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 = 103 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Lettuce from Central Market = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 85 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 79 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 3 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
DoE and Inflation Reduction Act
The Biden administration is strongly committed to maintaining the existing U. S. nuclear fleet and bringing innovative, new nuclear-reactor designs to market.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provides generous production credits for existing nuclear power plants. It also contains added premiums for meeting prevailing-wage requirements. These two credit programs offer a potential thirty-billion-dollar lifeline to struggling plants at risk of early retirement.
The IRA also provides a tax credit for advanced nuclear reactors and a credit of up to thirty percent for small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors. Seven hundred million dollars is dedicated to the support of the development of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which is the highly enriched fuel used in many advanced nuclear reactors.
This IRA funding is in addition to the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s six-billion-dollar Civil Nuclear Credit program. This program allows existing U.S. reactors to bid on credits to help support their continued operations. The DoE’s Loan Program Office also has eleven billion dollars in funding for nuclear plants and the nuclear supply chains.
HALEU fuel
TerraPower is a nuclear startup founded by Bill Gates. It has raised seven hundred and fifty million dollars to develop advanced reactors to serve as alternative to the light-water reactors that make up the vast majority of the globe’s civilian nuclear fleet. Last year TerraPower announced that Bechtel will construct its first reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming. It will be near the site of a coal-fired plant that is scheduled to be closed.
Terra Power and dozens of other advanced nuclear startups utilize a concentrated form of fuel called HALEU. The only current commercial supplier of HALEU is Tenex, a Russian state-owned company. That was not thought to be a great source even before Russia invaded Ukraine.
In the middle of December, TerraPower announced that it has pushed back the date for starting its new reactor because it can no longer depend on HALEU being supplied by Russia. The CEO of TerraPower is Chris Levesque. He said, “Given the lack of fuel availability now, and that there has been no construction started on new fuel enrichment facilities, TerraPower is anticipating a minimum of a two-year delay to being able to bring the Natrium reactor into operation.”
The world’s fleet of light-water reactors runs almost entirely on fuel that has been enriched to up to five percent U-235. It is classified as low-enriched uranium (LEU). In contrast, the vast majority of non-light-water reactor designs in development run on HALEU which is enriched up to twenty percent U-235.
X-energy and SPAC
X-energy is a developer of small modular reactors (SMRs) and nuclear fuel. It is going public with a merger with Ares Acquisition Corporation which is a publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). A SPAC is created to raise capital through an initial public offering for the purpose of acquiring or merging with an existing company.
X-energy is developing an eighty-megawatt high-temperature helium-cooled SMR which burns uranium fuel enriched to about fifteen percent U-235. The fuel is packaged in carbon-coated, billiard-ball sized spheres. In 2020, X-energy received two billion two hundred million dollars in funding as part of the DoE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.
In addition, investors have committed one hundred and twenty million dollars in financing for X-energy. That total includes seventy-five million dollars from Ares Management and forty-five million dollars from Ontario Power Generation and Segra Capital Management. These funders join existing strategic investors Dow and Curtis-Wright Corporation.
Once the disreputable domain of pink-sheet over-the-counter stocks, SPACs have become a respectable way for companies to go public without the burden of revenue or the actual due diligence most public companies are subjected to. This has created a variety of public, premarketed renewable-energy startups with high valuations and big pools of cash such as Heliogen, ESS, Eos, QuantumScape and SES. With the arrival of X-energy, a nuclear startup has joined the club.
Please read Part 3 next
Ambient office = 69 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 104 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 102 nanosieverts per hour
English cucumber from Central Market = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 81 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 3 Parts
In 2022 the U.S. nuclear industry continued to have serious difficulties caused by regulatory, technical and financial problems. It did enjoy solid support from the federal government.
The global nuclear scene faced similar problems. There were plant closings and construction delays that have resulted in the nuclear share of global power generation falling to about ten percent. This was its lowest level since the 1980s, according to the World Nuclear Industry 2022 annual report.
The U.S. generated more nuclear power than any other country on the globe last year. This amounted to about ninety-five gigawatts of capacity. China generated the next highest amount of nuclear power. Construction of new plants has been impeded by cost overruns and schedule delays. Nuclear power generation has been unable to match the plunging costs of natural gas and renewable energy sources. Nuclear power provides a critical twenty percent of U.S. electricity from the ninety-two light-water reactors that were constructed in a construction binge in the 1970s and 1980s.
Some of these plants are struggling financially, many of them are approaching their scheduled decommission dates. The only new large reactors being constructed today are at Plant Vogtle in Georgia. There has been reports of huge cost overruns as well as incompetence and even fraud.
Here are some of the outstanding highs and lows for the U.S. nuclear industry during 2022.
Diablo Canyon
Diablo Canyon is California’s last remaining nuclear plant. It was granted about one billion dollars in support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) last November. This funding may permit the two-reactor plant to remain in business.
The nuclear plant had been scheduled to close permanently in 2025. However, there were serious concerns about both greenhouse gas emissions and a potential lack of generating capacity in the state of California. This spurred California legislators to pass a bill in September with overwhelming support to try to extend the life of the plant through 2030. Diablo Canyon supplies approximately nine percent of California’s electricity.
The Brattle Group carried out a study which indicated that keeping the nuclear power plant running could reduce carbon emissions in the state by about forty million metric tons over its extended lifetime. This would supplant power generation that would otherwise most likely be generated by fossil-gas plants.
However, Diablo Canyon faces a reckoning with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commissions with respect to its license. The plant is also faced with years of deferred maintenance in the run-up to its anticipated retirement.
Plant Vogtle
On October 17, Georgia Power reported that the loading of fuel into the Plant Vogtle Unit 3 reactor core had been completed. This marked an overdue milestone in the bumpy journey to construct and put into operation the two new reactors. During the reported loading of the fuel, technicians, and operators transferred scores of fuel assemblies one by one to the Unit 3 reactor.
The California Power utility issued a press release that read, “Startup testing will begin next and is designed to demonstrate the integrated operation of the primary coolant system and steam supply system at design temperature and pressure with fuel inside the reactor. Operators will also bring the plant from cold shutdown to initial criticality, synchronize the unit to the electric grid and systematically raise power to 100%.” Vogtle Unit 3 is projected to become operational in the first quarter of 2023.
On December 7th, Vogtle’s Unit 4 reactor completed cold hydro testing. This is the penultimate step before hot function testing which is scheduled to begin early in 2023.
The two new Vogtle reactors are the first new nuclear units to be built in the U.S. in more than three decades. Their publicized problems have not been particularly beneficial to the reputation of nuclear power. The project is six years past the original scheduled completion date, and it will cost utility customer over thirty billion dollars which is twice of the original estimated cost. The DoE’s Loan Program Office provided over twelve billion dollars in loan guarantees to help complete the construction of Vogtle’s two new reactors.
Please read Part 2 next
Ambient office = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 113 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 114 nanosieverts per hour
Blueberry from Central Market = 111 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 88 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient office = 138 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 89 nanosieverts per hour
Avocado from Central Market = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 120 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 112 nanosieverts per hour
Israeli Officials Fear U.S. Still Keen on Iran Nuclear Deal Haaretz.com
Israel must do what it can to end Iran’s nuclear program and the regime jpost.com
Putin readies world’s ‘most powerful’ Satan II nuclear missile for ‘combat duty’ foxnews.com
Nuclear chief: IAEA officials to visit Iran soon ifpnews.com
