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.
The job of the NRC is to formulates policies and regulations governing nuclear reactor and materials safety, issues orders to licensees, and adjudicates legal matters brought before it. This is a critical regulatory agency that has important duties with respect to the nuclear industry in the U.S. and usually carries out those duties properly.
Sometimes the NRC is derelict in its duties. It has conspired with nuclear power plant operators to change rules and regulation to make them more favorable to the operators. It has been lax in enforcing regulations. It has offered extensions of deadlines for correcting problems at nuclear power plants.
The new Trump administration has also been lax in carrying out its duties. Out of over five hundred high level staff positions agencies of the Executive Branch that the President must recommend to the Senate for confirmation, the Trump White House has only put forward about forty nominations. Whether this is a matter of incompetence or deliberately delaying staffing so as to reduce the ability of regulatory agencies to do their jobs is not clear. Trump has frequently attacked government regulations as being an impediment to the growth of jobs in the U.S. Trump has also stated that he is in no hurry to fill some of the empty position because he does not feel that those jobs are really necessary.
Now the Senate is under pressure to confirm Kristine Svinicki, the nominee of the Trump administration for the Chairman of the NRC. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said today that “Unless Ms. Svinicki is confirmed by June 30th, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will lose its quorum.” The NRC requires a quorum of three commissioners in order vote on important issues. The lack of the quorum in the top management of the NRC means that the NRC would have to be shut down. Barrasso would like to have a voice vote in the Senate to confirm Svinicki.
Svinicki is currently the chairwoman of the NRC. She has been a member of the NRC for over ten years. With her term expiring at the end of June, Trump has nominated her for another term. It is not clear at this time when the Senate will schedule votes on Svinicki as well as other energy-related nominees who are awaiting confirmation. If Svinicki is not confirmed by June 30th, there would only be two members on the commission which would not be a quorum and the law says that it would have to be shut down. Two other NRC nominees are waiting for approval by Barrasso’s committee.
Barrasso said “We must also act to confirm the other two nominees as expeditiously as possible to return the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to a full slate of five commissioners. Until then, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s collective ability to fulfill its mission of licensing and regulating the nation’s civilian use of radioactive materials to protect public health, and to provide for safety and security, will be diminished.”
The danger to the U.S. public of accidents at nuclear power plants is enormous. If the NRC is not fully staffed and operating after June 30th there will be serious risks to public health and the environment.
In March of 2011, there was an earthquake northeast of Japan. The resulting tsunami flooded the emergency generators of the Fukushima nuclear power plant on the Japanese coast. Three of the nuclear reactors at the plant suffered catastrophic meltdowns and radioactive materials were released into the atmosphere. Japan immediately shut down all their nuclear power reactors.
Six years later, ground water contaminated with radioactive materials is still leaking out into the ocean off the coast of Japan. The Japanese nuclear fleet is being turned back on one reactor at a time. It is still not known exactly where the melted cores of the destroyed reactors are.
TEPCO, the Japanese company that owns and operated the Fukushima power plant has attempted to use robots to explore parts of the damaged plant that are too radioactive for human beings to enter.
Last February, TEPCO deployed a robot developed by Toshiba and the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID). They sent the robot into Unit 2 but were unable to reach the area directly under the PVC. It did gather useful information though.
In March of this year, TEPCO employed the PMORPH robot developed by Hitachi-GR Nuclear Energy and IRID. It had a dosimeter and a camera. The robot took readings at ten different points inside the Unit 1 PVC.
Unfortunately, the robots employed rapidly broke down under the onslaught of hard radiation in the destroyed reactors. Now TEPCO is at it again with a new underwater robot.
The new robot will be used to examine the primary containment vessel (PCV) of the Unit 3 reactor which was destroyed in the disaster. In 2015, TEPCO found that the Unit 3 PVC was filled with coolant to a depth of about twenty feet. The access port for the PVC is only five and a half inches in diameter. Any robot that is going to be inserted into the PVC has to be smaller than five and one half inches in diameter.
The general manager of Toshiba Corporation’s nuclear energy systems and services division, said: “We have already developed remotely operated robots for inspections at Fukushima. In this case, we had to meet the specific challenges of limited access and flooding, in a highly radioactive environment. Working with the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID), we succeeded in developing a small robot with high-level radiation resistance, and through its deployment we expect to get information that will support the advance of decommissioning.”
The new Toshiba robot is screw-driven. It is about five inches in diameter and about twelve inches long. It weighs about four and a half pounds. It has a video camera facing forward and a video camera facing backward. It has LED lights to provide illumination for the cameras. The robot is control by a wire that trails behind it. It should be able to withstand radiation of up to about 200 Sieverts.
The new robot will be deployed after operators are trained. It will be interesting to see if this robot will be able to withstand the hard radiation inside the PVC long enough to collect the needed information.
Toshiba – IRID robot:
