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 = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 110 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 116 nanosieverts per hour
Beefstreak tomato from Central Market = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 79 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 63 nanosieverts per hour
Court rules Oyster Creek fuel storage casks are permanent world-nuclear-news.org
Thorcon applies to build Indonesia’s first nuclear power plant world-nuclear-news.org
Russia and Myanmar sign agreement on small-scale nuclear plant construction in Myanmar reuters.com
Japan won’t join UN meeting on nuclear weapons ban, citing support for US deterrence apnews.com
Ambient office = 105 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 95 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 98 nanosieverts per hour
Bartlett pear from Central Market = 136 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 88 nanosieverts per hour
Dover Sole from Central = 97 nanosieverts per hour
The same process that powers the Sun could provide unlimited clean energy. However, before that happens, scientists need to solve one big problem. They need to keep reactor walls from trapping fuel.
A new study from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) reveals an issue that could affect the safety and efficiency of nuclear fusion power plants. The research was published in Nuclear Materials and Energy. It focuses on how fuel gets stuck in reactor walls, which could make future nuclear power plants more difficult to maintain.
In order for nuclear fusion to work inside a device called a tokamak, scientists heat plasma and use powerful magnets hold it in place. The plasma fuels the fusion reaction, but some of it can hit the reactor walls and get absorbed. This process could lead to fuel buildup over time, resulting in a system that is less efficient and harder to regulate.
Shota Abe is a physicist at PPPL and lead researcher on the study. He said, “The less fuel is trapped in the wall, the less radioactive material builds. This issue is especially important for future nuclear fusion power plants like ITER which is a massive project being built in France.
Scientists have been researching boron-coated walls in fusion reactors because boron helps keep plasma clean. However, the new research shows that boron isn’t actual the problem. The real problem is carbon. Even small amounts of carbon can trap fuel which makes it harder to remove. Florian Effenberg is a physicist on the research team. He said, “Carbon is really the troublemaker.”
The research tested boron-coated graphite samples inside DIII-D, a tokamak operated by General Atomics in the U.S. The results of their experiments showed that for every five units of boron, two units of fuel got trapped. That means even very small traces of carbon could cause major issues for future fusion plants.
Currently, many fusion reactors use graphite (a form of carbon) for their walls. However, based on these findings, scientists now plan to replace graphite with tungsten, which doesn’t trap as much fuel. Effenberg said, “We want to get rid of all the carbon and have clean tungsten walls,”.
The biggest challenge for future nuclear power plants using fusion energy is dealing with tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen fuel, that must be carefully managed. If too much fuel gets trapped in the walls, it could violate safety regulations, forcing reactors to shut down.
Alessandro Bortolon is another scientist involve in the study. He said, “There are strict limits on how much tritium can be in a reactor. If you go over the limit, that’s a showstopper.”
By developing ways to reduce fuel buildup, this research is helping nuclear fusion take a big step forward. If the new wall material is successful, fusion could one day provide clean, limitless energy, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.
With each discovery, scientists are moving closer to making commercial nuclear fusion a reality. This new research brings us one step closer to the future of energy.
Ambient office = 73 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Avocado from Central Market = 129 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 85 nanosieverts per hour
Proxima Fusion is a venture-capital-backed company working on making nuclear fusion a reality. It has open-sourced its reactor design in the journal Fusion Engineering and Design this week. Although the design is a highly technical piece of work involving a lot of engineering, the company wants to share this information with the fusion community, whether based in the U.S. or China.
In their bid to harness emission-free energy, scientists are working on developing nuclear fusion technology. Nuclear fission involves the splitting of atoms into lighter elements. Nuclear fusion works by fusing lighter atomic nuclei to form heavier elements. This releases huge amounts of energy without creating any carbon emissions or radioactive waste.
Nuclear fusion technology has shown great promise by delivering net energy gains on more than one occasion over the past few years. Research institutes and startups are now working to scale up that achievement and deploy it commercially to power the electrical grids. Much of the work in fusion energy research has taken place in the tokamak design of fusion reactors. Proxima’s approach is slightly different since it is a type of stellarator.
Tokamaks and stellarators use extremely strong electromagnets to confine and heat fusion plasma inside donut-shaped vessels. However, there is a significant difference in how they achieve this.
Tokamaks utilize a combination of electromagnets and current-induced plasma while stellarators operate only using magnets. This requires the stellarator vessel and magnet design to be much more complex while allowing the reaction to run continuously and safely.
Stellarators offer the advantage of continuous operation for longer durations and protection of materials from fatigue as opposed to tokamaks while also being simpler to operate.
About ten years ago, researchers at MIT showed how a commercial-scale fusion reactor using a tokamak design could be built. This was followed by a series of startups working with the tokamak approach to achieving nuclear fusion power.
Fusion energy technology has now reached another milestone moment, with the open-source release of a commercial-scale stellarator design.
Proxima Fusion was founded over two years ago. It is a spin-off from the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP). This institution developed the world’s most advanced stellarator prototype design, the Wendelstein 7-X.
Proxima Fusion is backed by the European Union, the German government, and venture capital. Proxima set out to design a commercial scale stellarator with a two-year timeline but achieved their goal within one year.
Dubbed Stellaris, the Proxima stellarator concept leverages stronger magnetic fields made possible using high-temperature superconducting (HTS) technology to build smaller stellarators without reducing energy output.
Using materials available in the existing supply chain ensures that the reactors can be built without waiting for a technology to become economically feasible and it brings the reality of fusion energy closer than before.
For publication, the Stellaris design has undergone detailed peer review and claims that it can overcome physics and engineering constraints through various simulations. The company is now ready to build a demonstrator plant called Alpha as early as 2031.
If all goes well, Proxima Fusion’s design could add power to our grids as early as the next decade.
Minot AFB airmen complete Nuclear Surety Inspection minotdailynews.com
Sharing France’s nuclear umbrella? No way, says Le Pen politico.eu
US might be gearing up for UK-based nuclear program, report says airforcetimes.com
Macron Raises Prospect of New European Nuclear Weapons newsweek.com
Ambient office = 81 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 94 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 94 nanosieverts per hour
White onion from Central Market = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 101 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 95 nanosieverts per hour
China has begun the construction on its first nuclear reactor unit of the year with the pouring of first concrete at the Lufeng Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong province. The milestone was completed on Monday. It marks the official start of the plant’s No. 1 reactor, which utilizes the CAP1000 third-generation pressurized water reactor (PWR) design. According to China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), the CAP1000 design includes modular construction, digital building technologies, and automated welding to improve safety and efficiency.
As reported by China Daily, the plant will ultimately house six reactors, with Units 5 and 6 already under construction since 2022 and 2023, respectively. These last two units employ the Hualong One reactor which is based on China’s domestically designed third-generation nuclear technology.
When it is fully operational, the Lufeng nuclear power plant is expected to generate approximately fifty-two billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. This source of energy will help reduce China’s reliance on coal, saving an estimated sixteen million metric tons of standard coal per year. It will also cut carbon dioxide emissions by around forty-three million tons.
CGN emphasized that the Lufeng nuclear power plant project aligns with China’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions and will expand its clean energy infrastructure. CGN stated, “The official start of the main project of Unit 1 marks the full start of the construction of the dual third-generation nuclear power units of the Guangdong Lufeng Nuclear Power Project.”
The Lufeng nuclear power plant site was originally approved for four CAP1000 reactors by China’s National Development and Reform Commission in 2014. However, state approval for Units 1 and 2 was delayed until August 2023, while Units 3 and 4 are still waiting for final clearance.
The expansion of nuclear power in China is accelerating. The country approved the construction of ten nuclear power units annually over the past three years. with more nuclear power plants expected to break ground in the days ahead. By the end of 2025, China’s total installed nuclear capacity is estimated to reach sixty-five gigawatts, reinforcing its position as a world leader in nuclear energy development.
The CAP1000 reactor is a Chinese adaptation of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor. It was developed by the Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute. CAP1000 reactors feature passive safety systems and improved fuel efficiency, contributing to China’s strategy for sustainable nuclear power growth.
Meanwhile, Units 5 and 6 at the Lufeng nuclear power plant, which utilize the Hualong One reactor design, are scheduled for completion in 2026 and 2027. Hualong One is also known as HPR1000. It was developed jointly by CGN and China National Nuclear Corporation, further strengthening China’s independent nuclear technology capabilities.
The Lufeng project is one of several major nuclear initiatives currently underway in China. The Guangdong Lianjiang Nuclear Power Plant which began construction in July 2023, also features CAP1000 reactors, further reinforces the country’s commitment to nuclear energy expansion.
With ongoing investments in advanced nuclear technologies, China is securing its role as a leader in clean energy, reducing its reliance on fossil fuels, and meeting its carbon neutrality goals.
