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 = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 134 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 135 nanosieverts per hour
Watermelon from Central Market = 89 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 62 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 56 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 2 Parts
The global price of uranium has risen to its highest level since the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused severe turbulence to the commodities market. The European energy crisis has caused the global energy industry to warm up to nuclear power.
Yellow cake is uranium that has been processed from raw ore containing many minerals to a powder of raw uranium. The price of yellow cake has jumped seven percent since the middle of August to pass fifty dollars a pound. This price was last seen when many commodities were driven higher by concern over the supply chain last spring. Many market participants expect uranium to continue to rise even further. The Bank of America predicts that the price of yellow cake will reach as high as seventy dollars per pound next year.
Looking back before the sharp spike in prices triggered by the war in Ukraine, the last time uranium was trading at similar levels was over ten years ago. This historical price information was provided by UxC, a nuclear fuel market research and analysis company.
Uranium prices have been lifted in recent weeks by positive news about nuclear power. Utility companies are moving to increase supplies against a backdrop of the worsening energy shortfall in Europe. There has also been improving public sentiment towards nuclear power in other regions of the globe.
Late last month, the Japanese government announced its plans to accelerate the restart of reactors and export the construction of new nuclear power plants for the first time since the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in 2011. California decided last week to extend the life of its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant which is the last operating nuclear plant in California. A few days later, Germany put its last nuclear power plants on standby so that they can keep running if needed beyond the end of this year.
Per Jander is the director of nuclear and renewable energy sources at WMC Energy which is a commodities merchant. He said, “Germany and California have been two of the most negative jurisdictions in the world on nuclear power and both of them are coming around. I would say hell would freeze over before that would happen. It will have an immediate impact on the market.”
The price of uranium rose sharply last year. It was up over thirty percent as investors wagered on nuclear energy becoming a central feature of the global shift away from fossil fuels and towards greater electrification of the would economy. Nuclear power plants do not emit carbon dioxide during normal operation. Nuclear energy is said to generate consistent baseload power without producing carbon emissions. The European Union classified it as a green energy source earlier this year. Of course, constructing a nuclear power plant and dealing with the nuclear fuel cycle do release a great deal of carbon dioxide. A new nuclear power plant will require years of operation to make up for this carbon dioxide release. The levelized cost of nuclear power is much greater than that of renewable energy sources.
Please read Part 2 next
Ambient office = 140 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 142 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 140 nanosieverts per hour
Watermelon from Central Market = 141 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 75 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 58 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient office = 138 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 105 nanosieverts per hour
Myers lemon from Central Market = 80 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 103 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 85 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient office = 146 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Corn from Central Market = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 89 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 81 nanosieverts per hour
Dover Sole from Central = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
One major question with respect to nuclear waste storage is how long it would be necessary to make the nuclear waste retrievable. Muller says, “So for how long it’s required is a bit of a grey zone for mined repositories, most people think it is 50 years that it needs to be retrievable, but it is usually just the amount of time that the repository is open, so it is very possible that for borehole disposal it will only need to be retrievable for a couple of years as opposed to 50 years, and we think retrievability will be pretty straightforward for 20 years.”
Muller added that there are ways to have retrievability for up to one hundred years “if you really want it, but I think the question is how long do you really want it for, and I think five to twenty years is probably going to be sufficient”.
Muller was an environmentalist and climate change expert and academic before starting Deep Isolation. She said that the main motivation for creating the company was her concern “that the things we are talking about doing when it comes to climate change aren’t enough … if we really want to stop climate change, we have to do bigger things and that led to my interest in nuclear power. I think the industry has done a very good job of explaining why that shouldn’t be a barrier to the future of nuclear and yet the public has not really been receptive to talking about how safe it is now and how little waste there is compared to other industries. And so it seemed to me, let’s just solve the nuclear waste problem. It can’t be that hard … it’s the responsible thing to do anyway.”
The drilling of the borehole would take a few months and the emplacement would also take a few months. Muller said that this means “we are not talking about 20 to 30 years to build a repository. Because we’re using smaller holes, we don’t need people underground. We don’t need air underground. This means that we can go deeper than is possible in mined repositories.”
Muller estimates that once there is a customer and a location it might take three years to get through the licensing process. She hopes that will “get easier and faster for second locations and third locations … so we’re really looking three to five years to waste disposal from the time that we have a government and location that are interested in disposal.”
Muller estimates that a new nuclear power plant would have a lifetime of about fifty years. In order to dispose of nuclear waste produced by such a plant, at least fifteen boreholes would be required. A key part of establishing a nuclear repository is meeting with communities in areas which have nuclear power plants. One of the challenges faced by past efforts to choose sites for permanent disposal of nuclear waste has been locating a disposal site which would be acceptable to nearby communities.
Muller said that their research and public engagement has found that people object to nuclear waste being brought to their community if a national waste repository had been established near their community. However, if the community already has some nuclear waste, they tend to be more open to the idea of disposing of the waste at the place where it is already located.
Muller said that their system is modular so it can be put at the reactor site itself “which I think solves one of the biggest problems governments have faced with disposal – the reluctance to bring nuclear waste into someone’s backyard”.
Last month, Deep Isolation signed a Memorandum of Agreement with technical and engineering services provider Amentum. The two companies agreed to cooperate on the commercialization of its radioactive waste disposal technology around the globe. The companies said that initial targets for joint work include countries in Europe and the Pacific that “represent a combined addressable market for geologic disposal of spent fuel and high-level waste worth more than USD30 billion”.
