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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.

Blog

  • Nuclear News Roundup Oct 02, 2022

    Nuclear powering vehicles as Energoatom launches ATOMcharge network world-nuclear-news.org

    Ontario extends Pickering operations world-nuclear-news.org

    Russia open to in-person talks with U.S. on nuclear arms treaty reuters.com

    Curtiss-Wright, X-energy Sign Supplier Plan nuclearstreet.com

     

     

  • Geiger Readings for Oct 02, 2022

    Ambient office = 99 nanosieverts per hour

    Ambient outside = 79 nanosieverts per hour

    Soil exposed to rain water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

    Heirloom tomato from Central Market = 100 nanosieverts per hour

    Tap water = 62 nanosieverts per hour

    Filter water = 52 nanosieverts per hour

  • Geiger Readings for Oct 01, 2022

    Ambient office = 61 nanosieverts per hour

    Ambient outside = 91 nanosieverts per hour

    Soil exposed to rain water = 91 nanosieverts per hour

    English cucumber from Central Market = 97 nanosieverts per hour

    Tap water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

    Filter water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

    Dover Sole from Central = 102 nanosieverts per hour

  • Nuclear News Roundup Oct 01, 2022

    Finnish EPR reaches full capacity for first time world-nuclear-news.org

    Calls grow for China and India to talk sense into Putin politico.com

    Comment deadline extended on idea for nuclear waste chroniclejournal.com

    Russia’s nuclear trade with Europe flows despite Ukraine war abcnews.com

  • Nuclear Reactors 1070 – Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Is Launching Its New SRZ-1200 Nuclear Reactor With Enhanced Safety Features

         Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) recently launched the SRZ-1200 advanced pressurized water reactor (PWR) design. The SRZ-1200 was developed in collaboration with four Japanese utilities. It is designed to meet Japan’s enhanced regulatory safety standards.
         MHI stated that the SRZ-1200 has additional safety features when compared with conventional pressurized light water reactors. Its design implements enhanced Japanese regulatory safety standards which incorporate lessons learned from the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. MHI claimed that the design will ensure the regulatory requirements of “strengthening safety equipment” and “resistance to natural disaster and security against terrorism and unforeseen event” are fulfilled.
         Low probability postulated events are still accounted for in the reactor design to ensure plant and public safety according to MHI. These new safety mechanisms include an advanced accumulator design and systems which effectively reduce the probability of radioactivity release in the event of a postulated accident. Efforts of this nature and the resulting SRZ-1200 design features will limit any impact to the public and plant site.
         In addition, the SRZ-1200 design is also intended to enhance operational flexibility. This will effectively allow for improved electrical power delivery alongside variable electrical power sources such as renewables.
         MHI said, “The ability to adapt the SRZ-1200 for hydrogen production will also be studied to ensure that all potential uses of energy generated from this plant are efficiently and proactively applied for all of societal needs.” It noted that the name of the reactor is derived from ‘S’ for supreme safety and Sustainability, ‘R’ for resilience and ‘Z’ for zero-carbon emissions.”
         The SRZ-1200 has been designed in collaboration with Hokkaido Electric Power Company, Kansai Electric Power Company, Kyushu Electric Power Company and Shikoku Electric Power Company. All of these utilities have experience in operating PWR nuclear power plants.
         MHI has been involved in the construction and maintenance of all of the twenty-four existing PWR nuclear power reactors in Japan. This has led to the efforts to restart and ensure the safe operation of the existing nuclear power plants.
         MHI said that it intends “to take the SRZ-1200 conceptual design and proceed with basic design efforts”. It aims to bring the new design to market “as early as possible” to “ensure new innovative nuclear technologies are available toward a stable energy supply for Japan”.
         MHI said, “Taking into account the Fukushima Daiichi accident, MHI Group strives to continuously enhance safety through the restart of existing nuclear power plants as well as the safe and stable operation upon restart. This is part of our contribution to society and we intend to continue this contribution through the development of advanced light water reactors which achieve the world’s highest level of safety.”
         MHI’s 2021 Medium-Term Business Plan was published in October of 2020. In the plan, MHI said that it planned to develop new reactor designs. It said it was working on a “next generation” light water reactor that will feature safety improvements such as a core catcher and a radiation leak prevention system. MHI said that such a reactor with a generating capacity of up to twelve hundred megawatts will improve compatibility with renewables by increasing “output adjustment capability”. MHI said that it was targeting commercialization of the new reactor design in the mid-2030s.

