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.
Eldorado Nuclear Ltd (ENL), a uranium mining operation, shipped uranium and radium ore to Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada by barge from its Port Radium mine on Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories starting in the 1930s. At Fort McMurray, the ore was transferred to rail cars for shipment to the ENL refinery in Port Hope. The Port Radium mine closed in 1960.
In 1982, the Canadian government began a survey of sites where there was radioactive pollution. The roads around Port Radium were found to be contaminated. More contaminated areas were found around Fort McMurray.
The Beacon Hill landfill is located near Fort McMurray and managed by the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) is a Crown corporation that has the responsibility for managing a radioactive waste section of the Beacon Hill landfill. Day to day operations of the radioactive section are managed by the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office. The radioactive landfill section was created in 1992 for the purpose of storing low-level radioactive wastes which was the result of government cleanup of spills of radioactive materials that had occured in the area from the 1930s up through the 1950s. Radioactive waste was buried in the landfill through the 1990s and the landfill was covered over in 2003.
The radioactive waste at the landfill consists of low-level uranium and radium ore residue which is mixed with soil. The waste was then placed in a self-contained cell at the landfill which was then covered by a thick, low permeability layer of soil. A final layer of clean top soil covers the cell. There are about forty five thousand cubic yards of low-level radioactive waste in the landfill.
A terrible wildfire started on May 1st southwest of Fort McMurray. It is unclear exactly what started the fire, but high temperatures, strong winds and a dry winter all contributed to its ferocity. By May 3rd, it had reached Fort McMurray, destroying thousands of homes and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
By May 10th, the fire had burned over the Beacon Hill landfill near Fort McMurray including the radioactive waste section. CNL representative said that the fire had only damaged the grass above the radioactive waste dump and that there had been no release of radioactive materials. The CNL said that there was no danger to the public. Although the vegetation on top of the radioactive waste was burned, the soil covering the waste cannot burn. The AECL is closely monitoring the situation and will find and report any problems with the radioactive waste section of the landfill.
In view of the fact that over eighty percent of the homes in the Beacon Hill area of Fort McMurray were destroyed, it is likely that the Beacon Hill landfill will have to be expanded to take all the rubble and debris left over from the ravages of the wildfire. Fortunately for the inhabitants of Beacon Hill and Fort McMurray, at least they won’t have to worry about exposure to radioactive materials.
Fort McMurray:
Germany started working on developing an atomic bomb before the U.S. entered World War II. The program went through a number of changes of name and personnel. The Nazis were using heavy water as a moderator which is not as effective graphite control rods that were used in the early reactors constructed bin the U.S. which retarded Nazi nuclear development efforts. During the war, Norwegian saboteurs were sent into occupied Norway by the Allies to destroy a plant being used to produce heavy water for the Nazi nuclear research program. The destruction of the plant also slowed their development. A lot of Jewish mathematicians and scientists either left Germany during Hitler’s reign left or were persecuted.
Ultimately, the Nazis invested much more in the development of their rocket program than their nuclear weapons program which was ultimately unsuccessful. Following the war, the Allies scrambled to recruit German nuclear scientists.
In a book published in 2005 titled Hitlers Bombe it was claimed by the author that the Nazi scientists actually successfully tested some sort of nuclear device in Ohrdruf in Thuringia state in Germany in March of 1945. The author quotes an eyewitness who supposedly saw the test. He also cites references which claim that there was another test on the island of Rugen in the Baltic Sea in 1944. However, the author admits that he has no proof of any of these claims. Later, there were tests of the soil at the sites where the tests were supposed to have taken place and no radioactive materials consistent with nuclear explosions were found. The bottom line is that there is no evidence that the Nazi’s nuclear scientists ever successfully constructed and tested working atomic bombs.
Now a German pensioner named Peter Lohr claims that he used ground penetrating radar with 3-D technology to locate five large metal objects buried in a cave in the Jonas in Thuringia state in Germany. He says that the radar traces of two of the objects are consistent with primitive atomic bombs. Lohr believes that the five objects were constructed and buried by the Nazis during World War II. He is concerned that if he is right, there might be a danger of a nuclear disaster from the buried objects because they are metal objects that have been rusting and corroding for seventy years.
It is known that the Jonas valley was the site of secret Nazi military construction. Thousands of slaves from concentration camps were used to dig extensive tunnels with thousands of caves, bunkers and storerooms. It is not known exactly what the Nazis were doing in the Jonas valley but it is believed that they did not finish what they were working on. Some say that the Nazi leadership intended to stage their last stand there. Allied trooped entered and liberated the Jonas Valley in April of 1945. All documents relating to the valley were classified for a hundred years.
Last year, a documentary titled The Search for Hitler’s Atom Bomb was released. In the documentary, there are quotes from sealed Russian and U.S. sources which suggest that the Nazis were very close to perfecting nuclear weapons when World War II ended. If they had succeeded, the world would be very different today.
Nazi experimental nuclear pile at Haigerloch:
Part 2 of 2 Parts – Please read Part 1 first.
In my last post, I talked about how China and Pakistan were conspiring to deny India membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). India’s membership is strongly supported by some members of the NSG such as the United States. China is having Pakistan apply for membership in NSG at the same time as India applies because it knows that that Pakistan’s application will be turned down. Then China will veto India’s application and try to appear neutral because Pakistan is being denied membership. The U.S. is not happy about this.
China is defending its position on Indian membership because India has not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NSG was formed out of concern that nuclear technology intended for developing nuclear power could be diverted to nuclear weapons programs. The NSG is seen as an additional safe guard against nuclear weapons proliferation in conjunction with the NPT. China wants to make signing the NPT a prerequisite for membership in the NSG.
U.S. representatives have said that the Obama administration feels that India has “met missile technology control regime requirements.” I guess this is another way of saying that India is abiding by the terms of the NPT even though it has not signed the NPT. India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons but neither have signed the NPT.
China currently has a deal with Pakistan to build three nuclear reactors. China claims that that the three reactor deal is covered under a previous agreement that China has signed with Pakistan before China became a member of the NSG. Critics of the Chinese position point out that China intends to ship nuclear technology to Pakistan that did not exist before China became a member of the NSG. However, other members of the NSG are not exerting pressure on China over the Pakistan nuclear deal. China has said that if India is allowed to enter the NSG without signing the NPT, then China would consider ignoring the NSG entirely in its nuclear technology exports to Pakistan.
In much the same way as the U.S. has been sponsoring Indian membership in the NSG, China has been trying to get Pakistan into the NSG. China claims that Pakistan has “has taken steps towards its mainstreaming into the global non-proliferation regime”. Critics of allowing Pakistan into the NSG point to past incidents of Pakistan selling nuclear technology to Rogue regimes such as Libya, Iran and North Korea. While Pakistan did put the nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan who was responsible for much of this illicit nuclear technology transfer under house arrest, critics of Pakistan say that they have not really seriously punished him for his actions. It is thought by some that A.Q. Khan was merely the front man for nuclear trade that was approved of by the Pakistani government for political and economic reasons.
Unfortunately, regardless of treaties and safeguards, if nations want to divert dual use nuclear technology from peaceful uses to weapons programs, it will be difficult to stop them after the fact. We are entering a dangerous period in which nuclear armed nations are turning away from disarmament and investing heavily in upgrading their nuclear weapons programs. This includes the U.S., Russia, China, Pakistan and India.
