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 = 79 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 94 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 95 nanosieverts per hour
Avocado from Central Market = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 85 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 68 nanosieverts per hour
Argentina announces ambitious nuclear program linked to AI development intellinews.com
Workers Seek Shelter As Hanford Nuclear Complex Issues Leak Alert oilprice.com
Snow Lake Energy Secures Funding to Advance Uranium Exploration, Supporting Nuclear Energy’s Critical Role in Powering AI Data Centers finance.yahoo.com
Support For Development Of Nuclear Energy Nears Historic Highs nucnet.org
Ambient office = 72 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 99 nanosieverts per hour
Red bell pepper from Central Market = 103 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 81 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 69 nanosieverts per hour
Regulator warns against delays in work on Chernobyl’s shelter world-nuclear-news.org
China Hits Back at US Over Nuclear Weapons Alarm newsweek.com
Russia increases its influence by building over 10 nuclear power units abroad – FT Pravda.com.ua
Wyoming trona and soda ash producer wants to plug into nuclear microreactors oilcity.news
Ambient office = 73 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 96 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 96 nanosieverts per hour
Mini cucumber from Central Market = 111 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 92 nanosieverts per hour
Dover Sole from Central = 95 nanosieverts per hour
Two U.K. public sector entities – the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Hartree Centre (STF) – are collaborating with US-headquartered technology firm IBM to design future experimental fusion power plants.
The partnership intends to unite fusion scientists and Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts from the three organizations to achieve transformative breakthroughs in applying AI to fusion power plant designs and experimental facility operations. The collaboration will combine the Hartree Centre and IBM’s expertise in AI and high-performance computing, with UKAEA’s data and modelling capabilities. They will create a ‘frontier’ or ‘foundation model’ capable of learning and underpinning the fundamental dynamics of experimental fusion data. The UKAEA is the U.K.’s national organization responsible for researching and delivering fusion energy. It will provide program requirements, domain expertise and selected data from its JET and MAST-U machines.
IBM said, “Our approach to-date for designing these complex machines has been one of ‘test-based design’ – ie an iterative approach of ‘learning by doing’. Unfortunately, measured against the demanding timeline for decarbonizing and transitioning economies into the Net-Zero era, test-based design for fusion has now become too slow and too expensive.”
IBM added, “It is essential therefore that the fusion sector adopts the latest digital technologies to accelerate and de-risk the delivery of commercial fusion power – for operations and for plant design. In short, we must move the dial which represents how we design complex strongly coupled fusion systems away from test-based design and towards the digital world of simulation and ‘data centric’ engineering.”
The new collaboration is expected to develop foundation models that can learn the underpinning dynamics of the UKAEA’s fusion plasma/plant experimental data. This will allow the generation of new information and new capabilities that will feed into various applications, including training downstream models for simulation and/or prediction. Utilizing these techniques, the models will ‘learn’ from past experiments. Ideally, these models will evolve ‘incrementally’ whereby they will ingest live experimental data.
Rob Akers is the UKAEA Director of Computing Programs. He said, “I am delighted that we are joining forces with IBM and STFC’s Hartree Centre to work on our ambitious program aiming to deliver commercial fusion in the 2040s by exploiting the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence. IBM’s expertise in complex systems engineering and supercomputing and the Hartree Centre’s expertise in democratizing high-performance computing and AI into the engineering sector, combined with UKAEA’s leading research and development in fusion energy will be a powerful force for progress in this hugely important field.”
Vassil Alexandrov is the Chief Science Officer at national computing center, STFC Hartree Centre. He said, “I am really very pleased that, thanks to our well-established collaborations with both IBM and UKAEA, we can now come together to address a key grand challenge and advance state-of-the-art in modelling and simulation of fusion powerplants, thereby supporting the UK’s ambition to become a global leader in clean energy innovation.”
Juan Bernabe-Moreno is the Director of IBM Research Europe, U.K. and Ireland. He commented, “I am especially excited to see our team exploring together with the UKAEA and the Hartree Centre experts how we can use generative AI technologies to approach one of the most challenging problems of our time. It is certainly a testament to the kind of research we are driving in the UK for the greater good.”
Final German nuclear power plant enters dismantling phase world-nuclear-news.org
Further Bruce I&C work for Framatome world-nuclear-news.org
Wyoming uranium project returns to production world-nuclear-news.org
Orano seeks arbitration over Niger mining license world-nuclear-news.org
Ambient office = 72 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 122 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 122 nanosieverts per hour
Garlic bulb from Central Market = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 89 nanosieverts per hour
Testing has been completed of a device for executing irradiation tests of various radioisotopes at the two pressurized heavy water reactors that make up Phase III of the Qinshan nuclear power plant in China’s Zhejiang province.
There is no isotope irradiation test function module in the original design of the pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR). This means that the Qinshan project team needed to create a special device that could embed the isotope irradiation test function and is compatible with the existing design of the reactor. Most medical isotopes are short-half-life isotopes. This requires the rapid loading and unloading of irradiation test targets during the normal operation of the reactor.
The People’s Daily said, “After repeated adjustments, the project team and the design institute finally designed a prototype of the device concept.” The isotope irradiation test platform has the ability to automatically load and unload isotope irradiation targets online.”
The People’s Daily added, “During the debugging and verification process of the device, it underwent thousands of action tests, which fully verified the reliability of the device. On the 3rd of April in 2023, the National Nuclear Safety Administration officially approved Qinshan Nuclear Power to use the irradiation test device to conduct yttrium-90 irradiation tests. On the 23rd of April, the project team continued to work for nearly one hundred and twenty hours during the overhaul of Qinshan No.3 Plant. They successfully completed the device installation, cold commissioning and system identification operations. On the 14th of December, the first yttrium-90 target was successfully unloaded from the reactor and the hot test of the device was successfully completed.
The People’s Daily continued, “The platform has successfully realized the research and development and production of short-half-life medical isotopes for domestic commercial reactors, opening up a new path for the localization of medical isotopes and the development of radioactive drugs. In the future, Qinshan Nuclear Power will continue to deepen the production of reactor-irradiated isotope irradiation, and contribute to the independent and controllable supply of medical isotopes and the expansion of diversified applications of nuclear technology in China.”
The report mentioned that this marks the official completion of the first commercial reactor isotope research and development platform in China.
The China National Nuclear Corporation’s (CNNC) Qinshan plant comprises seven reactors. This makes it China’s largest nuclear power plant. Construction of Phase I of the plant was a three hundred MWe pressurized water reactor (PWR). It was the first indigenously-designed Chinese nuclear power station to be constructed. Work began in 1985, with the unit entering commercial operation in 1994. Qinshan Phase II is the location of four operating CNP-600 PWRs, built with a high degree of localization. Units 1 and 2, consisting of the first stage of Phase II, began operating in 2002 and 2004, respectively. Units 3 and 4 began commercial operation in October 2010 and April 2021. Phase III consists of two seven hundred and fifty megawatt pressurized heavy water reactors supplied by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd and commissioned in 2002 and 2003.
In April this year, CNNC announced that the Qinshan plant has begun mass production at one of its PHWRs of carbon-14, which is used in medical and scientific research and in fields including agriculture and chemistry as well as in medicine and biology. Apart from very limited production in experimental reactors, all carbon-14 was previously imported.
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology to Collaborate on Fusion, Materials and Hydrogen Science & Technology finance.yahoo.com
Kazatomprom announces joint venture changes world-nuclear-news.org
Chilling Satellite Pics Expose Open Missile Hatches On Chinese Nuclear Submarine vndtv.com
Westinghouse, Aecon team up for nuclear new build projects world-nuclear-news.org
