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.
Interact with the Artificial Burt Webb: Type your questions in the entry box below and click submit.
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.
Latitude 47.704656 Longitude -122.318745
Ambient office = 80 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 122 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 118 nanosieverts per hour
Baby bella mushroom from Central Market = 103 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 64 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 51 nanosieverts per hour
Dover Sole from Central = 93 nanosieverts per hour
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has revised its projections for the expansion of nuclear power. It estimates that global nuclear operational capacity will more than double by 2050 to two and six-tenths times the 2024 level. Small modular reactors (SMR) expected to play a pivotal role in this high-case scenario.
Rafael Mariano Grossi is the Director General of the IAEA. He announced the new projections in the annual report Energy, Electricity, and Nuclear Power Estimates for the Period up to 2050 at the 69th IAEA General Conference in Vienna.
In the report’s high-case scenario, nuclear electrical generating capacity is expected to increase from three hundred and twenty-seven gigawatts at the end of 2024 to nine hundred and ninety-two gigawatts by 2050. In a low-case scenario, capacity rises fifty percent, compared with 2024, to five hundred and sixty-one gigawatts. SMRs are projected to account for twenty-four percent of the new capacity added in the high case and for five percent in the low case.
This is the fifth year in a row that the IAEA has raised its power projections, having first revised up its annual projections in 2021 after Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station accident in 2011. Since then, the projection for the high-case has increased by twenty-five percent, from seven hundred and ninety two gigawatts in 2021.
Grossi said, “The IAEA’s steadily rising annual projections underscore a growing global consensus: nuclear power is indispensable for achieving clean, reliable and sustainable energy for all.”
In drafting its projections, the IAEA considered all operating reactors, possible license renewals, planned shutdowns, power uprates to increase output levels, and plausible and ongoing construction projects anticipated for the next few decades. According to the IAEA, the report’s low-case and high-case projections reflect alternative, yet plausible, assumptions regarding the worldwide deployment of nuclear power.
The assumptions for the low-case projections are that current market, technology, and resource trends continue and that there are few changes in laws, policies, and regulations affecting nuclear power.
In the high case, the IAEA reviewed national intentions for expanding the use of nuclear power. The report claims that the high-case projection remains both plausible and technically feasible and notes the possibility for capacity to exceed even this estimate.
The report says that enabling factors, such as national policies, supporting investment, and workforce development, would be necessary to help facilitate reaching or exceeding the high-case scenario. SMRs continue to attract a lot of interest from both embarking and expanding nuclear power countries. However, harmonized regulatory and industrial approaches will also be necessary for their successful and timely deployment, according to the agency.
The new IAEA report highlights the following nuclear developments for 2024:
At the end of 2024, four hundred and seventeen nuclear power reactors were operational, with a global nuclear operational capacity of three hundred and seventy- seven gigawatts.
In addition, sixty-two reactors with a total capacity of sixty-four gigawatts were under construction, and twenty-three reactors with a total capacity of twenty gigawatts GW were in suspended operation.
Six new nuclear power reactors with a total capacity of seven gigawatts were connected to the grid, and four reactors with a total capacity of three GW were retired. Two reactors with a total capacity of one and a half gigawatts restarted after suspended operation. Construction began on nine new reactors that are expected to add a total capacity of ten gigawatts.
Compared with 2023, total electricity production from all energy sources increased by about three and a half percent percent, and electricity production from nuclear power reactors increased by 3 percent to two thousand six hundred and seventy terawatt-hours.
Nuclear power accounted for eight and seven tenth percent of total electricity production in 2024, a slight reduction, compared with nuclear electricity production in 2023.
IAEA says drone detonated near Ukraine’s South Ukraine nuclear plant reuters.com
PM Modi inaugurates Mahi Banswara nuclear project world-nuclear-news.org
North Korea close to developing ICBM that can hit US with nuclear weapon, South Korea’s Lee says reuters.com
Disarmament over destruction: A renewed push for a world without nuclear weapons news.un.org
Latitude 47.704656 Longitude -122.318745
Ambient office = 66 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 89 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Avocado from Central Market = 119 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 64 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 50 nanosieverts per hour
Part 2 of 2 Parts
Rumina Velshi is the Former President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). During a separate session, she said the organization “had read the headwinds, knew we needed to be in a state of readiness to license and regulate SMRs, advanced technologies”. However, she said that one of the biggest challenges that regulators face is having enough money to be anticipatory and build up capacity.
Velshi added, “Regulators only start getting funding from their licensees once there’s an application in front of them, which is a bit too late then to start saying, oh, I need to hire more people. And so if you don’t go down that route, then you have to go to government and ask for a budget. And governments tend to be in a perpetual state of fiscal constraint.”
Velshi said that the CNSC took the option of asking Ontario Power Generation, the licensee for the Darlington SMR project, to license its application.
Velshi added, “Knowing that funding was available made all the difference for us to build that capacity. Regulators find it very difficult because they somehow feel this undermines their independence by asking for that funding up front. It actually doesn’t. It just enables you to make things happen … Now, we did get the government funding down the road, but it was just the need to be creative.”
Mark Foy is the Chief Executive and Chief Nuclear Inspector of the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation. He said, “today’s environment is something that is completely different to that which has existed previously. The first nuclear programs were very much national nuclear programs with nations looking to deploy their own technology, unregulated within their own domestic frameworks.” He said regulators are now looking for a collaborative approach.
The CNSC and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have been collaborating with each other for several years. In 2019 they signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) covering technical reviews of advanced reactors and SMR technologies. In January 2023, a Terms of Reference document was signed and published between the CNSC and the ONR for an MoC between the two organizations on sharing best practice and experience reviewing AMR and SMR technologies. The agreement also included future work to facilitate a joint technical review of AMR and SMR technologies and to cover pre-application activities to ensure mutual preparedness to review them effectively and efficiently.
Velshi said that this collaboration was “really a shift in paradigm” for regulators “because most regulators feel this is challenging their sovereignty if you’re now depending on another regulator to do what seemed to be part of your core work. But that was a very bold step that we took … I think that has set the stage for greater collaboration for regulators”.
She said that the biggest challenge for regulators was the need for “the cultural shift, the mindset shift that is required. It’s not around technology. It’s not about regulatory frameworks. It really is how do we change the way we see things. And because we have such, frankly, an impeccable safety and track record, it is why upset the cart that’s really working … There is a lot of inertia to overcome”.
‘These are secure jobs’ Officials tout Piketon uranium plant announcement Chillicothegazette.com
CT officials sign agreement with NRC over handling of nuclear materials newsfromthestates.com
Iran snapback sanctions loom as UN security council set to vote on nuclear program theguardian.com
Oklahoma regulators to balance costly nuclear potential with projected wave of energy demand kosu.org
Latitude 47.704656 Longitude -122.318745
Ambient office = 73 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 133 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 128 nanosieverts per hour
Asparagus from Central Market = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 59 nanosieverts per hour
Filter water = 50 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 2 Parts
As nuclear technologies diversify including small modular reactors, floating reactors, new fuels and markets, regulation must evolve to support innovation, a panel at World Nuclear Symposium agreed.
King Lee is the head of Policy and Industry Engagement at World Nuclear Association. He moderated a panel at the Symposium. In his opening, he said that nuclear was expanding with new applications in sectors including marine, petrochemical, and the generation of synthetic fuel. “This places new demands on the existing regulatory framework. We, at World Nuclear Association, under the CORDEL [Cooperation in Reactor Design Evaluation and Licensing] Working Group, have been working and cooperating with various stakeholders on streamlining and international harmonization to accelerate nuclear application across multiple jurisdictions to avoid duplication, delay, and fragmentation, while supporting standardized design to reduce cost and facilitate global supply chain. Now we’re seeing policymakers taking actions and looking to streamline the regulatory process.”
Michelle Catts is the Senior Vice President, Nuclear Programs at GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy. She said that new nuclear technologies and their new applications “are really placing pressure on regulatory systems that were made for another era. She added, “To capture this moment, the regulators and the industry need to work together to transform together, streamline where it makes sense, embrace innovation, and align internationally so we can deploy nuclear faster, safely, and at scale.”
She mentioned the BWRX-300 which is a three hundred megawatt water-cooled, natural circulation small modular reactor (SMR) with passive safety systems that leverages the design and licensing basis of GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s fifteen hundred megawatt ESBWR boiling water reactor. The first BWRX-300 is currently under construction at Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington site in Ontario, Canada.
Catts added, “When vendors make smart choices in their designs, it can really help ease the review by regulators. It can streamline and make the reviews more efficient and more proportional for small modular reactors while still meeting the highest safety standards. Around the world, regulators are already showing confidence in this approach.”
Baroness Charlotte Vere, Group Head Market Development at Core Power. On the subject of floating nuclear power plants and nuclear-propelled ships, she said, “There is no doubt that nuclear for maritime will be part of the future. The question is how, the question is where, and the question is when.”
However, Vere noted that regulating nuclear for maritime falls under both the International Atomic Energy Agency and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). This could be an issue if one “is doing this, and one is doing that. My concern is that they’ll look at each other and go, oh no, they don’t match up. So we’ve got to get alignment between those different UN agencies”.
She noted that the IMO recently decided to revise the safety code on nuclear merchant ships. The current rules have been in effect since 1981.
Pete Bryant is CEO of World Nuclear Transport Institute CEO. He added, “Regulation cannot be tied to process. It also cannot be tied to an attitude of ‘we’ve always done it this way’. It must be outcome-focused, it must be science-based, but it must be agile. So this is not just about technology – this is about sustainable development, this is about societal benefit. And it’s about public confidence.”
He urged for greater collaboration between industry, regulators and also the science. “We must build upon a common goal, wider than just safety. A common goal could be tackling climate change; it could be enabling the UN sustainability development goals. But we must ensure proportionate, outcome-focused approaches and show that safety, security, innovation and sustainability can reinforce each other.
Byant continued, “Regulation is not just rules, it is not just process. It’s the foundation of public confidence, it’s the enabler of innovation, and it’s the key to nuclear’s role in a sustainable future. And if we work together, regulation won’t just keep up with the pace of change, it will help drive it for the benefit of society.”
Please read Part 2 next
Iran’s Nuclear Program Transparent, No Retreat Despite Pressure wanaen.com
Press Release: Griffith, Schrier, and Veasey Introduce Efficient Nuclear Licensing Reform Bill quiverquant.com
MoU signed for Brazil’s planned multipurpose reactor world-nuclear-news.org
BWXT to court Gillette for $500M nuclear fuel manufacturing plant capacity.news
