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.
Cyber security has been the news a lot lately. The various hacking attacks and the recent Denial of Service attack on major parts of the U.S. Internet have prompted many media stories. I believe that much of the lack of security in computer and communication systems stems from laziness and greed. We can solve these problems if we are willing to spend the money and time. Many private companies are waiting for the U.S. government to mandate universal security measures because they are afraid that if they spend the money unilaterally to be really secure, they will be at a competitive disadvantage to other companies who do not spend the money. With respect to the subject of this blog, cyber insecurity has been reported in many industries including the nuclear industry.
Many industries are using unencrypted pagers to send alerts about plant problems. A recent study found that such alerts were sent to or from several U.S. nuclear plants including references to reduced pump flow rates; leaks of water, steam, radiant coolant and electrohydraulic control oil; fires; loss of redundancy; need for medics; control rod malfunction and nuclear contamination.
There are stringent requirements for security mandated by regulatory agencies for many of the industries using the unencrypted pagers. However, pagers are often used because they are a very low power alternative cell phones and wifi due to poor reception/transmission areas for cell and wifi around industrial plants with a lot of steel and structures that block signals. The researchers also mentioned that a lot of industries continue to use antiquated equipment because it is cheap and easy.
The researchers were able to use software defined radios and a twenty dollar dongle to easily gain access to these pager messages. They were able to access pager messages in real time. Hostile parties intending harm to critical industrial systems could use such a system to access pager messages to gather valuable information about vulnerable infrastructure which would assist them in staging attacks. If they saw a pager message indicating a current serious problem, they could use that information to gain more information from personnel or even gain physical access to the system with the problem under the guise of being a repairman or an inspector.
In addition to being able to gather messages from unprotected pagers, the researchers were also able to send fake messages out over the pager system. This would mean that hostile parties could flood the system with fake messages that could overload a response system or cause inappropriate responses to real problems.
The research shows that popular online messaging system actually have better security than messaging systems that are suppose to help monitor critical infrastructure including nuclear power plants. Critical U.S. infrastructure is terribly vulnerable to attack and something must be done before this house of cards is blown down. If the companies involved in infrastructure will not deploy more secure systems on their own, then they will need to be forced to do it by government action.
Modern pager (Source: Unication, Author: Vitachao)
I have often blogged that ultimately it will be the market and public opinion that will kill off nuclear power. One or two more major accidents will sour the public and investors on nuclear power. Increasingly cheap alternative energy and rising costs for nuclear power will also doom nuclear as a source of electricity. Relevant to this point of view is the fact that the Ft. Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska is being shut down because it could not compete in the marketplace.
The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station is located between Fort Calhoun and Blair, Nebraska next to the Missouri River. The plant began construction in 1966 and was put into operation in 1973. The plant has one pressurized water reactor that generates four hundred and seventy six megawatts at full power. The Omaha Public Power District owns the plant and it is operated by Exelon Nuclear Partners. The plant was originally licensed for forty years but had its license extended an additional twenty years to 2033 in 2003.
In April of 2011 the FCNGS was shut down for refueling. In May of 2011 the Missouri River flooded and the plant was surrounded by flood waters. Then in June, there was an electrical fire that shut off the supply of water to the spent fuel cooling pool for ninety minutes. Following the flood and the fire, there was a major inspection of the plant. It was discovered that the original design of the plant had some serious deficiencies and critics said that the plant should never have been licensed for operation in the first place. The plant remained shut down for three years while further inspections and repairs were carried out. It resumed operation in 2013.
Federal and state government have refused to provide subsidies or other support for the FCNGS on the basis of it being a low carbon energy source. The demand for electricity in the area is down due to slow economic growth. The plant has the smallest nuclear power reactor in the country and is not as competitive in the energy market as the bigger power reactors. For all these reasons, in June of 2016 the OPPD made the decision to shut down the FCNGS permanently even though it is licensed to operate for another seventeen years. The NRC does not permit nuclear power plants to operate if they cannot show a profit.
The power being generated by the reactor is being gradually reduced over a six month period. The fission process in the reactor is scheduled to stop completely in March of 2017. The plant will then be ready for decommissioning in November of 2017. The FCNGS will either be boarded up and fenced in for twenty to forty years in what is call a Safstor process before it is dismantled or it will be dismantled immediately in what is referred to as the Decon method.
As more licenses expire and more aging nuclear power plants become too expensive to compete in the energy marketplace and are closed, the number of nuclear power reactors operating in the U.S. will steadily decline. They will not be replaced by new nuclear power reactors but by alternative sustainable sources of energy. It is twilight for the age of nuclear power in the U.S.
Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station:
