The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has announced that the fleet of U.S. commercial nuclear reactors produced more electricity in 2018 that in any previous year. In 2018, U.S. nuclear power generation of eight hundred seven and one tenth terawatts was slightly higher than 2010, the previous peak year at eight hundred seven terawatts. However, the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry has been in serious decline for years. The EIA says that the peak in electrical generation in 2018 occurred because of fortuitous scheduling and a practice called “uprating” in which old power plants are allowed to output more power than their original licensed rating. The EIA says that we should not expect to see this level of electrical generation again soon if ever.
       Since the previous peak in nuclear power generation in 2010, five gigawatts of nuclear capacity have been retired as aging nuclear power plants have been permanenly closed. The completion of a new reactor at the TVA’s Watts-Barr nuclear power plant in 2016 did offset retirement losses by adding one thousand two hundred megawatts of U.S. nuclear capacity.
        Between 2010 and 2018 many nuclear power plants completed uprates. The original power ratings for many nuclear power reactors were deliberately set very conservatively. Modernizing equipment and using advanced computer modeling have resulted in the relaxation of the older conservative power ratings. It is estimated that two gigawatts of nuclear power capacity have been added to the U.S. nuclear fleet by uprating. Power reactors are being retired faster than they are being built so uprating has been useful in offsetting the reduction in U.S. nuclear capacity resulting from the closure of old power reactors.
       Even with the offset of new reactors and uprating, the U.S. nuclear power capacity has only grown about three thousand two hundred megawatts of capacity while losing over five gigawatts of capacity to retirements.
       While the loss or addition of capacity is measured in watts, the total annual power output as released by the EIA is measured in watt-hours. A watt hour measures the consumption of a watt of electricity over an hour. If one gigawatt is consumed for twenty-four hours a day for three hundred and sixty five days, that means that eight thousand seven hundred and sixty gigawatts of electricity were consumed that year. In 2018, the U.S. nuclear power fleet operated at a capacity factor of ninety-two and six tenths percent which is the highest ever recorded. Even though the total capacity was reduced, shortening the time for refueling and uprating old reactors resulted in the record production.
        Nuclear power reactors must be taken offline for refueling for about twenty-five days every eighteen to twenty four months. This means that some years will see more reactors offline to refuel than other years. 2018 just happened to be a year when fewer reactors than average were offline for refueling. This contributed to the peak power production of 2018.
        The new reactor being built in Georgia at the Vogtle nuclear power plant is expected to add two thousand two hundred megawatts of capacity to the U.S. nuclear fleet. A second reactor project at the Summer nuclear power plant in South Carolina fell apart and was cancelled so there will be no additional power coming from that plant.

Ambient office  =  119 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 137 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 143 nanosieverts per hour

White onion from Central Market = 122 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 135 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 122 nanosieverts per hour

        China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) has just put out a request for bids to construct a nuclear powered vessel that will be about five hundred feet long, about a hundred feet wide and about sixty feet in depth with a displacement of about thirty thousand tons. In the request for bids, the ship is described as “experimental.”
        China does not have any nuclear power surface ships, but it does have nuclear-powered submarines. There are plans to build nuclear aircraft carriers for the Chinese navy but the specifications for the new “experimental” vessel are small for an aircraft carrier. That having been said, such a ship would be helpful in the ultimate development of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The bids had to be submitted by today and no companies outside China were allowed to apply.
       The new ship will be powered by two twenty-five megawatt compact pressurized water reactors. The two reactors will drive the ship at a maximum speed of about twelve knots. An analyst based in Hong Kong said that the specifications for the new Chinese ship were close to those for a nuclear-powered Russian icebreaker.
        Russia is the only country in the world that operates a fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers. It currently has two classes of icebreakers in service. One of them is the Taymyr-class which has a displacement of about twenty-one thousand tons and the other is the Artika-class with a displacement of thirty-three thousand five hundred tons. Both classes are about five hundred feet long and a hundred feet wide. This is very close to the length and width of the new Chinese ship. A larger class of Russian icebreakers is under construction which will be about five hundred and seventy feet long and about a hundred and twelve feet wide.
       In June of 2018, the Chinese-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) put out a request for bids for a nuclear-powered icebreaker that will be powered by small floating modular reactors.
       China intends to expand its operations in the Arctic Ocean and this will require powerful icebreakers. Last year, China launched its first domestically constructed icebreaker with conventional non-nuclear engines. It is called the Xuelong 2. It was constructed in order to boost China’s capability for polar research and expeditions. The Xuelong 2 will enter service later this year.
       China seems to be following the same path to nuclear aircraft carriers that was taken by Russia when it developed nuclear aircraft carriers. The Russians constructed and operated five nuclear icebreakers before starting the construction of the first Russian nuclear aircraft carrier called the Ulyanovsk. Although the Ulyanovsk was never completed, the Russians did go on to build nuclear aircraft carriers.
        The Chinese currently operate two non-nuclear aircraft carriers. The Liaoning is a Soviet Kuznetsov-class vessel that was purchased from Ukraine. The other Chinese aircraft carrier is called the Type 001A. It was constructed based on the design of the Liaoning and will be commissioned in the near future.
       Besides icebreakers and aircraft carriers, nuclear reactors can be used to power other big surface vessels including cargo ships, science survey ships and tracking vessels such as the Yaunwang-class ships. These ships are sent out by China to track satellites, transmit space communications and monitor intercontinental missile launches.

Ambient office  =  100 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 110 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 119 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 77 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 68 nanosieverts per hour

       One of the suggested ways of permanently disposing of spent nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive wastes is to mix them with sand and chemicals and heat the mixture until it turns into glass logs. This is referred to as vitrification. A seventeen-billion dollar vitrification plant is being constructed at Hanford to deal with the toxic soup of radioactive materials and toxic chemicals stored in underground tanks. Elements in the radioactive logs will include palladium, selenium, cesium and zirconium, and other long-lived fission products (LLFP) with a half-life of about one million years.
       The Japanese Cabinet Office’s Council for Science, Technology and Innovation works with Japanese corporations through their Paradigm Change through Disruptive Technologies (ImPACT) Program to explore new technologies for Japan’s energy sector. Under this government program a team of researchers from Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation have been working on developing a way to recover useful elements from vitrified radioactive waste. Their work involves investigating the reduction of LLFPs into stable and short-lived nuclides. It also involves the recycling of resources from nuclear waste.
       The Toshiba researchers in collaboration with the Japan Science and Technology Agency have successfully demonstrated that reusable elements can be extracted from vitrified waste by the use of a molten salt technology. The research team released a joint statement that said that when combined with other technologies developed under the ImPACT program including transmutation from long lived radioactive isotopes to short lived radioactive isotopes, their research might make it possible to reduce the size and or depth of geological nuclear waste repositories.
       The researchers successfully recovered dummy LLFP nuclides as solids, molten salts and gases by reducing mock vitrified waste in the molten salt. The silicon monoxide network structures of the silicon dioxides had to be dissolved in the molten salt to permit this extraction. The molten salt is radiation tolerant and can be reused. This results in the reduction of secondary wastes produced by the new process. The team will continue to research practical systems to reuse and minimize high-level radioactive waste.
       Making use of such processes presupposes that the vitrified logs of waste are accessible for recycling. Some designs for permanent geological repositories might make this difficult. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) geological repository for high-level nuclear waste produced by nuclear weapons production near Carlsbad, New Mexico illustrates the problem. The repository has been operating for about fifteen years. It is carved out of an old salt mine. There are big rooms that are filled with waste that are supposed to be permanently sealed when they are full. Originally, huge steel and concrete doors were going to be welded shut.
       If there was interest in recycling vitrified waste from the WIPP, the big doors would have to be breached in order to access the vitrified waste. In addition, there have been hydrological studies that indicate that the assumption that the salt mine was safe from migrating ground water is not accurate. If the mine was flooded, crews might face flooded chambers in their attempts to recover the waste. This would greatly increase the cost.
       Ultimately, new geological repositories would have to be constructed with recovery and recycling in mind. If the market failed to adopt the recycling technology for any reason, geological repositories constructed on the assumption that the nuclear waste they contain would be recovered might prove to be unsafe if the waste was not ultimately recovered. The Toshiba research is interesting but a lot of factors other than scientific feasibility will govern whether or not it is ever widely implemented.

Ambient office  =  133 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 115 nanosieverts per hour

Carrot from Central Market = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 93 nanosieverts per hour

       Many years ago, shortly after I left college, I was talking to some folks about nuclear power. I said that I was confident that engineers could design safe systems but that we would have to rely on government and industry to be far more competent and honest than they had ever been in order to use nuclear power without major accidents. After years of writing these essays about nuclear issues, I see no reason to change my opinion.
       The nuclear power industry is appealing to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to cut back on the number of inspections at U.S. nuclear power plants. They also want to be able to tell the public less about problems at their plants. The NRC is currently considering some of the requests by the nuclear industry as they conduct a major review of how the Commission enforces regulations at the ninety-eight operating nuclear power reactors. The five-member board of the NRC will be issuing their recommendation in June.
       Annie Caputo is a member of the NRC board appointed by President Trump. Previously, she was a lobbyist for the nuclear industry. At a nuclear industry meeting this week, she said that she was “open to self-assessments” by nuclear power plant operators. Members of the nuclear industry are suggesting that self-reporting by plant operators be allowed instead of some NRC inspections.
       The Trump administration is well-known for being hostile to federal regulation of U.S. industries, including the nuclear industry. Trump has appointed four members of the current five-member board. Trump appointees and industry representatives claim that changes in oversight are overdue because the industry has improved its safety record and the nuclear industry is having financial problems turning a profit at some power plants. The cost of operating aging nuclear power plants is rising as the cost of renewables and natural gas is falling.
       In reaction to this activity at the NRC, nuclear industry critics are alarmed at the idea of relaxing regulations and trusting the industry to monitor itself. Geoffrey Fettus is a senior attorney for nuclear issues at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He points out that the regulation cutting in some federal departments would not lead to the kind of accidents such cutting may risk at nuclear power plants. Paul Gunter is a member of the anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear. He said, “For an industry that is increasingly under financial decline … to take regulatory authority away from the NRC puts us on a collision course with a nuclear accident.”
      The nuclear industry made its request for regulatory changes in a letter from the Nuclear Energy Institute. One major request has to do with eliminating required press releases about lower level safety issues at plants. Such problems could result in increased inspections and oversight at a nuclear power plant but would not be considered emergencies. The industry group requested that the NRC relieve the industry of the “burden of radiation-protection and emergency-preparedness inspections.” Industry representatives repeated their requests at an annual industry function in Washington, D.C. this week.
       Greg Halnon is the vice president of regulatory affairs for FirstEnergy Corp. in Ohio. He said that it would be better to scale back reporting of lower-level problems at plants “than to put out a headline on the webpage to the world.” He said that following reporting of such lower level problems there were “rapid calls from the press and SEC filings get impacted because of potential financial impact.”
       The NRC will be issuing a new set of regulations this spring in response to the lessons learned from the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Nuclear power plants will be required to harden themselves against major floods and other natural disasters that could result the release of radioactive materials.
       Over the past seventy years of nuclear power generation there have been many stories of nuclear power plant operators failing to follow regulations requiring safety measures and the reporting of problems. It would be far better for the citizens of this country to have the NRC concentrate on enforcing regulations than removing them.