problems.
Europe is bracing for a winter without Russian gas. France is move rapidly to repair a series of problems that have been plaguing its fleet of nuclear power reactors. Currently, twenty-six of its fifty-six reactors are offline for maintenance or repairs after the discovery or cracks and corrosion in some pipes used to cool reactor cores.
The crisis is threatening the role that France has long played as the biggest producer of nuclear power in Europe. Questions are being raised about how much its nuclear reactor fleet will be able to help bridge Europe’s looming power crunch.
Électricité de France (EDF) is the state-backed nuclear power company that runs France’s nuclear power industry. Last week it said that it was working on an accelerated schedule to get all but ten of its power reactors back in operation by January. It added that there were no safety risks and that nuclear regulators were monitoring every step. French president Macron’s government has been pressuring the company to improve performance before freezing weather arrives.
Regis Clement is EDF’s deputy general manager of nuclear production. He said, “We were faced with an unprecedented situation and have gotten past the worst. We are doing our best to play a role in the energy crisis.”
The problems facing EDF include a fresh outbreak of safety-related incidents combined with unforeseen delays to the company’s repair schedule. They could not be hitting at a worse time. Russian President Putin is withholding energy to punish countries supporting Ukraine. This is pushing Europe to transform how it generates and saves power. Countries are banding together to stock additional power supplies. Major conservation programs are being pushed out.
Europe’s energy security remains on a thin edge. This has created a sense of urgency in France to get its nuclear power program back on track. President Macron’s government introduced a new measure this month in Parliament to speed up an ambitious plant to build six big power reactors starting in 2028. They are moving to fulfill a pledge he called a French “nuclear renaissance.”
France pivoted to nuclear power in the 1980s and it boasts the biggest nuclear fleet behind the U.S. France generates seventy percent of its electricity from nuclear energy. It also exports electricity to other countries. That has made France less dependent on Russian gas that neighbors such as Germany.
However, France’s nuclear power crunch has become so sever that President Macron is preparing to have the government take over control of the remaining sixteen percent of EDF that it does not already own. This will cost about ten billion dollars.
Please read Part 2 next
Ukraine nuclear power plant attacked by Russia, worker tells CBS News, as IAEA warns of “close call” cbsnews.com
Construction begins for El Dabaa unit 2 world-nuclear-news.org
Japan nuclear watchdog considering extending reactor life federalnewsnetwork.com
North Korea’s Kim oversees ICBM test, vows more nuclear weapons reuters.com
Ambient office = 133 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 96 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 99 nanosieverts per hour
Blueberry from Central Market = 107 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 112 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 102 nanosieverts per hour
