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.
Estonian parliament passes nuclear resolution world-nuclear-news.org
Kazatomprom gets go-ahead for Inkai 3 pilot world-nuclear-news.org
North Korea estimated to possess up to 50 nuclear weapons: think tank rfa.org
Row as NATO chief hints at talks to increase availability of nuclear weapons theguardian.com
Ambient office = 66 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 96 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 97 nanosieverts per hour
Blueberry from Central Market = 115 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 68 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 60 nanosieverts per hour
Dover Sole from Central = 100 nanosieverts per hour
The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) developed the Atlas railcar to transport spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. It has been certified by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) to operate on all major freight railroads in the U.S.
The DoE mentioned that the certification was the highest safety standard set by the AAR for transporting high-level radioactive materials.
The 12-axle Atlas railcar comes equipped with high-tech sensors and monitoring systems. It was designed to safely and securely transport shipments of commercial spent nuclear fuel weighing up to two hundred and eighteen tons. The DoE said that the Atlas project took ten years to complete and cost about thirty-three million dollars.
The entire railcar system consists of the Atlas railcar, two buffer railcars and a rail escort vehicle that was developed in partnership with the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program.
Final testing of the railcars was accomplished by the completion of a one thousand six-hundred-and-eighty-mile round-trip journey from Pueblo, Colorado, to Scoville, Idaho. The Atlas railcars are the first DoE railcars to meet the rigorous testing requirements of AAR’s S-2043 standard for transporting high-level radioactive materials.
Paul Murray is the DoE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and High-Level Waste Disposition. He said, “The certification of the Atlas railcar by the AAR is a significant step forward as we develop the infrastructure to safely manage and store the nation’s nuclear waste. The capability for DOE to safely and securely transport spent nuclear fuel is a key component of DOE’s vision for an integrated waste management system that includes transportation, and government-owned storage and permanent disposal identified through a consent-based siting process.”
The Atlas is one of two railcars DoE is developing to provide flexibility in transporting spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to future federal interim storage facilities and disposal sites.
The eight-axle Fortis railcar is designed to carry lighter loads. It is expected to begin single car testing no sooner than 2025 and could be operational before 2030.
The management of civilian spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. is a federal responsibility. The planned permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada was designated in 1987 as the sole initial repository for seventy thousand tons of high-level wastes. However, the project was canceled before construction began. This means that spent nuclear fuel from more than 70 shutdown, decommissioned and operating nuclear energy facilities is currently in storage at sites across the U.S.
Subject to appropriations, DoE is proceeding on a government-owned consolidated interim storage facility project that includes rail transportation. Commercial spent nuclear fuel is packaged in containers weighing between eighty and two hundred and ten tons. This is beyond legal weight limits for truck transport in the U.S. Rail is the preferred mode to move these heavy containers.
DoE intends to eventually transport more than one hundred and forty ton of commercial spent nuclear fuel that it is estimated will have been generated in the U.S. by 2060.
The location of the consolidated interim storage facility will be selected through DoE’s consent-based siting process. This puts communities at the forefront and would ultimately reduce the number of locations where commercial spent nuclear fuel is stored in the USA.
Construction and operation of the interim storage facility will require amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to move this project forward.
Energy prices in France turn negative as surging renewable output takes nuclear plants offline market.businessinsider.com
Russian Nuclear Sub, Frigate with Long Range Land Attack Missiles Operating Off East Coast news.usni.org
Nuclear power plant proposed for north-eastern Norway world-nuclear-news.org
Ontario minister marks completion of first phase of SMR preparations world-nuclear-news.org
Ambient office = 80 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 84 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 85 nanosieverts per hour
Avocado from Central Market = 126 nanosieverts per hour
Mini cucumber Tap water = 21 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 86 nanosieverts per hour
Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) of the UAE and Korea Electric Power Cooperation (KEPCO) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to increase research and investment opportunities in nuclear energy in third countries.
The MoU was signed on May 29 this year in Seoul, Korea by ENEC Managing Director and CEO Mohamed Al Hammadi and KEPCO President and CEO Dong-Cheol Kim. The signing of the MoU was witnessed by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed AL Nahyan.
ENEC said, “This partnership marks the next step in the two nations’ collaboration to spearhead nuclear energy development in other countries by providing the relevant expertise to accelerate the deployment of this crucial source of clean baseload electricity.” It explained that the partners “will explore co-investing in the establishment of nuclear energy plants globally and seek to address the instrumental role nuclear energy plays in addressing climate change and achieving net-zero targets”.
The MoU, ENEC said, builds on its and KEPCO’s expertise in various fields, including “the efficient, safety and quality-led development and implementation of nuclear energy plants, and the significant transmission and distribution infrastructure required to integrate into national grids”.
KEPCO mentioned that the global nuclear power plant market has recently started changing from “a pure construction project (EPC) method, in which ordering countries build nuclear power plants with their own resources, to a method that requires operators to participate in a certain level of financing”.
KEPCO said, “Accordingly, the ability to raise financial resources is emerging as one of the key factors for business success. If we combine the strengths of Korea and the UAE, which can carry out profitable nuclear power projects through this MoU, we will be able to secure a differentiated comparative advantage over competing countries in the global nuclear power plant market.”
Kim Dong-cheol is the President of KEPCO. He said, “As the overseas nuclear power plant export business is a national competition … a trustworthy partner like the UAE is absolutely necessary in the fierce overseas nuclear power plant export competition. With the signing of this MoU, we will do our best to create a success story for the second nuclear power plant export.”
Under a twenty-billion-dollar deal announced in December 2009, four Korean-designed APR1400 reactors have been constructed at the Barakah site in the UAE by a consortium led by KEPCO. First concrete for Barakah 1 was poured in July 2012. Concrete for Units 2-4 was poured in April 2013, September 2014 and July 2015, respectively. Unit 1 started commercial operation in April 2021, Unit 2 in March 2022 and Unit 3 in February 2023. Unit 4 was connected to the UAE grid in March of this year and is scheduled to begin commercial operation later in 2024.
ENEC said that the Barakah plant is the flagship project of the UAE Peaceful Nuclear Energy Program. The company is “now focused on exploring opportunities in the UAE and overseas in large-scale plants, SMRs and advanced reactors, related clean technologies such as hydrogen generation and R&D to maximize the full value of the expertise developed in nuclear mega project program delivery, capacity building and technology deployment”.
Fluor Team Awarded National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant Management & Operating Contract finance.yahoo.com
US-Saudi Nuclear Deal Near, Congress Briefed on Details livemint.com
Iran expands nuclear capacities further: IAEA hurriyetdailynews.com
Nuclear Disablement Team, Army Rangers train to seize underground nuclear facility dvidshub.net
Ambient office = 99 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 77 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 75 nanosieverts per hour
Tomato from Central Market = 127 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 73 nanosieverts per hour
Part 3 of 3 Parts (Please read Parts 1 and 2 first)
Peterson noted that it also involves Food and Drug Administration approvals, which are expensive but “desperately needed.”
Dr. David Schauer is the head of the radiation generators division and DTRA’s liaison at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute. He deals with the medical prophylactics and countermeasures that personnel would need before or after a nuclear explosion.
The Institute receives funding from the Defense Health Agency with contributions from the Department of Health and Human Services. It is developing the life-saving medicine “on a shoestring budget,” Schauer said.
He went on to say that “As we get into the gaps, the gaps exist largely because [of] the lack of a pipeline that has been funded within the Defense Department”.
Schauer said after protecting personnel comes decontaminating equipment. He noted that “We have to decon it. We have to be able to bring it back into the fight. We have to advance through that. We cannot have a weapon going offline, meaning that we have to abandon our battle plans in that area.”
However, with such a small budget, the newly formed office must prioritize technology updates. He described the detectors, more commonly called RADAICs, as still based on 1920s-era Geiger-Muller tubes.
Campbell stated that, “What was built well, in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, we’re finding is not as easy to build today, but we’re still relying on that, and that actually drives costs, that drives maintainability, that drives supportability on a lot of these things.”
A new generation of detectors is a “low-hanging fruit” technology, which is why his office has chosen it as its top priority, Campbell said. This technological advance will include handheld detectors, leave-behind sensors and wide area surveillance, he added.
Campbell continued, “We’re trying to improve the ability for a commander to understand what the threats are and what the hazards are — the radiation hazards — so that he can make the best decisions, or she can make the best decisions, about where to flow the people on the battlefield. This is networking. This is predicting. This is modeling. This is forecasting.”
Campbell’s office is actively working with the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force to make them start thinking about the problem so they can write requirements and start mapping out budgets.
After dealing with the detector/sensor shortfalls, the office will look into protection: filters, masks, other personnel protection.
Peterson said, “Hopefully we’ll be able to get there. But our budget simply can’t help that right now.”
The other agency when it comes to developing rad-nuke research and development is the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Rob Prins is the chief of its nuclear detection division. He said his office’s main line of effort now is creating a common operating picture as the four main services are all bringing together intelligence on different screens, with the Space Force currently still not involved.
Prins said, “What we have isn’t necessarily a technology problem. We have a translation problem. We don’t have enough people with the expert knowledge or even baseline knowledge in order to push [programs] through. That’s got to start out with the different services’ training and doctrine.”
Budgets are definitely an issue, Prins said. Continuing resolutions in Congress makes moving money out to projects challenging. This challenge forces him to ask, “Where are those incremental areas such that I can realize a bigger investment or return on investment later?”
Schauer suggested that those with the proper security clearances look at the Army Science Board report.
It took eighteen months to launch, and the board left few stones unturned when interviewing sources and examining the threats along with assessing the U.S. military’s ability to fight its way through a nuclear battle.
Schauer said that “We think this report will shine bright light on where we stand on this topic.”
Western in running for $2.4 million to implement Nuclear Technology Program wyomingnews.com
G7 urges Iran to ‘cease and reverse’ nuclear activities thenationanews.com
NATO Chief Says the Alliance Is Adapting Its Nuclear Arsenal to Security Threats usnews.com
AtkinsRéalis to cash in on nuclear ‘super cycle’; analysts boost price targets ca.finance.yahoo.com