  • Nuclear News Roundup Sep 30, 2022

    U.S. has not seen acts indicating Russia contemplating nuclear attack reuters.com

    Russia Said to Allow Crypto Mining in Regions With Hydroelectric and Nuclear Power news.bitcoin.com

    Fuel dispatched for China’s CFR-600 fast neutron reactor world-nuclear-news.com

    ESAS propose disclosures for fossil gas and nuclear energy investments esma.europa.eu

     

  • Geiger Readings for Sep 30, 2022

    Ambient office = 98 nanosieverts per hour

    Ambient outside = 88 nanosieverts per hour

    Soil exposed to rain water = 84 nanosieverts per hour

    Avocado from Central Market = 79 nanosieverts per hour

    Tap water = 119 nanosieverts per hour

    Filter water = 99 nanosieverts per hour

  • Nuclear Fusion 192 – The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Is Exploring Plasma Instability

         Physicists at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have recently proposed that the formation of “hills and valleys” in magnetic field lines could be the origin of sudden collapses of heat ahead of disruptions that can damage donut-shaped tokamak fusion facilities.
         This research was published in the journal Physics of Plasma last July. It traced the collapse to the 3D disordering of the strong magnetic fields used to confine the hot, charged plasma gas.  Min-Gu Yoo is a post doctorial researcher at PPPL and lead author of the paper. He said, “We proposed a novel way to understand the [disordered] field lines, which was usually ignored or poorly modelled in the previous studies.”
         Fusion is the process that powers the Sun and other stars as hydrogen atoms fuse together to form helium. During the process a great deal of energy is produced. If scientists could capture the process on Earth, they could create a clean, carbon-free and almost inexhaustible source of power to generate electricity. However, this task faces many serious challenges. In stars, massive gravitational forces create the proper conditions for fusion. On Earth, those conditions are much more difficult to achieve.
         Instead of the immense gravity that holds fusion reactions in place in celestial bodies, strong magnetic fields can be utilized in a device known as a tokamak to confine the hot plasma in which the fusion reactions takes place. However, in laboratory experiments, when magnetic fields lines become disordered due to plasma instability, the superhot plasma heat can rapidly escape confinement which results in damage to the tokamak vessel.
         Weixing Wang is a research physicist and a co-author of the paper. He said, “In the major disruption case, field lines become totally [disordered] like spaghetti and connect fast to the wall with very different lengths. That brings enormous plasma thermal energy against the wall.”
         The PPPL team has studied the 3D topology of the disarrayed field lines caused by turbulent instability to find that these form tiny “hills” and “valleys”. Some of the particles become trapped in the “valleys” and are unable to escape confinement. Others roll down the “hills” ad impact the walls of the tokamak vessel.
         Yoo said, “The existence of these hills is responsible for the fast temperature collapse, the so-called thermal quench, as they allow more particles to escape to the tokamak wall. What we showed in the paper is how to draw a good map for understanding the topology of the field lines. Without magnetic hills, most electrons would have been trapped and could not produce the thermal quench observed in experiments.”
         The PPPL research provided new physical insights into how the plasma loses its energy towards the wall when there are open magnetic lines. It will assist in finding innovative ways to mitigate or avoid thermal quenches and plasma disruptions in the future.
         From my own research, I believe that it may be necessary to develop real time control of chaotic turbulence in magnetically confined plasmas to achieve fusion for power generation.

  • Nuclear News Roundup Sep 29, 2022

    Iran Nuclear Deal Talks at Dead End, Biden Admin Tells Congress in Classified Briefing freebeacon.com

    North Korea could launch a nuclear or ICBM test before the US midterms, escalating tensions foxnews.com

    Reports describe how Seabrook nuclear plant false alarm activated and the confusion afterward wmur.com

    Fears About WWIII Are Growing Amid Russia-Ukraine War, Survey Finds usnews.com

     

  • Geiger Readings for Sep 29, 2022

    Ambient office = 133 nanosieverts per hour

    Ambient outside = 168 nanosieverts per hour

    Soil exposed to rain water = 167 nanosieverts per hour

    Tomato from Central Market = 70 nanosieverts per hour

    Tap water = 109 nanosieverts per hour

    Filter water = 80 nanosieverts per hour