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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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.
Part One of Two Parts
One of the major problems with U.S. nuclear power is dealing with the spent nuclear fuel from the reactors. Fuel for nuclear reactors typically spends about five years in a reactor during which time about five percent of the fissile material in the fuel is used up. By that time, byproducts of the fission reaction have accumulated to the point where the fuel must be replaced.
After removal from the reactor, the spent fuel spends about five years is the cooling pool while the heat and radiation have declined to the point where the spent fuel can be safely stored in steel and concreate dry casks either onsite with the reactor or at an interim storage facility. The dry casks are designed to last more than a hundred years if necessary.
Originally, the U.S. was supposed to have a permanent geological repository for spent nuclear fuel by 1999 in an old salt mine under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The project was cancelled due to political opposition from the President and Nevada Congressmen in 2009 although there have been recent attempts by Congress to restart the project.
Now it appears that we won’t have a permanent geological repository until 2050 at the earliest. It will take that long to find a new site, review the environmental impact, and construct the facility. In the meantime, the cooling pools are filling up fast and something must be done with spent nuclear fuel assemblies in the cooling pools or the reactors will have to be shut down. Without a permanent geological repository, the only other choice is to put spent fuel assemblies in temporary storage consisting of steel and concrete dry casks.
At the end of last month, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted a license application from Holtec International for a proposed consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel assemblies called HI-STORE CIS. The facility is to be built in southeastern New Mexico near Carlsbad. The spent nuclear fuel is to be stored there until we have a permanent geological repository or until we have fast reactors that can burn it or until we recycled it to extract plutonium to make new nuclear fuel.
The Oak Ridge National laboratory recently produced a report that said that an interim spent fuel repository would save the U.S. Treasury fifteen billion dollars by 2040, thirty billion dollars by 2050, and fifty four billion dollars by 2060.
Dry casks are usually constructed from one or more shells of steel, cast iron and reinforced concrete which prevents leaks and provides shielding of the radiation. Existing casks can hold about ten tons of spent fuel. Currently, thirty-five nuclear power plants in 24 states are licensed for dry cask storage.
HI-STORE CIS is an underground spent nuclear fuel storage system with a maximum capacity of ten thousand dry cask which can each hold about twelve tons of spent nuclear fuel. Phase one of the project is an initial forty-year license application for five hundred storage cavities which can hold a combined total of eight thousand five hundred metric tons of uranium which constitutes over ninety five percent of spent nuclear fuel. It is estimated that it will take ten years to construct the facility and employ about three hundred local workers.
Please read Part 2
The European Union is a political and economic union with twenty-eight member states, most of which are located in Europe. “The EU has developed an internal single market through a standardized system of laws that apply in all member states. EU policies aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital within the internal market, enact legislation in justice and home affairs, and maintain common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries, and regional development.” Wikipedia
The EU has the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union that work on legislation for the Union. The European Commission is the executive branch responsible for the management of the EU (EC). It also has the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) that adjudicated legal disputes between the member nations.
Some nations in the EU such as the U.K. and France are committed to nuclear power while other members such as Luxembourg and Austria are strongly opposed to the use of nuclear power in the EU. In 2015, Austria filed a law suit in the ECJ against the decision of the European Commission to allow new UK state subsidies for the Hinkley Point C project. The Commission said that the construction of new nuclear power reactors at the Hinkley Point power plant would be a “objective for common interest of the members of the EU.” Luxembourg supported Austria in the suit which should be decided sometime this summer.
Now Austria is mounting a legal challenge to the Commission’s support for an expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant in Hungary with construction contracted to the Russian company Rosatom. Once again, Luxembourg is supporting Austria in the ECJ. The two EU members want to gather more EU members into an alliance to counterbalance what they see as blank approval by the EC of state subsidies for nuclear power plant projects in the EU.
Some member nations in the EU see the Hungarian project as an example of the Hungarian Prime Minister moving closer to Russia in economic matters. The Commission gave final approval for the project a year ago after Budapest promised to “limit distortions in competition.”
Austria’s minister for sustainability, agriculture and tourism said, “I am very pleased that Luxembourg is joining the complainants with regards to the extension of the Paks nuclear plant and is joining us in court proceedings. This strengthens our position. Further action will be taken at European level. It is important that no one invests public money into nuclear energy, because it is certainly the wrong way if they want to achieve climate protection goals.”
With respect to an anti-nuclear alliance, the Austrian minister said, “We have great hopes for the new German coalition. In the coalition agreement, they also say that no state aid should be granted to build nuclear power plants. On Wednesday, I’ll meet Frau [Barbara] Hendricks [German minister for environment and nuclear safety] in Berlin and we will talk about this topic.”
The Luxembourg minister of the environment said that the two countries wanted to stop the “renaissance of nuclear energy”. She went on to say, “It is important that no one invests public money into nuclear energy, because it is certainly the wrong way if they want to achieve climate protection goals.”
The head of the European Commission said last year that the EC would publish a “communication” on the future of the Euroatom treaty by the summer of 2018. Hopefully, the EU will be able to work out a nuclear policy that is more acceptable to all EU members.
Members of the European Union:
