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.

Blog

  • Geiger Readings for  Apr 13, 2022

    Geiger Readings for Apr 13, 2022

    Ambient office = 146 nanosieverts per hour

    Ambient outside = 126 nanosieverts per hour

    Soil exposed to rain water = 132 nanosieverts per hour

    Mango from Central Market = 95 nanosieverts per hour

    Tap water = 103 nanosieverts per hour

    Filter water = 83 nanosieverts per hour

  • Nuclear Reactors 1017 – Nuclear Energy Is Not A Good Companion For Renewable Energy – Part 2 of 2 Parts

    Nuclear Reactors 1017 – Nuclear Energy Is Not A Good Companion For Renewable Energy – Part 2 of 2 Parts

    Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
         A 2019 analysis from the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University by Amory B. Lovins mentioned that grid integration costs matter too when comparing electrical resources but they do not add much. They would need to be about two to twelve times the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) in order for nuclear to rival renewables. However, just the opposite is true. Solar and wind grid integration costs are at worst comparable to their LCOE. In the U.K., these grid integration costs are low. In U.S. utilities find they’re many times below renewables’ LCOE even at eighty five percent wind share. This means that adding them into the comparison can’t flip the outcome as the 2016 report claimed. BNEF finds that even a flat load is most cheaply provided by variable renewables, plus backup that is also carbon-free if it is demand-side, renewable, or storage. That is why the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts renewables to supply at least ninety five percent of the world’s new capacity. This amounts to about three hundred gigawatts per year through 2026.
         It is likely that grid integration or small grid expansion cost would probably increase nuclear’s cost disadvantage because big thermal plants usually incur much higher integration costs than wind or solar farms. This is consistent with the findings of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The reason for this is that those renewable’s outages are slower, shorter and more predictable. In fact, those outages are easier to predict than demand itself. Renewables usually avoid big thermal plants’ high intermittency or forced outage costs for reserve margin, spinning reserve and cycling. Those costs must also be counted and compared.
         Adding complementary nuclear power does not aid but actually harms variable renewables. Its cycling limitations and high capital cost requires maximum runtime. However near-zero-operating-cost renewables idle reactors by dispatching whenever available. Reactors cannot have both a high and low capacity factor. In addition, cycling reactors spoil their economics via lifetimes, maintenance and efficiency penalties. They spread high fixed costs over less output. The same thing holds true for proposed small modular reactors (SMR). These bring greater economic and use-case challenges, novel safety and proliferation issues that are now making the Department of Energy (DoE) undercut the mission of the Department of Defense, and lesser carbon savings achieved later.
          Thus, nuclear newbuild are already grossly uncompetitive when renewables generate a minor share, and gets more so as they grow. It’s also slower. It cut global carbon emissions from 2010 to 2020 five times less than renewables did. President Macron of France recently said, “We need to massively develop renewable energies because it is the only way to meet our immediate electricity needs, since it takes 15 years to build a nuclear reactor.”
         Most existing commercial nuclear reactors cost more to operate that replacing them with carbon-free efficiency and renewables. The 2016 report urges increasing that misallocation with billions of dollars more in subsidies to keep uneconomical reactors running and save carbon. But allowing them to exit the market instead would open up demand for cheaper carbon-free competitors to contest which would save more carbon starting in a year or two later as efficiency and renewables overtake and reverse transient gas substitution

  • Geiger Readings for  Apr 12, 2022

    Geiger Readings for Apr 12, 2022

    Ambient office = 148 nanosieverts per hour

    Ambient outside = 59 nanosieverts per hour

    Soil exposed to rain water = 55 nanosieverts per hour

    Lime from Central Market = 71 nanosieverts per hour

    Tap water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

    Filter water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

  • Nuclear Reactors 1016 – Nuclear Energy Is Not A Good Companion For Renewable Energy – Part 1 of 2 Parts

    Nuclear Reactors 1016 – Nuclear Energy Is Not A Good Companion For Renewable Energy – Part 1 of 2 Parts

    Part 1 of 2 Parts
         Supporters of nuclear power often favor a technology-inclusive approach over reliance solely on what they refer to as desirable-but-inadequate renewables. This framing of the debate does not compare energy generating technologies because it claims that all technologies are needed. It condenses the diverse portfolio of renewable energy sources into a single technology for the sake of the discussion. It also ignores the biggest and cheapest resource which is energy efficiency. Retrofitting existing government building with good insulation worldwide could reduce energy demand by one third. Nuclear promoters often evade any mention of nuclear energy generation’s actual status, economics, prospects and operation role. Another major problem with the call for all the renewable energy sources plus nuclear fission is the fact that backing nuclear power with lavish subsidies actually diminishes needed resources for implementing sustainable renewables.
         Nuclear power accounts for about ten percent of global electricity generated but the global nuclear industry is stagnant and slipping. In 2020, nuclear power added four hundred megawatts more capacity than it retired. In 2021, nuclear capacity dropped for the seventh year in the past thirteen years. The global fleet of commercial nuclear power reactors averages about thirty-two years so requirements are outpacing additions. Global nuclear power cultures, skills, vendors and prospects are shriveling. A great deal of this is being caused by bad economics. Solar and wind are now the cheapest bulk source for at least ninety percent of world electricity. The renewables are winning between ten and twenty times more investment than nuclear.
         A 2016 report claimed that foreign nuclear power plants were “competitive” but it was convincingly debunked by nuclear experts including the author of the report. The cheapest reactors in China cost at least twice as much per kilowatt hour as the Chinese wind and solar that are outgenerating them by two to one. In China, renewable investments were equal to the previous twelve-year cumulative nuclear investments.
         The best analysis in the report claims that renewables plus nuclear “can create the most cost-effective carbon-free energy system” but only if it is very cheap. This assumption is based on learning curves that have not been observed for current nuclear power reactors. The assumption of improving learning curves is even less certain for new types of reactors that have not yet been built. It also assumes that renewables and storage are far more expensive than they are shown to be by empirical data. The report also ignores most grid-flexibility resources. Diverse peer-reviewed studies without the shortcomings of the 2016 report show a better match for empirical market choices and do not need nuclear power to minimize cost or carbon.
         Considering over twenty-four thousand actual energy projects in the marketplace, new unsubsidized renewables make electricity five to thirteen times cheaper than new nuclear builds according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). Another report from Lazard merchant bank claims three to eight times cheaper. Per dollars, renewables provide three to thirteen more kilowatt hours and can displace three to thirteen times more fossil fuel electrical generation.
    Please read Part 2 next

  • Geiger Readings for  Apr 11, 2022

    Geiger Readings for Apr 11, 2022

    Ambient office = 120 nanosieverts per hour

    Ambient outside = 113 nanosieverts per hour

    Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour

    Green bell pepper from Central Market = 98 nanosieverts per hour

    Tap water = 123 nanosieverts per hour

    Filter water = 103 nanosieverts per hour

  • Geiger Readings for  Apr 10, 2022

    Geiger Readings for Apr 10, 2022

    Ambient office = 114 nanosieverts per hour

    Ambient outside = 159 nanosieverts per hour

    Soil exposed to rain water = 156 nanosieverts per hour

    English cucumber from Central Market = 80 nanosieverts per hour

    Tap water = 72 nanosieverts per hour

    Filter water = 63 nanosieverts per hour