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 blogged in the past that one of the big dangers with nuclear power is the fact nuclear power plants are prime targets for terrorism and warfare. After the recent Paris attack, there was evidence that some of the same terrorists might have been working on an attack on a nuclear facility in Brussels, Belgium. Terrorists could take over a nuclear plant and try to cause a meltdown. They could try detonating explosives to drain the spent fuel cooling pool which would lead to explosive release of radioactive materials when the exposed fuel rods spontaneously caught fire. The danger during warfare would be that an attacker could deliberately bombard a nuclear power plant or that the plant could be accidentally damaged. Of course nuclear plants vary in their vulnerability and the probability that they might be involved in a conflict.
The Metsamor nuclear power plant in Armenia was built by the Soviet Union in 1976. It is similar in design to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant which was the site of a terrible accident in 1986. The Metsamor plant has no emergency cooling system.
Metsamor was closed after an earthquake in 1988. It was restarted during the Nagorno-Karabakh war which ended in 1994. Metsamor reached the end of its design life time in 2010. Armenia was planning to decommission the plant in 2010 but it continues to operate and Armenia now says that it use to plant to generate electricity until 2026. It generates about forty percent of the electricity for Armenia.
A lot nuclear materials is being smuggled through Armenia and Georgia. Recently, smuggler were arrested while trying to smuggle hundreds of millions of dollars worth of U-238. The great fear is that terrorists will purchase nuclear materials on the Armenian black market to build dirty bombs.
The Nagorno-Karabakh region was occupied by Armenia during the war and is poorly monitored. It is estimated that there are at least thirty different locations in N-K where spent nuclear fuel removed from Metsamor is being buried with little concern for safety. This is a great threat to the environment in that area. In addition, terrorists could dig up the buried waste for use in dirty bombs.
The European Union is very concerned about the continued operation of this old nuclear power plant and the disposal of its spent fuel. E.U. analysts say that it would be impossible for Armenia to upgrade Metsamor to meet current international standards for nuclear power reactor safety. The E.U. has repeatedly called for the closure of the plant and even went so far as to offer Armenia over two hundred million dollars to help with the closure of Metsamor but Armenia turned them down.
Armenia is close to the Middle East, the site of many recent conflicts and much terrorist activity. This proximity increases the chances that Middle Eastern terrorists may gain access to the materials they need for dirty bombs. It is to the interest of the whole world for a solution to be found for Armenian power needs that does not include the continued operation of the Metsamor nuclear power plant.
Metsamor nuclear power plant:
Yesterday, I blogged about a new Russian nuclear fuel called REMIX that is under development. Russia is working on contracts to build many new reactors around the world in the next few decades. They are also planning on being a major fuel supplier to the world’s nuclear reactors in the coming decades. One of the legacies of the Soviet Union consists of nuclear power reactors in the countries of eastern Europe which were once members of the Soviet Union. Russia has been supplying these reactors with fuel since the fall of the Soviet Union. However, some problems have risen with respect to their fuel supply business with Ukaine.
Since pro-Russian government fell in Ukraine several years ago and the Russians annexed the Crimea, former arrangements between Russia and Ukraine have suffered. A week ago, Rosatom, the Russian owned nuclear company, announced that it was going to halt the removal of spent nuclear fuel from Ukrainian Soviet-era nuclear power reactors due to the failure of Ukraine to pay for the fuel removal services. Rosatom has a contract to remove and recycle Ukrainian spent nuclear fuel but the first scheduled removal was stopped. Ukraine has stated its intentions to build a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel inside Ukraine but they will not be recycling the fuel.
On the other hand, Rosatom had a contract to supply nuclear fuel to the Ukrainian nuclear power reactor fleet that predated the change of governments. Years ago, Ukraine tried to use Westinghouse nuclear fuel assemblies in place of Russian nuclear fuel in some of its reactors but there were technical problems and the attempt was abandoned. Now Ukraine has once again decided to use U.S. nuclear fuel from Westinghouse in its power reactors.
This week, the head of the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s Department of Non-Proliferation and Arms Control expressed concerns with the Ukrainian decision. He stated that Ukraine’s decision was a political one based on the recent tensions between the new government and Russia. He said that they were not taking technical and economic realities into consideration and that there would probably be technical problems caused by the new fuel. He claimed that the U.S. nuclear fuel assemblies were untested and that Ukraine was foolish to allow itself to be used as a testing ground for the new U.S. fuel. He also referenced the previous failed attempt to use Westinghouse nuclear fuel.
Ukraine is in the process of adapting some of its nuclear power reactors to be able to vary their production of power instead of always operating at full power as is now the practice. This is not a simple task to accomplish. The Russian Foreign Ministry official also commented that the combination of adapting Ukraine reactors to variable power production and the use of new and untested U.S. nuclear fuel would seriously increase the dangers of technical problems and accidents.
I do have to point out that it is ironic that during the same week, Russian spokesmen for nuclear related agencies and companies have criticized Ukraine for canceling nuclear fuel contracts and criticized Ukraine for failing to pay for contracted nuclear fuel services. If Ukraine can’t pay its bills, perhaps it is just as well that Ukraine cancelled nuclear fuel purchases from Russia.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Building:
For decades, there has been an unstable balance between various nuclear arsenals of countries that are hostile to each other. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union kept careful track of nuclear weapons possessed by the other and raced each other to keep up with perceived changes in threats. There have been a number of international nuclear weapons reduction treaties aimed at stopping this race to have nuclear superiority.
One big issue was the problem of anti-missile systems. If your enemy saw you building a system that could stop their missiles, then they might be afraid that you intended to attack them when your anti-missile system was completed. Recently, China declared that the anti-missile system that the U.S. is installing in South Korea could upset the nuclear deterrent balance in the South China Sea. Russia in threatening to put intermediate range nuclear missiles in Kalingrad in Eastern Europe to counter balance the anti-missile system that the U.S. is installing in Romania. Russia is developing what are called hypersonic reentry vehicles for nuclear warheads specifically to defeat anti-missile defense systems.
The U.S. is worried about Russian work on robot submersible drones that could carry nuclear warheads up to the coast of the continental U.S. with little possibility of interception. The Russians are worried about the new nuclear bomb being developed by the U.S. as a tactical nuclear weapon. The new bomb is steerable and highly accurate which increases in the possibility of use.
Nuclear missile-carrying submarines are an important delivery system for nuclear warheads. They are difficult to track at sea. If a country is attacked and their land based missile launch facilities and nuclear bombers are destroyed, their enemy has to take into account that the nuclear submarines of the country that was attacked could still destroy the attacking country. Back in the Ford administration, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld claimed, without any proof, that the Soviet Union had developed a new type of submarine that was impossible to detect.
Now new systems are being developed to detect and track nuclear missile-carrying submarines. With the successful development and deployment of such systems, once again, the deterrent balance in going to be challenged. A new report by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists offers a look at some of these new submarine tracking technologies.
A program called the Distributed Agile Submarine Hunting program would scatted deep ocean sonar nodes over large areas of the ocean floor. The nodes would be able to monitor a broad field of view above to detect and track submarines. It seems to me that this type of system would be very expensive and complex. In addition, there would be ways to destroy these nodes or, at the very least, confuse them with noise to the point where they would be useless. The country that deployed them would know something had gone wrong but would not know exactly what.
Another new system is called the Submarine Hold at RisK or SHARK. These would be unmanned undersea remote controlled drones that, once a submarine had been detected by a system like the nodes mentioned above, would be able to “silently” approach and shadow it. The problem with this system is that a lot of these SHARKS would have to be spread over the areas where the nodes had been planted which would be very expensive. In addition, the new submarine detection systems would make it difficult, if not impossible, to hide the stalking drone from the submarine that was being followed.
If major nuclear power such as the U.S., China and Russia can keep up with each other in the development of these new submarine tracking systems, perhaps the balance of deterrence can be preserved. On the other hand, if one country gets too far ahead of the others, then the nuclear planners for the countries that have been left behind might decide that the best policy would be to deliver a massive nuclear first strike against the country that is in the lead. Strategic military planners might want to think twice before ramping up yet another arms race that could destabilize the nuclear deterrent balance.
SHARK drone submarine hunter:
