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.
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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 = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 114 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 113 nanosieverts per hour
Blueberry from Central Market = 104 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 88 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 77 nanosieverts per hour
Matthew Memmott is a Brigham Young University professor and nuclear engineering expert. He and his team have designed a new system for safer nuclear energy production. Their new system is a molten salt micro-reactor that may solve many problems with nuclear power.
Unlike the current light water nuclear power reactors, Memmott’s new reactor stores radioactive materials in a liquid salt instead of fuel rods. He said, “Nuclear energy can be extremely safe and extremely affordable, if done the right way. It’s a very good solution to the energy situation we’re in because there are no emissions or pollution from it.”
In Memmott’s new reactor, all the radioactive byproducts are dissolved in molten salt. Nuclear waste can emit heat and/or radioactivity for hundreds of thousands of years. This is why finding a safe way to dispose of nuclear waste has been so difficult. But, salt has an extremely high melting temperature of a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Molten salt cools rapidly and will drop below that temperature very quickly. Once the salt crystalized, the radiated heat will be absorbed into the salt and does not remelt it. This negates the danger of a nuclear meltdown.
Another benefit from the molten salt reactor is that it has the potential to completely eliminate dangerous nuclear waste. The products of the nuclear reactions are safely contained in the salt. There is no need to store them elsewhere. Many of these products are valuable. They can be removed from the salt and sold.
Molybdenum-99 is an extremely expensive element used in medical imaging procedures and scans. It can be extracted from molten salt. The U.S. currently purchases all of its Molybdenum-99 from the Netherlands. Extraction from the new reactor would make it more accessible and affordable. Cobalt-60, gold, platinum, neodymium and many other useful elements can also be removed from the salt. These extractions could potentially eliminate nuclear waste completely. Memmott said, “As we pulled out valuable elements, we found we could also remove oxygen and hydrogen. Through this process, we can make the salt fully clean again and reuse it. We can recycle the salt indefinitely.”
A typical commercial nuclear power reactor requires about one square mile to operate to reduce radiation risk. The core alone is thirty feet by thirty feet. Memmott’s reactor is four feet by seven feet. The new reactor can generate about a megawatt which could power around a thousand homes. Everything needed to run this reactor is designed to fit onto a forty-foot truck bed. This means that this reactor can make power accessible to even remote places.
Other members of Memmott’s team include re BYU professors Troy Munro, Stella Nickerson, John Harb, Yuri Hovanski, Ben Frandsen, and BYU graduate student Andrew Larsen.
Memmott remarked that “For the last 60 years, people have had the gut reaction that nuclear is bad, it’s big, it’s dangerous. Those perceptions are based on potential issues for generation one but having the molten salt reactor is the equivalent of having a silicon chip. We can have smaller, safer, cheaper reactors and get rid of those problems.”
Ambient office = 118 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 94 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Avocado from Central Market = 123 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 84 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 69 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Morefield was also concerned about access to uranium. He said, “It’s unfortunate, but most of the world’s largest suppliers of uranium are not located in the United States. If Virginia is going to be serious about building more nuclear reactors, we must first lift the moratorium on uranium mining in Virginia.” (The biggest unmined uranium deposit in the U.S. is Coal Hill, in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Virginia enacted its ban on uranium mining in 1982 because of concerns about environmental and public safety hazards.)
Delegate James W. Morefield said that Republican and Democratic policy makers understand that fossil fuels will not last forever. He said, “If we are going to focus on the use of alternative sources of energy it must be done in manner that is cost effective and not a burden on people who are struggling to pay their utility bills.”
Governor Youngkin insisted that his new Plan takes concerns about the affordability of electricity in Virginia into account. He added that, “A growing Virginia must have reliable, affordable and clean energy for Virginia’s families and businesses. We need to shift to realistic and dynamic plans. The 2022 Energy Plan will meet the power demands of a growing economy and ensures Virginia has that reliable, affordable, clean and growing supply of power by embracing an all-of-the-above energy plan that includes natural gas, nuclear, renewables and the exploration of emerging sources to satisfy the growing needs of Commonwealth residents and businesses.”
Youngkin said that retiring baseload generation in favor of solar and wind energy would reduce Virginia’s electricity reliability. He also said, “Nuclear is nearly three times more reliable than both wind and solar. As a result, the industrial world relies on continuous baseload generators such as natural gas, nuclear and coal. Cost, technical concerns related to utility scale storage, and transmission upgrades demand prudence before removing current baseload capacity.”
Youngkin’s Plan said that the VCEA’s mandates are an “inflexible, 30-year determination with a prescribed route that currently cannot be delivered and do not contain any guidelines ensuring reasonable energy costs for Virginian consumers.”
Youngkin also said that the VCEA depends on Virginia outsourcing reliable baseload capacity to other states. This would increase Virginia’s dependence on electricity imports. This would result in supply and transmission of energy to Virginia homes and business having the potential to become less reliable than today. (Many of the states that could supply electricity to Virginia have a high percentage of coal and natural gas generation.)
Terry Kilgore from Scott County is the House Majority Leader of Virginia legislature. He released a statement in response to the SMR Plan. He said, “I want to thank Governor Youngkin for the release of his 2022 Virginia Energy Plan, which outlines a reliable, affordable energy future and includes several exciting opportunities for Southwest Virginia. His endorsement of small modular nuclear reactors supports a technology that can innovate and revitalize abandoned coal mines and diversify Southwest Virginia’s economy.”
Ambient office = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 98 nanosieverts per hour
Tomato from Central Market = 111 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 80 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 69 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 2 Parts
Glenn Youngkin is the governor of Virginia. Last Monday, Youngkin announced his 2022 Virginia Energy Plan. He said that all forms of energy should be embraced. However, he added that the deadline for having all energy generated from renewable sources by 2050 is unrealistic and too expensive. That was the target date for former Governor Ralph Northam’s Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) goal of one hundred percent zero-carbon energy generation. Youngkin prefers a measured approach with intermediate steps and utilizing all forms of energy.
Youngkin said, “We must reject the mindset that it is ‘either/or’ and embrace the reality that it is ‘both/and.’ In fact, the only way to confidently move towards a reliable, affordable and clean energy future in Virginia is to go all-in on innovation in nuclear, carbon capture, and new technology like hydrogen generation, along with building on our leadership in offshore wind and solar.”
Youngkin’s Plan recommends that the commonwealth make strategic investments in innovative, emerging technologies such as hydrogen, carbon capture, storage and utilization, and small modular reactors (SMR). The Plan contains funding to pursue the goal of deploying a commercial SMR in Southwest Virginia within ten years.
A SMR is an advanced nuclear reactor that generates three hundred or less megawatts of electricity. This is about one third of the output of current full scale commercial nuclear power reactors. SMRs are promoted as being safer and much smaller that convention power reactors. The intention is to construct SMRs in a factory in order to benefit from economies of scale and improved quality control. The modules for a SMR would be shipped to the site and installed. There are studies that suggest that although SMRs are much smaller than conventional power reactors, they would wind up producing more dangerous radioactive waste than a conventional power reactor per unit of power generated.
The goal of the Plan is for Southwest Virginia to become the nation’s leader in the development and deployment of SMRs. The Plan advocates for the development of the first commercial SMR in the U.S. in Southwest Virginia. It also calls for the development of spent nuclear fuel recycling technologies that offer the promise of a zero-carbon emission system with minimal nuclear waste and a closed-loop supply chain. The state will work with government, industry and academic partners to “develop a plan to deploy a commercial small modular nuclear reactor in Southwest Virginia within 10 years.”
No specific site has yet been chosen for the SMR. Delegate James W. Morefield is the Republican representative for Tazewell County. He has some reservations about SMRs. He said, “Small nuclear reactors are promising but a great deal of research must be conducted and other factors such as environmental and safety issues must be strongly considered. and other countries around the world focused heavily on nuclear and renewable energy. They have experienced the dangers of nuclear energy and the expense of renewable energy with several of them now focusing on building new coal-fired power plants.”
Please read Part 2 next
Ambient office = 117 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 984 nanosieverts per hour
ARed bell pepper from Central Market = 72 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 96 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 74 nanosieverts per hour
