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 = 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
Some believe that nuclear energy is a key component of decarbonizing our economy. However, big conventional nuclear power reactors are complex and expensive. In order to make nuclear energy more available and attractive, developers have designed a variety of small modular reactors (SMRs) that have more flexibility and offer lower initial costs. Different types of SMRs with advanced design features are currently under development in the U.S. and around the world.
Researchers believe that SMRs could be deployed at a variety of scales for locally distributed generation of electricity. SMR have an output of three hundred megawatts or less. This is about one fourth of the one and two tenths’ gigawatts of the conventional pressurized light water nuclear power reactors. The economics and technologies of SMRs have been broadly studied. However, there is less information about their implications with respect to nuclear waste. Take Kyum Kim is a senior nuclear engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) Argonne National Laboratory. He said, “We’ve really just begun to study the nuclear waste attributes of SMRs.”
Kim and his team from Argonne and DoE’s Idaho National Laboratory recently issued a report that attempts to measure the potential nuclear waste attributes of three different SMR technologies. They used metrics developed through an extensive process during a comprehensive assessment of nuclear fuel cycles published in 2014. Although SMRs are not yet in commercial operation, several companies have collaborated with the DoE to explore different possibilities for SMRs. The three designs studied in the report are all scheduled to be constructed and operational by the end of this decade.
One type of SMR is called VOYGR. It is being developed by NuScale Power. It is based on a current pressurized water reactor design but has been scaled down and modularized. A second SMR is called Natrium and is being developed by TerraPower. It is sodium cooled and runs on a metallic salt fuel. The third SMR is called the Xe-100 and is being developed by X-energy. It is cooled by helium gas.
With respect to nuclear waste, each reactor offers both advantages and disadvantage over large light water reactors (LWRs). Kim said, “It’s not correct to say that because these reactors are smaller, they will have more problems proportionally with nuclear waste, just because they have more surface area compared to the core volume. Each reactor has pluses and minuses that depend upon the discharge burnup, the uranium enrichment, the thermal efficiency and other reactor-specific design features.”
One important factor that influences the amount of nuclear waste produced by a reactor is called burnup. It refers to the amount of thermal energy produced from a certain quantity of nuclear fuel. The Natrium and Xe-100 reactors have significantly higher burnup than LWRs. A higher burnup is correlated with lower nuclear waste production. This is because the fuel is converted more efficiently to energy. These designs also have higher thermal efficiency. This refers to how efficiently the heat produced by the reactor is converted into electricity. The VOYGR pressurized water reactor design has a slightly lower burnup and thermal efficiency than a big conventional pressurized water reactor.
The spent fuel attributes vary somewhat between the designs. VOYGR is similar to the LWRs. Natrium produces a more concentration waste with a different mixture of long-lived isotopes. Xe-100 produces a lower density but a higher volume of spent fuel.
Kim said, “All told, when it comes to nuclear waste, SMRs are roughly comparable with conventional pressurized water reactors, with potential benefits and weaknesses depending on which aspects you are trying to design for. Overall, there appear to be no additional major challenges to the management of SMR nuclear wastes compared to the commercial-scale large LWR wastes.”
Pair receive lengthy sentences in nuclear submarine espionage case wvnews.com
Germany Says It Echoes U.S. in Shifting Iran Focus From Nuclear to Rights Issues usnews.com
Officials in Kyiv have been accused by the Russian Foreign Ministry of being the ones really responsible for targeting the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant euroweeklynews.com
No federal aid to restart Michigan nuclear power plant apnews.com
Ambient office = 113 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 88 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Avocado from Central Market = 109 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 104 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 93 nanosieverts per hour
IAEA concern over conflicting instructions for Zaporizhzhia staff world-nuclear-news.org
Simulator For Underwater Decommissioning Developed nuclearstreet.com
Rolls-Royce Chosen As Provider For West Cumbria SMR nuclearstreet.com
Watts Bar 2 Has New Steam Generators nuclearstreet.com
Ambient office = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Tomato from Central Market = 94 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 65 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 50 nanosieverts per hour
Grandmothers for Peace seeks local support to eliminate nuclear weapons superiortelegram.com
NATO, Poland say missile was Ukrainian stray, easing fears of wider war reuters.com
Bruce Power seeks partners for nuclear carbon offset protocol world-nuclear-news.org
