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.
In 2010 Russia and Turkey signed an agreement for the construction of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant which would consist of four nuclear reactors with an total capacity of forty eight hundred megawatts. The plant was to be operational by 2023. The Akkuyu plant is located in the Turkish province of Mersin. It is the first of three plants that Turkey is planning in order to reduce its dependency on importing foreign power. The estimated cost of the plant was twenty billion dollars. Rosatom, the Russian nuclear firm, was tapped to construct the plant. The plant will produce thirty five billion kilowatt-hours a year when completed. It will be licensed for a service life of sixty years.
A second nuclear power plant is slated to be constructed by a French-Japanese consortium in the city of Sinop near the Black Sea. A third nuclear power plant will be constructed in the Igneada district of the Turkish province of Kirklareli.
Cengiz Holdings is a Turkish construction firm that works of major energy infrastructure projects. They are currently building a thirteen hundred megawatt coal plant in the Turkish province of Canakkale. Cengiz Holdings is involved in the Akkuyu power plant project. They recently submitted the winning bid for construction of the Akkuyu power plant water intake for the cooling system. Rosatom wants to make use of Cengiz Holding’s experience in constructing power plants.
When Turkish air defenses shot down a Russia fighter on the border with Syria in November of 2015, there was a serious chill in Russian-Turkish relations. Russia took economic retaliation on Turkey, including a suspension of work on the Akkuyu power plant. Cengiz Holdings has offices in Russia. They decided to continue to operate those offices in spite of the problems between Turkey and Russia. They assumed that normal relations would be restored quickly and that work on the power plant would go forward. This was a wise decision on their part and the power plant project is once again progressing.
In April of 2016 Rosatom decided to sell up to forty nine percent of the Akkuyu power plant to Turkish investors. Cengiz Holdings is unable to provide a share of the financing and is seeking to partner with other Turkish firms which will assist in financing the project. Cengiz Holding says that they need to be involved in the financing because they need to be shareholders in order to take part in the management of the project.
Turkey is in a delicate position with respect to international relations. Russia is a major trading partner and a neighbor. On the other hand, Turkey is a member of NATO with strong ties to Europe and the U.S. The current conflict in Syria has brought Turkey into confrontation with Russia. Recently, there has been tension between Turkey and NATO over the Syrian refugee crisis. Erdogan, the President of Turkey has been walking a tightrope playing the NATO and the U.S. against Russia. It will be interesting to see how successful Erdogan will be in the game of international politics.
Artist’s concept of Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant (Image: AEP):
Yesterday, I blogged about the Nuclear Weapons Convention being considered by the UN. One hundred and seven member states are supporting a proposal to eliminate all nuclear weapons on Earth. Twenty nations voted against the proposal. Today I am going to go into more detail about the politics surrounding of the proposal.
Although, Barack Obama campaigned on the elimination of nuclear weapons in 2008, now his administration is offering reasons why the new push for nuclear disarmament is a bad idea. Administration officials point out that increasing tensions with Russia and Russia’s nuclear belligerency, increasing tensions with China in the South China Sea and the hysterical threats of a nuclear armed North Korea make this a bad time to be considering the total nuclear disarmament called for in the new proposal. The critics say that passing this proposal would be counter-productive because it might serve to weaken the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) that currently binds the U.S. and Russia.
The supporters of the proposal say that the U.S. administration is exaggerating the problems that would be caused by the passage of the proposal. Their idea is that having a legal framework for the elimination of nuclear weapons would increase public pressure on decision makers to eliminate nuclear weapons. The supporters could also point out that both Russia and the U.S. are currently accusing the other of violation of the NPT.
The U.S. administration is putting pressure on allies in NATO and South East Asia to reject the proposal. In this regard, the U.S. is in league with the U.K., France, China and Russia, all of whom have nuclear weapons and are apparently not eager to work on eliminating them and, like the U.S., are opposing the new U.N. proposal which is mainly being pushed by non-nuclear nations which are at risk from the arsenals of the nuclear nations.
Austria, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa launched the effort to convene new conferences on nuclear disarmament in 2017. The U.N. has one hundred and ninety three members. The supporters of the proposal expect to get one hundred and twenty votes which means that the proposal will probably pass.
One of the reasons for the new proposal is that fact that the nuclear armed powers promised to disarm if the non-nuclear nations world refrain from developing their own nuclear weapons programs. Many non-nuclear nations feel that while they have kept their end of the bargain, the nuclear nations have been dragging their feet with respect to disarmament. In addition, the nuclear powers are talking about spending billions of dollars to upgrade their nuclear arsenals.
The U.S. and other nuclear powers point out that the NPT has resulted in the elimination of eighty five percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. They say that without the participation of the nuclear powers, the new proposal would have little impact on the existing nuclear arsenals. This may be true but there is a real danger that some non-nuclear powers may begin building their own nuclear weapons if the existing nuclear arsenals are not reduced or entirely eliminated.
There are calls by over one hundred countries for new UN talks about global nuclear disarmament. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) announced that these countries support L41, a draft UN resolution which seeks a total global ban on nuclear weapons. L41 calls for two conferences, one next March and the second next June at UN headquarters in New York involving all member nations. L41 is a proposal from a UN forum that was created in 2012.
There are currently about sixteen thousand nuclear warheads in the world. The U.S. and Russia both have about seven thousand each with the rest possessed by the U.K., France, Israel, Pakistan, India, China and North Korea.
The proposal in L41 is called the “Nuclear Weapons Convention”. It calls for nations with nuclear warheads to eliminate those weapons in five phases. Phase One would be for nations to take their weapons off “alert” or ready to launch status. The Second Phase would consist of removing weapons from deployment. The Third Phase would have the warheads removed from delivery vehicles including ICMBs, cruise missiles and bombs. The Fourth Phase would require dismantling the warheads themselves. The Fifth Phase would have the fissile “pits” from the warheads disfigured so that they could never be used again. The fissile material from the warheads would be placed under international control. In additions to the five phases, the delivery vehicles would have to either be destroyed or adapted to non-nuclear use. The Convention also prohibits development of, stockpiling of or even threatening to use nuclear weapons. In addition, the production of weapons grade fissile materials would be prohibited.
The UN would create a new agency to administer the Convention. This agency would include a Conference of State Parties, a Technical Secretariat and an Executive Council. All signatories would have to submit a list of all nuclear weapons, weapons grade nuclear materials and delivery vehicles including their locations. The State Parties would also need to create an Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This agency would be in charge of verification, ensuring compliance, decision-making and it would provide a forum for consultation and cooperation between all signatories.
Germany has publicly come out against the new proposal. A spokesperson from the German foreign ministry expressed the fear that the new Convention would be “impractical” because it would “devalue” the existing Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT is the main treaty between the U.S. and Russia that deals with nuclear weapons. Between them, they have over ninety percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. On the other hand, both Russia and the U.S. have recently accused the other of violating the terms of the NPT so perhaps it is time to develop a new international treaty for nuclear disarmament. Germany did vote for the UN forum to be established in 2012. However, Germany did vote against the Convention draft document. France, Russia, the U.S. and eighteen other nations also voted against L41. Australia opposes L41 and agrees with Germany that it would be ineffective and would undermine the current NPT. With Russian and U.S. rejection of the proposal, L41 would seem to be an exercise in futility.
