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 grave concerns about the ambitious Chinese program to expand their use of nuclear power by building more nuclear power reactors. Their record for regulation of corporate behavior in the nuclear sector has not been stellar. A lot of the Chinese people share my concerns and major nuclear construction projects have already been blocked by public protests.
In the past year, there have been a series of incidents on nuclear construction projects. The Chinese National Nuclear Safety Administration (CNNSA) released information on sixteen incidents that occurred in 2016 at eight nuclear power stations. The information was made public in the Global Times newspaper which is closely associated with the Chinese Communist Party. That means that the release of the information was sanctioned at the highest levels of the Chinese government.
Six of the reported incidents involved failure of staff to observe operational guidelines. Four of the incidents were attributed to the failure of communications. The final six incidents happened because staff pushed the wrong buttons. It is claimed that none of the incidents resulted in the release of radioactive materials or any other threat to the public. Such accidents and incidents have also been reported for previous years.
Experts who reviewed the reported incidents concluded that the poor public safety record was related to the country’s political culture. One of the main problems with the system is that the individuals who are charged with inspecting and regulating the nuclear industry have a lower rank in the Communist Party than the officials in control of the state-owned nuclear companies. It is politically risky for lower-ranking officials to criticize higher ranking officials.
Currently, the Chinese technicians who construct and operate the nuclear power reactors are under enormous pressure to produce results. Like the nuclear regulators, they are also at a lower rank in the Communist Party than the men who run the state-owned companies. This means that they fear for their party positions if they don’t deliver results on schedule and in budget. The technicians are also compensated at a lower level than the administrators. This results in more people wanting to climb in rank in the party in administrative positions than wanting to train as nuclear technicians.
Up until very recently, the Chinese nuclear industry operated at a high level of secrecy because of the connection of nuclear technology to nuclear weapons and national security. Because of this blanket of secrecy, people were afraid to publicly discuss problems in the nuclear industry. This secrecy is at odds with the kind of transparency needed to safely construct and operate nuclear power plants.
While China has strict regulations and guidelines for the nuclear industry, analysts say that often these rules are only for show and officials will ignore violations as long as projects are on schedule and in budget. Any official who really drills down into serious problems in the industry risks offending entrenched vested interest groups. The fact that there are deep problems with the Chinese system of corporate governance virtually guarantees that the will be serious incidents and accidents in the future.
A former member of Taiwan’s doomed nuclear weapons development project, Chang Hsien-yi (張憲義), disclosed Monday that his fear of ambitious politicians using such weapons was the reason behind his decision to flee to the United States 29 years ago. focustaiwan.tw
Addressing the threat challenge of climate change will require greater use of nuclear power plants in addition to wind and solar energy sources, US Secretary of State John Kerry told guests at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday. sputniknews.com
Rolls-Royce has named the companies it is working with to bring a small modular reactor (SMR) to market in the UK. Amec Foster Wheeler, Nuvia and Arup, together with the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, are working with Rolls-Royce to develop the latest technology reactors, a spokesman for the British engineering firm told World Nuclear News today. “Other names will emerge in due course,” he added. world-nuclear-news.org
Thousands of nuclear workers across the UK are to be balloted for strikes in a row over pensions. itv.com
Disposing of nuclear waste is a major problem for all countries that use nuclear power to generate electricity. In the U.S., the Yucca Mountain Repository for spent nuclear fuel was supposed to be ready by 1999 but the uncompleted project was canceled in 2009. Meanwhile, spent nuclear fuel continues to pile up at power reactor sites around the country. Cooling pools are filling up and spent fuel assemblies will have to be moved to onsite or offsite temporary storage in dry casks. The U.S. will not have a permanent spent nuclear fuel repository until 2050 at the earliest. In addition to spent nuclear fuel, there also low level and intermediate level nuclear waste from nuclear power plant operations that has to be disposed of. Ontario Power Generation in Ontario, Canada is currently working on the disposal of low level and intermediate level nuclear waste generated by the operation their nuclear power plants.
Ontario Power Generation has developed a plan for the disposal of nuclear waste from its three nuclear power plants in a permanent geological repository on the shores of Lake Huron. The repository would be located at the Bruce Nuclear Generation Station site near Inverhuron and Tiverton, Ontario and would take nuclear waste from the Bruce, Darlington, and Pickering nuclear power plants. The repository would be about twenty-two hundred feet underground in impermeable limestone. A Canadian federal panel approved the plan in 2015.
In February of 2016, the Canadian minister of the environment and climate changes requested that OPG carry out two additional studies with respect their disposal of nuclear waste. He asked for an environmental evaluation of two alternative waste disposal sites and a cumulative evaluation of environmental impact if a separate spent nuclear fuel repository was also located the Bruce site.
OPG reported that any of the three locations would meet the primary objectives of public health and safety, worker health and safety and environmental protection but that the two alternative locations would cost more because establishing new sites would have effects on land use, vegetation, and wildlife. In addition, there would be significant increases in transportation costs to those two other sites. Twenty-two thousand shipments would be required to move stored waste from the Bruce site to either of the alternative sites. This would raise the possibility of contamination of public roads and lands if there were transportation accidents. The alternative sites would increase costs from one to three billion dollars and offer no benefits.
Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization is working on locating a site for the creation of a permanent geological repository for spent nuclear fuel. OPG concluded that there would be no adverse cumulative effects of locating such a repository at the Bruce site near the planned low level and intermediate level waste repository.
Communities near the proposed Bruce site are very concerned about locating a nuclear waste repository near Lake Huron which would be below the level of the lake. Groups of activists are mobilizing against the repository.
Bruce Nuclear Generation Station:
