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.
The Palo Verde Generating Station (PVGS) is a nuclear power plant that is near Tonopah, Arizona. It is only forty five miles from downtown Phoenix. There are three pressurized water reactors at the PVGS that each generate fourteen hundred megawatts. This plant generates about thirty five percent of the electricity that is produced in Arizona. It provides power to Southern Arizona and Southern California. The PVGS generated more electricity than any other nuclear power plant in the U.S.
Each of the three reactors at the PVGS have two emergency backup generators which are used to keep cooling water flowing over nuclear fuel in case of an accident. If backup generators fail, nuclear fuel exposed to the air can spontaneously burst into flame and release radioactive materials.
Last December 15th, one of Unit 3’s backup generators exploded during a routine test. Arizona Public Service, the operators of the PVGS discussed repairs with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission five days after the accident. Normally, a nuclear power plant is given ten days to correct such problems before it has to shut down a reactor. The NRC gave PVGS twenty three days to repair the problem. A second extension was granted in January for an additional sixty two days before the reactor would have to be shut down. The backup generator was finally returned to service on February 9th of this year. Unit 3 operated without two backup generators for fifty seven days.
The NRC said that it decided to offer the two extensions after careful consideration of the risks. Some of the staff at the NRC disagreed strongly with the decision to grant two extensions to allow the Unit 3 reactor to keep operating. Three members of the NRC staff filed dissents with regard to the extensions.
One of the dissents was a petition requesting that the extensions be revoked. This document was released to the public by the NRC. The author of the petition said that “The NRC’s action is inconsistent with the NRC mission, NRC vision, NRC safety objectives, NRC regulatory effectiveness strategies, NRC openness strategies and the principles of good regulation.” The NRC denied a similar request for an extension to deal with repairs from the Donald C Cook Nuclear Plant in Lake Township, Michigan. The author said that he did not understand why one plant was denied an extension while the other plant got to two extensions. He also said “I am not sure whether the loss of revenue for the utility had any influence on the NRC decision to approve these license amendments. I did not find any safety reason for NRC to approve these license amendments.”
The other two dissents were Differing Professional Opinions (DPO). The authors have not been identified by the NRC and the documents have not been released. The NRC said that the DPOs were still under review. A representative of the NRC’s Office of Public Affairs stated that “The NRC reached its technical decision regarding Palo Verde’s request separately from its consideration of the DPO. The DPO process continues at this point.”
Arizona Public Service said that the decision to keep Unit 3 in operation posed no threat of radiation release or any reduction in safety. They claimed that their risk analysis showed that it would be safer to keep Unit 3 operating than shutting down the reactor which would involve moving fuel rods.
Fortunately for Arizona Public Service and the citizens of Southern Arizona, the Unit 3 backup generator was repaired before any other problems arose. There is a reason that there are deadlines for the repair of emergency equipment at a nuclear power plant. I would prefer that the NRC follow their own regulations.
Westinghouse Electric Company recently declared bankruptcy because of financial difficulties resulting from schedule delays and cost overruns on nuclear reactor construction projects in Geogia and South Carolina. Westinghouse, which is a subsidiary of Japan’s Toshiba, will end their nuclear reactor construction business. Toshiba is considering the sale of Westinghouse because it is also having severe financial difficulties connected to accounting fraud unrelated to the nuclear industry. While Westinghouse will no longer be constructing nuclear reactors, it will continue to sell nuclear fuel and is releasing a new type of nuclear reactor fuel.
Westinghouse Electric Company formally announced Tuesday that it was launching its new accident-tolerant nuclear fuel solution called EnCore TM. Westinghouse made the announcement at its Fuel Users’ Group Meeting which is attended by nuclear fuel customers from around the world. Westinghouse says that EnCore Fuel “is intended to offer design-basis-altering safety, greater uranium efficiency.” They claim that the economic benefits of switching to the new fuel could rise as high as millions of dollars. Westinghouse will release the new fuel in two phases.
The first phase of the new fuel will feature uranium silicide pellets with a new cladding. The pellets will have higher density and higher thermal conductivity than previous fuels. The new cladding has reduced oxidation and hydrogen pickup when compared to previous fuels. These changes will result in extending the life of the cladding and increasing the resistance of the cladding to wear. The cladding will also be able to withstand prolonged exposure to high temperatures of steam and air up to fourteen hundred degrees Centigrade in the event of a loss-of-cooling-accident, reactivity-initiated accident and other beyond-design-basis conditions.
