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 = 108 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Tomato from Central Market = 64 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 122 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 113 nanosieverts per hour
I have blogged in the past about the devastation that a global nuclear war would cause. Aside from the immediate death and destruction, the ash, soot and soil thrown into the atmosphere would reduce sunlight for years and would result in a famine that could kill billions. This is generally referred to as “nuclear winter.”
David Denkenberger is a mechanical engineer at the University of Alaska. He runs the nonprofit Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED). He recently said in an interview that he believes that it would still be possible to save the people who survive a nuclear war from famine with what he calls a sustainable “disaster diet.”
One of the possible “triggers” that could cause a global nuclear winter would be an exchange of nuclear warheads between India and Pakistan. It is estimated that such an exchange would result in between fifty and a hundred and twenty-five million direct fatalities. The sharp drop in temperature caused by ejecta in the atmosphere would devastate the global food supply.
In a post to the website of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, experts say “that if Pakistan attacks urban targets in 2025 with 150-kiloton nuclear weapons and if India responds with 100-kiloton nuclear weapons, smoke from burning cities would release 16 to 36 teragrams of black carbon into the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight and cooling the global surface by 2 to 5°C (3.6 to 9°F).”
Denkenberger publishes his work on sustaining humanity after a major nuclear exchange in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. A 2008 paper about how fungi could survive a nuclear winter intrigued Dekenberger and he decided to research the subject. He said, “The conclusion of the paper was, maybe when humans go extinct, the world will be ruled by mushrooms again. I said, ‘Wait a minute. Why don’t we eat the mushrooms and not go extinct?’”
Mushrooms could feed on the millions of trees killed by the nuclear explosions and lack of sunlight and, in turn, could feed all the survivors for up to three years according to his study. Seaweed would be another possible food source during a nuclear winter. Dekenberger said, “Seaweed is a really good food source in a scenario like this because it can tolerate a low light level. It’s also very fast-growing. In a nuclear winter, the land will cool down faster than the oceans, so the oceans will remain a little bit warmer. Seaweed can handle relatively low temperatures.”
Dekenberger estimates that the world would need about one and a half billion tons of dry food per year to feed all the survivors. He also said that humans could probably grow and dry that much seaweed in less than six months. He said, “There’s definitely historical precedent, but it has been a challenge getting people to think about these bigger disasters.” He mentioned that previous volcanic winters that have taken place and triggered cooler temperatures worldwide are previews of nuclear winter. Let us hope that his theories are never put to the test.
Netanyahu Accidentally Calls Israel a ‘Nuclear Power’. Haaretz.com
The Choice That’s Coming: An Iran With the Bomb, or Bombing Iran. Nytimes.com
Nuclear waste removal begins 30 years after power station closure. Bbc.com
News Analysis: Will Iran resume and accelerate its race for nuclear weapons? Latimes.com
Ambient office = 96 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 84 nanosieverts per hour
Red onion from Central Market = 81 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 143 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 136 nanosieverts per hour
The deployment of a nuclear weapon, no matter how small, will raise the crisis level of a North Korean conflict. Nationalinterest.org
How Donald Trump and North Korea Can Strike a Nuclear Deal Nationalinterest.org
Iran abandons nuclear limits over U.S. killing general. Post-gazette.com
Ambient office = 113 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 103 nanosieverts per hour
Small new potato from Central Market = 70 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 106 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Dover sole – Caught in USA = 93 nanosieverts per hour
There have been many different types of nuclear weapons and nuclear delivery systems designed and constructed since World War II. There are intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear tipped cruise missiles, submarine launched nuclear missiles, smart nuclear bombs to be carried and dropped by bombers. The common rule for all these nuclear weapons and their delivery systems is that a human being always makes the final decision to launch and detonate nuclear warheads.
Lieutenant General Sergey Kobylash is with the Russian Aerospace Forces. He gave an interview to a newspaper last December. He stated in the interview that Russia intends to have a sixth-generation strategic bomber by 2040. He said that these bomber would be unmanned.
The fifth generation of Russian bombers, the Tupulov-95 and its maritime counterpart, the Tupulov-142, were first deployed in 1956. They were intended to serve until 2040. Russia’s plans for replacing one leg of their nuclear triad involves two specific actions that were discussed in the interview. A new bomber will be introduced to replace the retiring Tu-95. This is the unmanned strategic nuclear bomber that was mentioned above.
In between the current Russian strategic bombers and the deployment of the unmanned bomber in 2040, another Russian bomber is under development. This bomber will pave the way for the unmanned bomber. The intermediate bomber would fill the gap between the Tupulov-95 which is powered by a turboprop and the small fleet of jet powered Tupulov-160 bombers.
Samuel Bendett is an adviser at the Center for Naval Analyses. He says, “Russia is actually working on the next-gen bomber — PAK-DA, which could be in service around 2027. The real question is now whether PAK-DA will be in an unmanned configuration.”
In their announcement of their latest strategic bomber generation, the U.S. said that it was possible that the B-21 bomber may be optionally manned. This means that it might be unmanned for some missions. This would increase flexibility and possibly increase endurance compared to manned bombing missions. (In 2014, the Air Force strongly rejected the idea that a B-21 could carry nuclear weapons if it was not manned.)
Whatever the possibility for Russia to develop and deploy unmanned strategic nuclear bombers, they need to spend time developing and deploying tactical drones first. Samuel Bennet is also a fellow in Russia studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. He said, “Russia is getting into [unmanned combat aerial vehicle] business — while it still does not have a strike drone in service, it recently tested Orion MALE UAV in Syria where it struck enemy positions. Those drones are expected to enter service as early as 2020. Until now, Russia demonstrated the capability to conduct strikes from small drones, like quadrocopters/multirotor models.”
The idea of uncrewed strategic bombers may be attractive but it is just aspirational at the moment, a goal decades in the future. It remains to be seen whether or not it is possible and ultimately practical to rely on an unmanned aircraft to carry out critical bombing missions.
Ambient office = 99 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 105 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Bartlett pear from Central Market = 54 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 99 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Pease read Part 1 first)
Digging canals has often been suggested as a possible peaceful use of nuclear bombs. At one time, the AEC proposed digging a back-up for the Panama Canal using nuclear explosions, but nothing came of it.
In the early 1960s, Edward Teller who worked on the Manhattan Project was an enthusiastic supporter of using a 200 kiloton nuclear explosion to create an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson which lies along Alaska’s northwest coast. Some experiments were carried out that resulted in radioactive contamination of the area. The cleanup of that contamination has just concluded.
Project Carryall was a project that was dedicated to digging a new route for the Santa Fe Railroad and an adjacent public highway through the Bristol Mountains in the Mojave Desert. The plan called for the simultaneous detonation of twenty-two nuclear devices of up to two hundred kiloton yield each along a two mile stretch of the Mojave Desert. The plan was never carried out.
In the late Fifties at the beginning of the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the U.S. was in a panic because the Soviets had launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. In 1958, the U.S. Air Force decided that one way to demonstrate technological might in general and military superiority in particular would be to send a nuclear bomb to the Moon and detonate it for all the world to see. The idea never took off and in 1967, the Outer Space Treaty was signed by spacefaring nations that included a provision to ban the placing of nuclear weapons in Earth orbit or beyond.
There have been numerous suggestions, novels, movies and TV shows that say one way to stop an asteroid from striking the Earth would be to blow it up with nuclear bombs. However, while some asteroids are big rocks, others are loose aggregates of smaller rocks and gravel loosely held together. If we hit one of that type of asteroid with nuclear warheads, it could cause the asteroid to disintegrate into a whole cloud of debris that would rain down on the Earth and wreak havoc.
The idea of quenching a hurricane with a nuclear detonation mentioned which was mentioned above can be ruled out with a simple comparison of the power of current nuclear warheads and the power of a full-blown hurricane. A hurricane is so much more powerful than any nuclear bomb ever built by the human race that there is little chance that a bomb or bombs would have any effect on either the course or strength of a hurricane. In addition, much radioactive fallout will be distributed throughout the storm front and wind up raining down on a large area. Obviously, it is not a good idea.
Part of the motivation for “peaceful uses” of nuclear explosives was to create and fund more infrastructure and research for the development of nuclear weapons. Fortunately, aside from commercial nuclear power generation, none of these “peaceful uses” for nuclear energy have been found to actually be useful.
