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 = 64 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 126 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 123 nanosieverts per hour
Red bell pepper from Central Market = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 95 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 2 Parts
Russian troops invaded the Chernobyl Exclusion zone in northern Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The closed nuclear power plant is undergoing cleanup and decommissioning after the nuclear disaster in 1986. The Russian seized the plant and took the staff hostage. Before the end of March, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that the Russian troops had pulled out and IAEA sent in experts to assess security and safety at Chernobyl.
It was a very stressful time for people around Chernobyl. On the day that the site was invaded by the Russians, Russian artillery was raining down shells on Kyiv where Tatiana Tugai lives. Even as her life if Kyiv was in danger, she thought about Chernobyl. Decades ago, she and a team of scientists had conducted groundbreaking research in the aftermath of the 1986 disaster there. That research still continues to be relevant in new ways even today.
The radioactively contaminated land around the ruins of Chernobyl has been managed and studied in the decades between the worst nuclear meltdown in history in 1986 and the Russian invasion. The most radioactive areas are covered by a stadium-sized steel and concrete sarcophagus. Unfortunately, the current war could still lead to leaks, new plumes of radioactive dust, or even worse. Ukrainian officials have reported that radiation levels increased follow the invasion and the IAEA is currently investigating whether Russian soldiers stationed Chernobyl experienced radiation poisoning during their occupation.
Since the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, wildlife has adapted to life in the exclusion zone. This is the area around Chernobyl where visitor access is heavily restricted. It is one of the places on Earth where researchers can study the effects of radiation on nature. The researchers have made many discoveries including revelations about a particularly extraordinary kind of fungus.
In 1991, five years after the nuclear disaster, remotely piloted robots discovered a jet-black fungus growing on the inside of the Chernobyl reactors. Intrigued by the discovery of the strange fungus, microbiologists from the Kyiv Institute of Microbiology and Virology began visiting the area regularly.
Tugai wrote in an email, “The first impressions from my personal trips to the Chernobyl zone were very sad. The zone resembled frames from a science fiction film about a dead city. Empty houses without windows.” As the years passed, life began to return to the zone and “the closed exclusion zone gradually began to look like a nature reserve. Scientists constantly walked with a dosimeter, and it reminded us that radiation was nearby.”
Conditions were especially dangerous close to the remains of the damaged reactors. Tugai wrote, “It was only possible to be directly there for a very short period of time. Therefore, the first samples taken from the walls and water from the interior of the destroyed fourth block … were selected for further research.”
Tugai and a team led by Nelli Zhdanova found more than 200 fungal species at Chernobyl, including the jet-black fungi with melanin. Melanin is a pigment that influences the color of human and animal hair, skin, and eyes and can protect against ultraviolet light. At the Institute for Nuclear Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the scientists studied the new fungi’s ability to thrive in the presence extreme radiation.
Please read Part 2 next
CFS, UKAEA to collaborate on fusion research world-nuclear-news.org
Germany under pressure to keep its nuclear power stations open thetimes.co.uk
EDF to redesign British reactors after leaks at Chinese nuclear power station energylivenews.com
More nuclear heat for Arctic town world-nuclear-news.org
Ambient office = 72 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 103 nanosieverts per hour
Carrot from Central Market = 70 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 125 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 105 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient office = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 109 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 109 nanosieverts per hour
English cucumbers from Central Market = 125 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 88 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 76 nanosieverts per hour
Dover Sole from Central = 107 nanosieverts per hour
Stellarators are a type of fusion reactor design that rely on twisted magnetic fields to compress and heat a plasma. They are considered to be a major contender for the development of commercial fusion reactors. Investigators have discovered a possible critical issue for stellarators. They have clarified the potential impact of a concern that has been largely overlooked.
The research carried out at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) demonstrates how periodic changes in the strength and shape of stellarator magnetic fields can facilitate the rapid loss of confinement of high energy plasma particles that fuel fusion reactions.
Roscoe White is a senior physicist at PPPL and the lead author of a Physics of Plasmas paper. His paper identifies a new type of energetic particle loss according to Felix Parra Dias who is the head of the Theory Department at PPPL. He said, “Studies have so far focused on controlling other types of energetic losses that are dominant, and we are now trying to reduce energetic particle losses even more. The paper on which these findings are based identifies a mechanism that we need to include when designing the optimal shape of stellarator magnet fields.”
“While this mechanism is included in our more detailed analyses of stellarator configurations among many other effects, it had not been singled out as a problem that needed to be addressed. We cannot use detailed analysis for stellarator optimization due its computational cost. This is why Roscoe’s paper is important: It identifies the problem and proposes an efficient way to evaluate and optimize the stellarator shape to avoid it. This gives us the opportunity to develop stellarator configurations that are even better than existing ones.”
The plasma mechanisms that create this issue are referred to as “resonances”. They describe the paths that particles follow as they orbit the magnetic fields that run around the reaction chamber. When particles are resonant, they return again and again to the point they started from. These returns allow instabilities, or modes, in the hot charged plasma gas to create what are called islands in the path of orbits. These islands allow the particles and their energy to escape confinement.
White utilized a high-speed software code to search for instabilities called “Alfven modes” that can create islands in donut shaped tokamak. Tokamaks are more widely used in experimental fusion laboratories than stellarators. White said, “So I thought, ‘Okay,’ I’ll go look at stellarators too.” He found that in stellarators, “something very different is happening.”
White went on to say that it “Turns out that in a stellarator you don’t need modes. In stellarators, when the number of periodic changes in the orbit of resonant high-energy particles matches the number of periodic changes in the magnetic field, particle losses can occur. It’s like pushing a child on a swing. When you want the child to swing higher and higher, every time the swing comes back to you, you push it again, and that’s a push in resonance.” He went on to say, “The problem up until now is that people have been focusing on the form of the magnetic field. But high energy orbiting particles drift across the field, so you must also consider the particle orbits.” He added that “seeing whether particle resonances in stellarators match the magnetic field period has got to enter into design conditions for finding a good reactor.”
Ambient office = 105 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 82 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 81 nanosieverts per hour
Blueberry from Central Market = 122 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 70 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 63 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
For the time being, strategic ambiguity is probably the most significant advantage that the Poseidon may give Russia. Skomorokhov notes that while it may be logical to build a horrific weapon such as the Poseidon, the reality of the weapon’s existence and its capabilities are very hard to verify.
Skomorokhov also mentions that the Poseidon may be a doomsday weapon or that Russia may want to influence the world with stories of such a super weapon to prevent an adversary’s attack in the first place. In any of the possible ways of perceiving the Poseidon mentioned in Part 1, he claims that the conflicting stories about the Poseidon have at least confused the U.S. defense planners.
The Barents Observer (BO) reports that the Belgorod will be in experimental operation with Russia’s Northern Fleet before it is released to regular duties with Russia’s Pacific Fleet. There has been no mention of where the Belgorod will be based during its experimental operation with the Northern Fleet. The BO reports suggests two possible locations for the Belgorod home port. The first possibility is Severodvinsk which will be the location for the development of the Poseidon. The second choice could be Olenya Bay at the Kola Peninsula. This is where other special-purpose submarines are based.
According to the U.S. ODIN military training database, the Poseidon is should be seen as a family of underwater drones rather than being a single type of underwater vehicle. Some units may be purposed to attack coastal targets. Other units may be designed as super-cavitating torpedoes to attack carrier battle groups. The nuclear-armed variant of the Poseidon is armed with a low-yield two megaton cobalt warhead that could contaminate a one thousand by 200-mile area, making it a weapon of last resort.
The same source reports that the Poseidon appears to be a robotic submarine about six feet in diameter and about eighty feet long. It is said to have a top speed of sixty-two miles per hour, a six-thousand-mile range and a maximum depth of about three thousand feet. The Poseidon drone may operate at a depth between one hundred and three hundred feet in a low-speed mode for increased stealth. It can reportedly travel for weeks in the low-speed mode to reach a target area before it activates its high-speed mode in the last one to two miles to its target.
The Losharik is an unarmed saboteur submarine according to the website GlobalSecurity.org. It can dive down to about twenty thousand feet. It is reportedly the Russian Navy’s most silent and difficult to detect submarine. It is designed to plant depth charges in inaccessible locations, conduct surveillance, destroy submarine cables or tap into them. Aside from those missions, it can also perform seafloor studies, submarine rescue and special operations.
Since the Losharik is a highly classified project, there are few details available about its specific dimensions. However, the source estimates a length of two hundred and forty feet and a beam of twenty-three feet. The Losharik has an estimated displacement of two thousand tons and is nuclear-powered with a maximum speed of thirty-four miles per hour. It can carry an all-officer crew of twenty-five.
