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 often blogged about the problems with disposing of nuclear waste such as spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants and toxic mixes of chemicals left over from the manufacture of nuclear weapons such as the contents of the leaking barrels at the U.S. Hanford Nuclear Reservation. There are also many environmental problems at the other end of the nuclear fuel chain related to the activity of mining uranium. Recently, new research has revealed that some assumptions with respect to the chemical behavior of uranium in the soil around old uranium mines do not match current theoretical models.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management, under the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978, has been remediating 22 sites in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico where uranium was mined from the 1940s to the 1970s. Uranium was removed from the sites and the former mines and waste piles were capped more than twenty years ago. Unfortunately, the uranium contamination being detected in groundwater around the old mines is much higher that was projected on the basis of existing scientific models of the chemistry of uranium in the soil.
Since 2014, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Stanford Linear AcceleratorCenter at the National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University have been working with the DoE Office of Legacy Management on understanding how uranium contamination cycles through the environment at old uranium mines and what makes it so difficult to remove. One of their earlier studies found that uranium was accumulating in low-oxygen sediments near a waste site in Colorado. These sediment deposits contain plant debris and bacterial communities.
The latest findings from the SLAC series of studies indicate that the dominant form of uranium in the sediments is tetravalent uranium which binds to organic matter and clay. This contradicts the earlier understanding that the primary form of uranium in the sediments would be in the form of an insoluble mineral called uraninite. This explains why the uranium kept reappearing in the groundwater around the closed mines.
Different chemical compounds containing uranium vary greatly in how mobile they are in water. While tetravalent uranium is immobile in water, when the water table falls and oxygen penetrates into cavities in the soil that were previously filled with water, tetravalent uranium becomes mobile and can be washed out into the groundwater. If the uranium stayed immobile or was always mobile and flushed out rapidly by ground water, that would remove it as a problem. But with the changing mobility of tetravalent uranium, new surges of uranium contamination keep being generated with the seasonal changes in groundwater levels.
With this new understanding of the behavior of uranium in the soil around old mines, new strategies can be developed to deal with recurrent surges in uranium contamination. Considering the many sites that are being remediated now and that will have to be remediated in the future, this new information will be very useful.
The U.K. currently has fifteen operating nuclear power reactors supplying about twenty percent of their electricity. Half of these plants will be permanently shut down and decommissioned by 2025 because they will have reached the end of their licensed lifespan. The U.K. will also be closing coal-fired power plants to reduce carbon emissions. New nuclear power plants are planned for Hinkley Point, Wylffa, Sizewell, Bradwell and Oldbury. The U.K. has plans to have sixteen gigawatts of new generating capacity online by 2030. If these planned nuclear power plants are not online and operating by 2030, there could be a serious shortfall in the electricity supply in the U.K.
I have devoted a lot of blog posts to the Hinkley Point C project in the U.K. There have been numerous problems with the project including financing, technology, political issues, etc. After long delays to deal with these problems, contracts have finally been signed and the project is moving forward. The two reactors for Hinkley Point C are a new design. Another reactor of the new European Pressurized Reactor design is being built in France and it is behind schedule. This may be an indication of trouble ahead for the Hinkley Point C project.
Toshiba, a Japanese company which builds nuclear power reactors, has been involved in the NuGen consortium in the U.K. to build a nuclear power reactor in Moorside. Toshiba is in serious financial difficulty and is taking a multibillion-dollar write-down on their nuclear division. There are reports that Toshiba is considering selling its nuclear subsidiary and getting out of the nuclear business altogether. Engie, a French company, is another member of the NuGen consortium and there are reports that they have wanted to get out of the Moorside project for a long time. With two members of the consortium pulling out, the loss of funding for the project may result in its cancellation.
Toshiba and Engie have been looking for other investors to take over supplying funds and nuclear expertise for the Moorside project. Kepco, the South Korean nuclear power company, is a possible replacement for Toshiba and Engie. There have been calls for the U.K. government to work on getting Kepco into the Moorside project.
There have also been calls for the U.K. government to directly fund the Moorside project. In the past, such direct involvement in energy projects has been rejected, partly because of rules that the European Union has about such state financing. With the U.K. getting ready to leave the E.U., E.U. rules will no longer bind the U.K. and they will be free to invest government money if they choose.
The trade unions in the U.K. are also concerned about the nuclear power construction program. In addition to the jobs that will be created for the construction of the planned reactors, there is also the concern that if the nuclear projects fail, the U.K. may be left without sufficient electricity to allow industries to continue to operate at full capacity.
It might be advisable for the U.K. to seriously consider moving from reliance on nuclear power to other low-carbon sources such as wind and solar. Their nuclear plans do not seem to be going well.