The second phase of the new fuel will feature silicon-carbide cladding. This new cladding is intended to offer increase safety benefits in case of beyond-design-basis accidents. It has a very high melting point of twenty eight hundred degrees Centigrade. It also has a very small reaction with water which means that there will be very little generation of heat and hydrogen in beyond-design-basis accidents.
Michele DeWitt is the senior vice president for Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel. He said “Westinghouse is aggressively pursuing the benefits of accident tolerant fuel for our customers. As the leading supplier of nuclear fuel and components globally, Westinghouse has developed a world-class network of research, design and manufacturing partners. We are leveraging the breadth and depth of our resources, combined with U.S. Department of Energy awards, as well as utility funding, to collaborate with respected industry partners in order to deliver EnCore Fuel to the market on an aggressive, accelerated schedule. We are on track to manufacture EnCore Fuel lead test rods as early as 2018, with lead test assembly insertion planned starting in 2022.”
In 2016, uranium prices hit a twelve year low. The Fukushima disaster in Japan exacerbated an already declining uranium market. All fifty nuclear reactors in Japan were shut down and are only now being restarted one by one. Germany is phasing out nuclear power. France is reducing the use of nuclear power. There is a big imbalance between the supply of uranium and the demand for uranium that will not improve in the near future. It will be interesting to see if Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel division will be able to profit from the release of this new fuel.
Michael Flynn has been in the news a lot lately. He was fired as the National Security Advisor for Donald Trump because he lied about being involved with foreign government. It turns out that he had some grand plans for spreading nuclear power to the Middle East.
According to the financial forms that he filed and then modified as part of his ascending to the National Security Advisor post, in 2015 and 2016, he was an advisor to X-Co Dynamics Inc./Iron Bridge Group. The CEO of company was retired Admiral Michael Hewitt and an advisor to the company was retired Admiral Frank Bowman. Bowman was in charge of U.S. navy nuclear programs. Other ex-military officers were associated with the company.
According to reports, Flynn flew to Egypt and Israel in the summer of 2015. The purpose of his trip was to test the waters for a plan to launch a Saudi-funded joint U.S. and Russia program to basically take control of the efforts of Middle Eastern countries to build nuclear power plants. The rational for this plan was the fear that Middle Eastern countries who developed their own nuclear program might not have adequate safeguards against the use of radioactive materials in their spent nuclear fuel being used for the creation of nuclear weapons. (It is also possible that another reason for the plan was the revitalization of the stagnant U.S. nuclear industry.)
The Flynn’s plan was to have the U.S. and Russian partnership build, fuel and operate nuclear power plants in the Middle East and to strictly control the spent nuclear fuel produced by the plants. Flynn’s part would be to create and managed the security for the entire project.
X-Co Dynamics Inc./Iron Bridge Group claimed that the estimated one trillion dollar price tag for the project would be entirely borne by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf State. It would cost the U.S. tax payers nothing and it would provide a huge boost to the U.S. nuclear industry. Saudi Arabia and the other investors would profit from the sale of power to Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar
One Middle Eastern country that would not be part of the project would be Iran. Flynn had long wanted to forge a relationship between the U.S. and Russia in order to create a united from against international terrorism which would include driving a wedge between Russia and Iran. Some reports about the project concluded that isolating Iran was one of the main motivations.
Representatives of X-Co Dynamics Inc./Iron Bridge Group say that isolating Iran was never part of their plan. Whether or not that was true, the Obama administration was busy negotiating a deal with Iran and was not interested in getting involved with Russia to build forty nuclear reactors in the Middle East. When Trump won the Presidency and Flynn became his NSA, prospects for the joint project brightened. Strategic Partners, a company involved with the security aspects of the project began lobbying heavily for the project when Trump was elected.
Unfortunately, the FBI investigation into Russian involvement with the U.S. election and connections between members of the Trump administration and Russia caused some individuals and organization connected to the project to drop out. There also appeared to be little interest from the Saudis in funding the project. X-Co Dynamics Inc./Iron Bridge Group parted ways with Strategic Partners and began exploring involving China in a joint venture instead of Russia.
People involved with X-Co Dynamics Inc./Iron Bridge Group have said that they understood Flynn’s involvement to be restricted to approaching Egypt and Israel about the security aspects of the project. Flynn was not paid for his efforts and only received travel expenses.
Michael Flynn:
