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.
I have written before about the use of nuclear bombs for civilian purposes. The U.S. and the Soviet Union explored various possibilities decades ago but ideas such as using nuclear explosive to dig canals or to frack for natural gas were abandoned. The Soviet Union was always more ambitious than the U.S. with respect to possible civilian uses for nuclear explosives. Despite the lack of widespread application of nuclear explosives for such civilian projects, there was a time when a nuclear bomb did turn out to be useful to solve a non-military problem in the Soviet Union.
In 1963, there was a blowout in a well that resulted in a huge fire at the Urta-Bulak natural gas field in Uzbekstan. More than twelve million cubic meters of natural gas were lost each day. A geyser of flaming natural gas resisted all attempts to douse it with water or any of the many other solutions that were attempted. Finally, in 1966, it was decided that a nuclear bomb might be able to put the fire out.
A borehole was drilled about one hundred and twenty feet away from the burning well to a depth of twenty thousand feet. A thirty kiloton nuclear bomb was lowered into one of the holes until it rested about one hundred and fifteen feet from the well shaft. Specially designed tools were use to lower the cylindrical bomb down the hole. Then the hole was filled to the top with concrete and the concrete was given time to set.
After an inspection and signoff from a special government commission consisting of physicists, geologists, natural gas specialists and designers, in September of 1966, the bomb was detonated and the explosion crushed the pipe feeding the fire and glassified the rock around the well shaft. The fire went out within twenty three seconds of the bomb blast. There was no evidence of radioactivity detected above ground after the fire was extinguished.
An observer of the event said, “On that cold autumn day in 1966, an underground tremor of unprecedented force shook the with a sparse grass cover on white sand. A dusty haze rose over the desert. The orange‐colored torch of the blazing well diminished, first slowly, then more rapidly, until it flickered and finally died out. For the first time in 1,064 days, quiet descended on the area. The jet-like roar of the gas well had been silenced.”
The September 1966 test was part of a program called Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy (NENE). The program was created to test non-military peaceful uses of nuclear explosives. Between the mid 1960 and 1988, there were one hundred and fifteen tests under the NENE program in the Soviet Union. Most of these tests were focused on geological exploration such as the search for natural gas deposits. Tests were also conducted on the creation of huge underground cavities that could be used for toxic waste storage. There were earth-moving tests aimed at creating dams and canals. With the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, this project and many others were cancelled.
Dealing with nuclear waste is a major problem for all countries with nuclear power plants. A discovery at Indiana University could help solve the problem.
I.U. researchers published a report in the journal Chem on September 14th that detailed their development of a “new chemical principle.” They say that this principle has the potential to create special molecules that can remove radioactive elements from nuclear waste. This would significantly reduce the volume of such waste. The method can also be applied to the creation of molecules that could extract chemical pollutants from water and soil.
The lead author of the report is Amar Flood who is a professor of Chemistry at the I.U. Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences. He said, “This work represents a major step forward in the effort to engineer specially designed nanostructures by providing a new, highly accurate method to predict how these molecules will behave in solution.”
Predicting how an engineered molecule will behave in the real world has been nearly impossible. Currently, chemists can only design molecules to function isolation. In the real world, they will wind up in combination with other molecules. The behavior of the molecule in isolation will often be quite different than its behavior in combinations of molecules. When designing a molecule for a specific purpose, the designer has to be extremely precise. It is sort of like designing a key for a specific lock.
Flood’s lab designed a special five sided star shaped lattice of carbon and nitrogen atoms. The center of the molecule is empty. The shape of the hole attracts negative molecules such as phosphates and nitrates which lock into the center hole and break their previous bonds.
This type of special molecule is known as a “receptor” molecule. It is intended for use in the reduction of nuclear waste. It is also being considered for such uses as removing chlorine atoms from water which plays a part in desalinization of seawater. It could be used to remove excess fertilizers from solid. Lithium atoms could be recovered from soil for use in electronics.
The new methods described in the report will allow chemists to design new molecular reactions with a specific goal in mind. The new principle elucidated in the report makes use of the discovery that the attraction between receptor molecules and negatively charged ions turns out to be related to the dielectric constant of the solvent which contains the two species of molecules. (“A dielectric constant is a measurement of a substance’s ability to stabilize electrical charge.”)
In a test of their new method, the researchers applied it to trazolophane. This molecule is designed to extract chloride from other molecules. It is used in combination with solvents that are commonly used to extract targeted molecules from other liquids. In each test, the new principle accurately predicted how effective the molecule would be.
The scientist who was primarily responsible for the discovery of the new principle was Yun Liu, one of Flood’s Ph.D. students. He said, “The current paradigm only works for molecular designs on the drawing board. But we want to make molecules that will work in practice to help solve problems in the real world.”
Big multi-megaton nuclear warheads get most of the press these days but there are other types of nuclear weapons with yields in the kilotons that are intended for use on battlefields. These are known as tactical nuclear weapons. Russia has many tactical nukes and has threatened to use them if it is losing a land war with NATO forces in Eastern Europe. Pakistan also has many tactical nukes and they are stationing them on the border with India. If India invades Pakistan, Pakistan will use tactical nukes on its own side of the border. The U.S. has some tactical nuclear weapons left over from the Cold War.
Currently, about one third of the U.S. nuclear arsenal consists of low-yield tactical nukes or nukes that can be “dialed” back to lower yields. President Obama had a policy of prohibiting the development of new nuclear weapons. The U.S. has not tested a new nuclear weapon in twenty five years.
President Trump ordered a Nuclear Posture Review in January following his inauguration. It has been reported that the panel that was convened for the NPR is recommending that the U.S. develop new low-yield nuclear bomb for tactical use. President Trump is currently considering adding more “mini” (tactical) nuclear weapons to the U.S. nuclear arsenal as suggested by the NPR panel.
Any plan to expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal would have to be approved by Congress and any bills that were introduced with that intention would definitely trigger a fierce debate. The Pentagon wanted to modify nuclear weapons for smaller targets during the George W. Bush administration but Congress failed to approve the Pentagon plan.
The Defence Science Board, a Pentagon advisory group, made a similar request to Congress in February of this year. In response, Dianne Feinstein, a Democratic Senator from California, made a public statement about nuclear policy. She said, “There’s one role – and only one role – for nuclear weapons, and that’s deterrence. We cannot, must not, will not ever countenance their actual use. I’ve fought against such reckless efforts in the past and will do so again, with every tool at my disposal.”
In July, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the U.S. military was definitely interested in the development of new tactical nukes. He said, “Whether we do it with a ballistic missile or re-entry vehicle or other tool in the arsenal, it’s important to have variable-yield nukes. If the only options we have are to go with high-yield weapons that create a level of indiscriminate killing that the President can’t accept, then we haven’t presented him with an option with an option to respond to a nuclear attack in kind.”
Advocates for low-yield tactical nukes say that we need them to counter the threat of Russian tactical nukes in Eastern Europe. Critics say that the very existence of tactical nukes makes it more probable that someone will use nuclear weapons in a regional dispute. This could obviously escalate into a full blow nuclear war that would destroy human civilization.
Russian 100 kiloton OTR-21 Tochka missile on launcher:
U.S. MGR-3 Little John missile with a 10 kiloton yield on launcher:
