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 = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 70 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 66 nanosieverts per hour
Organic Avocado from Central Market = 86 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 85 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 70 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient office = 107 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 90 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 88 nanosieverts per hour
Tomato from Central Market = 80 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 117 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient office = 107 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 104 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 105 nanosieverts per hour
Romaine lettuce from Central Market = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 748 nanosieverts per hour
Dover sole = 98 nanosieverts per hour
Spanish engineering firm Empresarios Agrupados (EA) has been contracted to be the Architect Engineer for a five-hundred-megawatt ThorCon molten salt reactor (TMSR-500) which will be deployed to Indonesia when complete. EA said that the contract which was signed on the 8th of November 2021 makes a commitment to long-term collaboration between EA and ThorCon which is located in the U.S. EA added that “While ThorCon will be providing its molten salt reactor technology, EA will provide both its pool of 1250 engineers as well as its 50 years of experience with nuclear projects.”
In the role of Architect Engineer, EA will support ThorCon across a broad range of activities, including but not limited to project management, document control, code compliance, site preparation, pre-construction activities and licensing agreements. In addition, EA will also provide engineering services to ThorCon throughout the lifecycle of the project, from design engineering to construction, operation and eventual decommissioning. EA will collaborate with other partners who have already been selected by ThorCon.
Maria Teresa Dominguez will be leading the project in the advanced projects division of EA. “It will be an excellent opportunity to work with ThorCon in a technology on which we have extensive experience through our involvement in the last 50 years in nuclear projects, including Gen IV reactors, as well as, in the last years, in renewables, where molten salt systems are also being implemented. Our mission then will be to transfer this Empresarios Agrupados experience to the TMSR-500 reactor to succeed in their objectives of performance and economics.”
David Devanney is the CEO of PT ThorCon Power Indonesia. He said, “We are delighted to join forces with Empresarios Agrupados. They are a world leader in nuclear engineering and have extensive experience in plant design, procurement, construction and operation that will be invaluable to the TMSR-500 program. This is a defining moment for the project and bodes well for its successful completion.”
Martingale is the U.S. company who developed the ThorCon thorium salt reactor. The Indonesia Thorium Consortium (ITC) is composed of state-owned companies PT Industry Nuklir Indonesia (INUKI), PT PLN and PT Pertamina. In October of 2015, Martingale and ITC signed an agreement to build a ThorCon reactor to generate electricity.
In March of 2017, the ITC completed a preliminary feasibility study on the ThorCon proposal which was positive. The ITC then sought approval from Indonesia’s National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan). The company says that after testing in a full-scale pre-fission test facility, the phase one plan is to build a five-hundred-megawatt ThorConIsle unit comprised of two modules to prove the design. They will then proceed to shipyard construction of further units to ultimately provide three gigawatts of electricity to the Indonesian power grid.
PT PAL Indonesia (PPI) is the state shipbuilding company. They signed an agreement in July of 2019 to conduct a development study and construct a five-hundred-megawatt power plant. PAL will build the reactor as an EPC contractor and put it on a six-hundred-foot barge built by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in Okpo, South Korea. The completed thorium power plant will be towed to a site in Indonesia, ballasted to the seabed and connected to the grid.
According to ThorCon, it will only require twenty-four months from start of construction before each plant can be connected to the grid. This approach will also allow for scalability of the ThorCon plants. As many as ten gigawatts of power can be produced annually per shipyard assembly line once production is ramped up. The estimated cost of a two reactor one gigawatt plant will be about one billion two hundred million dollars.
Ambient office = 104 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Red bell pepper from Central Market = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 74 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
2. Deploying New Reactors (continued)
Small Modular Reactors
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to carry out it final rulemaking in August to certify NuScale Power’s small modular reactor (SMR) design. NuScale is the first U.S. SMR to receive a final safety evaluation report from the NRC. It will become the seventh U.S. SMR to be certified. DoE is supporting the construction of the U.S.’s first NuScale SMR power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory. The first power module in the SMR plant is expected to be operational by 2029.
3. Fueling Future Reactors
The DoE is continuing to research several pathways to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel (HALEU) to support the demonstration and deployment of advanced reactors. The DoE is currently seeking public input on establishing HALEU availability program that could start up in 2022 to help spur demand for additional HALEU production and private investment in the nuclear fuel supply infrastructure.
The DoE is also supporting the construction of a small-scale HALEU enrichment demonstration facility in Piketon, Ohio. It is expected to begin operations in 2022, pending appropriations. It would be the first HALEU enrichment facility to operate in the U.S. It is expected to produce nine hundred kilograms of HALEU per year using sixteen advanced centrifuge machines as a step toward establishing a long-term, diverse, competitive and market driven commercial supply of HALEU.
DoE’s demonstration reactors will require nearly forty metric tons of HALEU by 2030. The Nuclear Energy Institute estimate nearly three thousand metric tons of HALEU will be needed by 2035 to support the demonstration and commercial deployment of advanced reactors.
4. Consent-Based Siting
DoE is updating its consent-based siting process in order to help identify sites to store the nation’s spent nuclear fuel. The DoE plans to award competitive funding in 2022 for interested groups and communities to start exploring the consent-based siting process. They also intend to learn more about federal interim storage facilities. The DoE is currently seeking public input on it consent-based siting process. It will prepare a public summary report after the comment period ends in early March.
5. Retirements / Subsequent License Renewals
Retirements
Finally, the Palisades Power Plant is scheduled to close in May of 2022. This is nine years before its operating license expires in 2031. The single-unit pressurized water reactor currently employs more than six hundred workers in Michigan and provides clear and reliable power to more than eight hundred thousand homes.
License Renewals
Four reactors could be cleared to operate up to eighty years if they receive approval of their subsequent license renewal applications with the NRC. A decision on the North Anna Units 1 and 2 and Point Beach Units 1 and 2 could happen before the end of this year. If approved, a total of ten reactors would then be cleared to operate into the 2050s. This will further support the U.S.’s ambitious climate change mitigation goals.
Critics of the ambitious plans of the U.S. government to support the U.S. nuclear industry say that research has indicated that heavy investment in nuclear power would prevent heavy investment in sustainable renewable energy sources which the critics say would be a better choice to mitigate climate change.
