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.
In 1959, a small research U.S. program called the Vela Project was begun. In 1963, the Partial Test Ban Treaty went into effect. Eventually the Vela Hotel satellites were launch in order to monitor the Earth for signs of nuclear test explosions. This was done in order to ensure that the Soviet Union was complying with the treaty.
The Vela satellites had photodiodes aimed at the Earth to watch for the pattern of light flashes that indicated a nuclear explosion. When a nuclear bomb is detonated above ground, there is a flash of light which drops in magnitude and then increases again. What happens is that the first flash is caused by the initial heating of the air with X-rays. Then an opaque shockwave dims the light which brightens as the shockwave becomes transparent. No known nature phenomena can produce this same two flash sequence of light.
In 1979, two of the photodetectors on the Vela satellite 6911 reported the signature light flashes for a nuclear explosion halfway from the tip of South American to the coast of Antarctica. The CIA reviewed the event and concluded that it did indicated a low-yield nuclear explosion.
A blue-ribbon panel was convened by President Jimmy Carter to study the incident. The panel ultimately said that it could not really conclude whether the event was a nuclear explosion or a natural phenomenon. It was suggested by some analysts that it may have been a micrometeorite exploding.
Over the years bits and pieces of information about the incident have leaked. Members of the U.S. intelligence community have said that they thought that the U.S. blue-ribbon panel was a “whitewash.” There is some evidence that Israel as well as South Africa might have been involved.
Although the Israelis have never officially admitted or denied a nuclear program, Israel is known to have nuclear weapons. The first Israeli nuclear warhead is thought to have been produced about 1966.
South Africa had a nuclear weapons program from the 1960s to the 1980s. Before the government changed in 1990, S.A. cancelled the program and dismantled the few nuclear warheads they had produced.
David Albright and Chris McGreal claim that the S.A. nuclear program received assistance from Israel. It has been reported that Israel traded thirty grams of tritium to S.A. for fifty tons of uranium in 1977. It has also been reported that in 1977 there is some evidence that S.A. and Israel made a deal for the transfer of military technology and assistance in the construction of at least six nuclear warheads.
Now a new study by Christopher M. Wright and Lars-Erik de Geer has been conducted about what is called the “Vela Incident” which concludes that it really was a nuclear explosion. If S.A. and Israel were cooperating on a nuclear weapons program, then the time frame would be right for the detonation of a test device in the ocean south of S.A. in 1979.
The full truth of what was detected by Vela 6911 in 1979 may never be revealed but it is very likely that it was a test of a nuclear warhead by S.A. with or without the assistance of Israel.
South African nuclear bomb casings:
Since the dawn of the Atomic Age at the end of World War II, there have been a lot of nuclear weapons designed and built. Even a limited nuclear war could have catastrophic consequences and we have been fortunate, indeed, to have escaped such a war so far. In addition to the weapons that have been built, other nuclear weapon designs have been propose but never actually constructed. As horrible as existing nuclear weapons are, some of the designs that never got off the drawing boards were actually worse.
IN 1955, a new U.S. Air Force project was undertaken to create what was called a Supersonic Low Altitude Missile or SLAM. SLAMs were unmanned nuclear-powered ramjets that could carry sixteen thermonuclear warheads deep into enemy nations.
The use of a nuclear propulsion system would have given the SLAMs a range of one hundred and thirty thousand miles which is equal going around the Earth at least four time. The reactor powering the SLAM was not shielded and the neutron flux from the engine would have injured or killed any human or animal under the flight path. The exhaust from the nuclear engine would have contained radioactive materials that would have contaminated enemy territory. The sonic shockwave of the passage of a SLAM would have damaged structured on the ground and possible killed people. Sixteen nuclear warheads could be dropped on selected targets and, finally, the SLAM could be used as a dirty bomb by deliberately crashing it on a target.
The engine for the SLAM was developed as its own project under the name Project Pluto. It was a ramjet design which utilized the intense heat generated by the nuclear reactor to heat the air that entered through the ramjet intake. Two prototype engines were created under Project Pluto, the Tory-IIA and the Tory-IIC. These engines were tested in the Nevada desert. Special ceramic materials had to be created to withstand the heat generated by the nuclear reactor. Other than the ramjet intake, the SLAMs would have looked like conventional missiles without wings but with small fins for steering. It would have been able to reach speeds four times the speed of sound.
Serious concerns were raised about the practicality of the SLAMs. Aside from questions about cost and efficacy, there were questions about how and where to test such a dangerous radiation spewing missile. The creation of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles made the idea of SLAMs obsolete. Advanced radar systems also made the idea of flying SLAMs at very low altitude to avoid radar impractical. The SLAM project only went as far as designs and test before it was cancelled in 1964.
Fortunately, for the reasons cited, the SLAMs were never built. The idea of dying in a hydrogen bomb explosion is bad enough. But the idea of being hammered by sonic shock waves, irradiated by an unshielded nuclear reactor and subjected to radioactive fallout is truly terrifying.
Tory II-A nuclear ramjet engine for the SLAM:
