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.
Nuclear power stations extended by 12 months bbc.com
Kathryn Bigelow Made Political Thriller ‘A House of Dynamite’ to Warn the World About Nuclear Annihilation hollywoodreporter.com
Nuclear research center plans submitted bbc.com
Former Homeland Security Appointee Joins The Nuclear Company to Expand Global Presence businesswire.com
Latitude 47.704656 Longitude -122.318745
Ambient office = 109 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 137 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 130 nanosieverts per hour
Avocado from Central Market = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 10 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 95 nanosieverts per hour
The Uranium Energy Corp’s Sweetwater Uranium Complex has been designated for fast-tracked permitting by the U.S. Government. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has confirmed “significant” year-on-year growth in the nation’s uranium industry, both in output and employment.
2024 production of six hundred and seventy seven thousand pounds of U3O8 was a “significant increase” from 2023 production of fifty thousand pounds U3O8, according to the Energy Information Administration’s Domestic Uranium Production Report, published on the 5th of August.
Exploration drilling during 2024 of one thousand three hundred and twenty-four holes with total footage of six hundred and thirteen thousand was up considerably from the eight hundred and seventy holes totaling five hundred and twelve thousand feet drilled in 2023. Development drilling of two thousand sixty-two holes with total footage of one million two hundred and sixty thousand feet was also up from one thousand fifty-three holes and five hundred and fifty-six thousand feet in 2023. Exploration and development drilling activities in 2023 hit the highest levels since 2013, both for number of holes drilled and for total footage drilled, the EIA said.
At the end of 2024, the Shootaring Canyon Uranium Mill in Utah and the Sweetwater Processing Plant, in Wyoming, were on standby, while the White Mesa Mill in Utah began processing ore using an alternative feed. The Sheep Mountain in Wyoming heap leach facility reached a partial permitting and licensed stage. In-situ recovery (ISR) facilities at the Alta Mesa Project, Rosita Project, Lost Creek Project, the Smith Ranch-Highland Operation, Ross Central Processing Project, and Willow Creek Project were all operating at the end of last year, with a combined capacity of fourteen million pounds U3O8 per year. This is up significantly from the a nuclear industry-wide ISR capacity of seven and a half million pounds in 2023.
Total employment in the U.S. uranium production industry was five hundred and six 506 full-time person-years in 2024, up from three hundred and forty 340 full-time person-years in 2023 and the highest employment total since 2016.
Total expenditure for land, exploration, drilling, production, and reclamation of one hundred and sixty million dollars in 2024, up from one hundred and seven million dollars in 2023, was the highest since 2016.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration is a statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Uranium Energy Corp’s (UEC) Sweetwater ISR project is the most recent to be designated as a “transparency project” by the U.S. Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (the “Steering Council”) as part of the implementation of a presidential Executive Order on Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production, issued last March.
The Executive Order directed federal agencies to fast-track permitting for certain critical infrastructure and mineral projects selected by the Steering Council. Sweetwater has been chosen for fast-tracking and added to the FAST-41 transparency dashboard, the company said. FAST-41 is a federal infrastructure permitting initiative created under Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act.
Amir Adnani is the UEC President and CEO. He said that Sweetwater’s selection “reinforces its national importance as a key project to achieve the United States’ goals of establishing reliable infrastructure, supporting nuclear fuel independence.
UEC purchased Sweetwater from Rio Tinto in 2024. It is to be UEC’s third “hub-and-spoke” production platform, according to Adnan. “On completing this tack-on permitting initiative, Sweetwater will be the largest dual-feed uranium facility in the United States, licensed to process both conventional ore and ISR resin.”.
The Sweetwater Complex includes the Sweetwater Processing Plant, a fully licensed and permitted three thousand tons per day conventional uranium mill. With an existing licensed capacity of four million pounds of U3O8 per year, UEC said completion of the ISR permitting initiative will allow it to become the largest licensed uranium production facility in the U.S. with dual-feed capability.
Serbia, South Korea’s KHNP to cooperate on nuclear energy, hydrogen balkangreenenergynews.com
Iran Calls Out Trump on Nuclear Talks newsweek.com
Iran Calls Out Trump on Nuclear Talks – Newsweek newsweek.com
Yellowcake production begins at Kayelekera world-nuclear-news.org
Latitude 47.704656 Longitude -122.318745
Ambient office = 116 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 126 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 127 nanosieverts per hour
Yellow bell pepper from Central Market = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 76 nanosieverts per hour
Jitendra Singh is the Atomic Energy Minister of India. He told India’s parliament that a “delay in completion of the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) project is mainly due to first-of-a-kind technological issues being faced in the integrated commissioning phase of the project.”
In a written answer to the India House of the People (Lok Sabha) he said, “These issues are being solved systematically in close co-ordination with the designers.”
Singh had been asked “whether any delay has been observed in critical projects such as the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, Advanced Heavy Water Reactor, and Indian High Temperature Reactor; and if so, the reasons therefor?”
In his answer to the Lok Sabha, he added that “the design validation of Advanced Heavy Water Reactor is on-going along with peer review of the design. The project … is not formally launched hence, no delay has incurred. Molten Salt Reactor is a version of Indian High Temperature Reactor. The establishment of reactor technology as part of proof in design concept is being carried out, hence no delay has incurred”.
One part of the question was “whether India is implementing the three-stage nuclear power program as envisioned by Dr Homi Bhabha, and the present status of each stage”.
His answer to this part of the question was, “Yes. The first stage of the country’s sequential three stage program comprising of the Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors has attained maturity. For realization of second stage of nuclear power program, Fast Breeder Test Reactor and other facilities were established for material research and proof of design concepts. The five-hundred-megawatt PFBR is at advanced stage of commissioning at Kalapakkam, implemented by BHAVINI. The third stage of the program for utilizing the vast resources of thorium reserves of the country is presently under development.”
Fast breeder reactors form the second stage of India’s three-stage nuclear program, utilizing plutonium recovered from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from the pressurized heavy water and light water reactors that form the first stage of the program. The third stage envisages using advanced heavy water reactors to burn thorium-plutonium fuels and breed fissile uranium-233. The goal is to achieve a thorium-based closed nuclear fuel cycle.
The PFBR has been developed by BHAVINI (Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Limited) which is a government enterprise under the Department of Atomic Energy. Construction began in 2004, with an original schedule completion date of 2010. It will use a core of uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, surrounded by a uranium-238 ‘blanket’, with plans to use a blanket of uranium and thorium to breed plutonium and uranium-233 for use as fuels for AHWRs.
In August 2024 India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board officially granted permission for the PFBR to move to the next stage of the commissioning process which is the First Approach to Criticality. This includes loading the fuel into the reactor core and the start of low power physics experiments.
TEPCO to remove fuel from Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 7 world-nuclear-news.org
New U.S. assessment finds American strikes destroyed only one of three Iranian nuclear sites nbcnews.com
IAEA team seeks access to new dam at Zaporizhzhia plant world-nuclear-nws.org
Inner containment construction set to begin for Leningrad’s seventh unit world-nuclear-news.org
Latitude 47.704656 Longitude -122.318745
Ambient office = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Heirloom tomatofrom Central Market =100 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water =102 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 87 nanosieverts per hour
In late July of this year, BWX Technologies activated a new production line at its Lynchburg, Virginia facility, capable of producing uranium nitride TRISO fuel. This is a next-generation nuclear fuel designed for what are known as Generation IV nuclear reactors. The action marks a significant milestone in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), which is intended to help bring high-temperature gas microreactors online by 2026.
What’s at stake here is a potential reshaping of the country’s nuclear future. TRISO is short for tri-structural isotropic. It consists of tiny uranium particles encapsulated in concentric layers of carbon and silicon carbide. These layers can contain radioactive fission products even at temperatures that would destroy conventional nuclear fuels.
Kate Kelly is the president of BWXT Advanced Technologies. She said, “We’re proud to be working with DoE to diversify and optimize our TRISO fuel manufacturing capabilities.” Her team believes that this new technology could help bring small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors into wider use, especially in locations where large nuclear plants aren’t practical.
This latest development hinges on additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing. This technology allows engineers to increase the density of TRISO particles inside each fuel pellet. This makes the reactors more fuel-efficient, potentially reducing operating costs and waste production. A chemical vapor infiltration furnace installed in Lynchburg was the final component needed to launch full-scale TRISO production.
According to the DoE, this advancement could reduce costs for the broader microreactor industry. It’s a step that indicates growing U.S. interest in regaining leadership in nuclear energy. China, Russia, and France have moved faster in the development of new reactors in recent years.
However, the U.S. isn’t moving ahead blindly. BWXT is working with Idaho National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to test and certify the new uranium nitride-based TRISO fuel. These tests are intended to validate performance under extreme conditions and ensure the material meets safety standards before commercial deployment.
Not everyone in the nuclear industry is convinced this rapid push to deploy the next generation of reactors is wise. A July 29 article from Enviro2B, a French environmental news outlet, painted a darker picture. A recent headline read “The U.S. is playing with nuclear fire.” The article cited global concerns over safety, proliferation, and transparency. The news outlet questions whether efforts to fast-track TRISO-based reactors will sideline necessary oversight or risk stoking geopolitical tensions.
France, which also has a stake in developing Generation IV nuclear technology, has expressed concern in recent months about enforcing global safety standards. Environmental advocacy groups have shared those concerns, warning that a new nuclear arms race could emerge under the cover of energy innovation.
At the core of this debate is how the U.S. plans to manage long-term spent nuclear fuel waste, non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and international coordination as these new reactors go into operation. Critics argue that pushing ahead with the implementation of Gen IV reactors without broad consensus could lead to serious unintended consequences, both diplomatically and environmentally.
The White House wants government stakes in more companies. The nuclear energy industry could be next. Finance.yahoo.com
Trump says it’s important to maintain good relations with nuclear powers news.az
Amazon and Korean partners power AI with advanced nuclear energy inspenet.com
Notes from Central Taiwan: Nuclear not a cure-all taipeitimes.com
