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 = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 122 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 124 nanosieverts per hour
Watermelon from Central Market = 131 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 84 nanosieverts per hour
Dover Sole from Central = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Scientists have discovered the remarkable impact of reversing a standard method for combatting a key obstacle to create sustained nuclear fusion on Earth. Theorists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have put forth a proposal to do exactly the opposite of the prescribed procedure to sharply improve future results.
The problem is referred to a “locked tearing modes”. This occurs in all of today’s tokamaks which are doughnut-shaped magnetic chambers designed to create and control the same nuclear fusion that powers the Sun and stars. These modes cause instability in the plasma and tears holes in islands in the magnetic field that confines and heats the plasma. This results in the leakage of heat that is needed to trigger the fusion.
These magnetic islands grow larger when the modes stop rotating and lock into place. This growth rate increases the heat loss, reduces the plasma performance and can cause disruptions that allow the energy stored in the plasma to strike and damage the inner walls of the tokamaks. In order to avoid such risks, researchers now beam microwaves into the plasma to stabilize modes before they can lock.
The PPPL findings suggest that the researchers stabilize the modes in large, next-generation tokamaks after they have locked. Richard Nies is a doctoral student in the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics. He is the lead author of a paper in the journal Nuclear Fusion that reveals the surprising findings. He said that in today’s tokamaks “these modes lock more quickly than people had thought, and it becomes much harder to stabilize them while they’re still rotating.”
He added that another drawback is that “these microwaves increase their width by refracting off the plasma, making the stabilization of the mode while it’s rotating even less efficient today, and this problem has become more exacerbated in recent years.”
In addition to these issues, in large future tokamaks like the ITER under construction in France, “the plasma is so huge that the rotation is much slower and these modes lock pretty quickly when they’re still pretty small,” Nies said. “So, it will be much more efficient to switch up the stabilization package in big future tokamaks and let them first lock and then stabilize them.”
That reversal could facilitate the fusion process which researchers around the world are seeking to reproduce. The fusion process combines light elements in the form of plasma to release huge amounts of energy. Allan Reiman is a distinguished research fellow and co-author of the paper. He said, “This provides a different way of looking at things and could be a much more effective way to deal with the problem. People should take more seriously the possibility of allowing the islands to lock.”
The recommended technique is not likely to work in the current tokamaks because tearing mode islands grow so fast and are so large when they lock in these devices that the plasma is close to disrupting once it has locked. That is why researchers must now use large amounts of power to stabilize the modes at the cost of limiting the energy released by fusion. In contrast, the slow growth of islands in the next generation tokamaks “leaves a long way to go before you have a disruption so there’s a lot of time to stabilize the mode.”
Once the modes in future tokamaks are locked in place, microwaves can target them directly instead of stabilizing them only when they rotate past the microwave beam in current tokamaks. Nies pointed out that “These theoretical calculations show the efficiency of what we are proposing.”
Nies said that what is needed now are experiments to test the proposed course of action. “We would not want to turn on ITER and only then find out which strategy works. There is real opportunity to explore the physics that we address in current devices.”
Ambient office = 114 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 161 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 165 nanosieverts per hour
Red onion from Central Market = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 84 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 75 nanosieverts per hour
The U.S. government is planning to review the environmental effects of operation at one of the nation’s prominent nuclear weapons laboratories. However, its notice issued Friday leaves out federal goals to increase production of plutonium cores used in the nation’s nuclear arsenal. The National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) said that the review is being carried out in order to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. It will examine the potential environmental effects of alternatives for operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for the next fifteen years.
That work includes preventing the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons across the globe and other projects related to national security and global stability, according to the notice. Watchdog groups claim that regardless of the review, the NNSA will proceed with its production plans for plutonium cores at the LANL.
The LANL is located in New Mexico. It was part of the top secret Manhattan Project during World War II. It is the birthplace of the U.S. atomic bomb. The LANL is one of two sites selected for the lucrative mission of manufacturing the plutonium cores. The other site is the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Democratic members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation fought to ensure that the LANL would be among the recipients of the billions of dollars and thousands of jobs that will generated by the mission.
The U.S. Energy Department (DoE) had set deadlines for 2026 and 2030 for ramping up production of the plutonium cores. However, it is unclear whether those goals will be met given the billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements that are still needed.
Watchdog groups that have been critical of the LANL accused the NNSA of just going through the motions instead of taking a hard look at the escalating costs of preparing for production, the future consequences to the federal budget and the potential environmental fallout for neighboring communities and Native American tribes in the area.
Jay Coghlan is the executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. He said, “This is too little too late, a sham process designed to circumvent citizen enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act. The key sentence in NNSA’s announcement is that absent any new decisions in the site-wide environmental impact statement, the agency will continue to implement decisions it previously made behind closed doors.”
The Los Alamos Study Group is another New Mexico-based organization that monitors LANL activities. They said that there is no indication that the NNSA will pause any of their preparations in order to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. The Act mandates some scrutiny before moving ahead with major federal projects. The group pointed to more than nineteen billion dollars in new construction and operating costs for LANL’s new plutonium core production mission through fiscal year 2033. They said that it is probable that the price tag will grow.
According to planning documents related to the sprawling LANL campus, lab officials have indicated that they need more than four million square feet of new construction to expand one of its main technical areas and that area where the lab’s plutonium operations are located. There will also be a need for several thousand new staff members.
Greg Mello is the director of the Los Alamos Study Group. He said, “This is a completely bogus process in which NNSA seeks to create a veneer of legitimacy and public acceptance for its reckless plans.”
The NNSA mentioned that in 2020 it conducted a supplemental analysis of a 2008 sitewide environmental impact statement focused on infrastructure and capability increases needed for the lab to make thirty plutonium cores per year.
Toni Chiri is a spokeswoman with the NNSA’s field office in Los Alamos. She said that it was time for new review to cover alternative activities to meet what she described as the “full suite” of the lab’s mission. She added that “NNSA looks forward to engaging the public, governments and other stakeholders and receiving their input on the process and outcome.”
People have until October 3rd to make comments on the scope of the planned review.
Kazatomprom to increase uranium production in 2024 world-nuclear-news.org
Application submitted for US molten salt research reactor world-nuclear-news.org
Poland amends laws to speed investment in nuclear energy world-nuclear-news.org
ABS awarded federal contract for marine nuclear propulsion project world-nuclear-news.org
Ambient office = 133 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 71 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 72 nanosieverts per hour
Red bell pepper from Central Market = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 64 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 55 nanosieverts per hour
Nuclear power plants can provide large amounts of low-carbon energy. However, their construction and fuel do generate a lot of carbon dioxide. And the disposal of spent fuel and decommissioning of nuclear power plants also produce carbon dioxide. The levelized cost of nuclear power is greater than hydro, wind or solar power. Analysts report that choosing to support massive expansion of nuclear power would preclude similar expansion of renewable power sources. In addition, nuclear power plants are becoming more expensive to construct, operate and maintain while the cost of renewable energy sources keeps dropping. A great deal of effort is being put into making nuclear power plants cheaper to construct and operate.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) Argonne National Laboratory are developing systems that could make nuclear energy more competitive by employing artificial intelligence (AI). Argonne is midway through a one million, three-year project to explore how smart, computerized systems could change the economics of nuclear power.
The Argonne AI project is funded by the DoE office of Nuclear Energy’s Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies program. The project’s goal is to create a computer architecture that could detect problems early and recommend appropriate actions to human operators at a nuclear power plant. Roberto Ponciroli is a principal nuclear engineer at Argonne. He and his colleagues estimate that the Argonne project could save the nuclear industry more than five hundred million dollars per year.
A typical nuclear power plant can contain hundreds of sensors which monitor different parts to ensure that they are working properly. Currently, the job of inspecting each sensor and checking the performance of system components such as valves, pumps and heat exchanges is performed by the plant’s staff. They have to walk around the plant to check each component. With the new Argonne AI system, algorithms could verify data by learning how normal sensors function and looking for anomalies.
After validating the operation of the power plant’s sensors, the AI system will then interpret the signals from them and suggest specific actions where necessary. At a nuclear power plant, computers could detect problems and flag them to plant operators as early as possible. This would help optimize control and avert more expensive repairs in the future. In addition, computers could prevent unnecessary maintenance on equipment that does not need it.
Richard Vilim is an Argonne senior nuclear engineer. He said, “The lower-level tasks that people do now can be handed off to algorithms. We’re trying to elevate humans to a higher degree of situational awareness so that they are observers making decisions.”
Collaborating with the nuclear industry to develop testing scenarios, Argonne engineers have built a computer simulation of an advance nuclear reactor. While the system is designed to serve new reactor technologies, it is also flexible enough to be applied at existing nuclear power plants.
Currently, researchers are validating their AI concept on the simulated reactor. They have completed systems to control and diagnose the vital parts of the reactor. The remainder of the Argonne project will focus on the system’s decision-making ability and what it does with the diagnostic data. An autonomous nuclear power plant requires varied functions. The endproduct of the Argonne project is a system architecture that combines multiple algorithms.
German economy minister rules out keeping nuclear plants running to save gas
Iran gloats, America plots, but even a nuclear deal will not tame Tehran theguardian.com
British Lawmaker: Nuclear Accident Could Draw NATO Allies into War voanews.com
News Wrap: Russia to allow inspectors into occupied nuclear plant pbs.org
Ambient office = 114 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 120 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 118 nanosieverts per hour
Pineapple from Central Market = 66 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 132 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 122 nanosieverts per hour
