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.
Part 1 of 2 Parts
The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is a multinational body concerned with reducing nuclear proliferation by controlling the export and re-transfer of materials that may be applicable to nuclear weapon development and by improving safeguards and protection on existing materials.” It was founded in 1974 after India detonated a nuclear device. Nations that had already signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty decided that additional prohibitions were needed to prevent the export of nuclear equipment, materials or technology. A list of controlled exports was drawn up and regularly updated over the years. Forty eight nations currently participate in the NSG.
In 2006, there was a concerted effort to either admit India to the NSG or to give India a special waiver for imports of nuclear technology. After intense diplomatic efforts on the part of the U.S. and other nations, India was given the special waiver. Now Pakistan and China are working together to block formal India’s admission to the NSG.
Pakistan is not a member of the NSG. When India requested an opportunity to present its case for admission to the NSG to the NSG Consultative Group meeting in late April, Pakistan immediately requested an opportunity to apply for NSG admission. Analysts say that Pakistan knew that the NSG would not grant its request.
China has said that it will back the entry of both Pakistan and India but will not back India’s entry if Pakistan is not also admitted. Analysts say that China told Pakistan to make its doomed request deliberately so that it could appear to be even handed and fair when it supported denying India admission without Pakistan being admitted.
Sources say that Pakistan is now going to write to each member of the NSG to request admission to the NSG in anticipation of a move by India to follow the same route and contact all members about its possible admission. There will be a NSG plenary session in June where all the member nations will be represented. Apparently China is assuming that most of the NSG member nations will each deny the Pakistani request and China can once again use this denial as an excuse to call for denying India membership.
While China wants to appear to be neutral with respect to Pakistani and Indian membership in the NSG, China and India have had serious differences for decades and analysts say that China is using this opportunity to make India’s expansion of nuclear power more difficult. The Chinese government recently told the President of Pakistan that “if India is allowed to join the NSG and Pakistan is deprived of NSG membership, Beijing will veto the move and block the Indian entry”. A former Pakistani ambassador to the U.N. was recently quoted as saying that “that India will not make it to the NSG despite US support since China was committed to both India and Pakistan joining the NSG at the same time, and would block any move for a unilateral admission of India.”
The U.S. position is that Pakistan cannot be admitted to the NSG because it has a history of selling nuclear technology to rogue states. There is also the fear that new tactical nuclear devices being deployed by Pakistan to their border with India could easily find their way into the hands of terrorists. China is well aware of this fact and is using Pakistan to slow down India’s emergence as a serious international economic and trade rival to China. India is not going to be fooled by this charade and China may well suffer unwanted trade repercussions for playing this game.
Please read Part 2
I have blogged before about the economic difficulties faced by some nuclear power stations in the U.S. Several nuclear power reactors have already been permanently closed because they could no longer compete in the energy marketplace. Now another U.S. nuclear power facility may be headed for the chopping block.
The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station is located between Fort Calhoun and Blair Nebraska near the Missouri River. Construction began in 1966 and the Station went into operation in 1973. The Station is owned by the Omaha Public Power District of Omaha, Nebraska and it is operated by Exelon Nuclear Partners. The Station represents about a quarter of the generating capacity of the OPPD. At four hundred and eighty four megawatts, the single reactor at the Station is the smallest nuclear power reactor operating in the United States. It currently serves over three hundred thousand customers in southeastern Nebraska.
New operations regulations, volatile energy prices, falling costs of fossil fuels and new environmental regulations have all impacted the nuclear power market in recent years. Small reactors like Fort Calhoun are especially vulnerable to the recent market changes. Safety problems at the Station also add to its financial problems. It was shut down between April of 2011 and December of 2013 because of flooding by the Missouri River that required extensive repairs and other safety problems that had to addressed. The cost of recommissioning the Station was over one hundred and forty million dollars.
In April of this year, the chairman of the OPPD board requested a report on the potential of different power sources for the future. The president and CEO of OPPD just reported to the utility’s board of directors that the Station is not financially viable. He recommended permanently shutting down the Station at the end of this year. Previously, the Station was said to be an important component in the future of the utility because it generated low-carbon electricity which helps combat climate change. The board expects to vote on the recommendations in the report during the meeting on June 16th. The board of directors of OPPD has set a goal of having their rates twenty percent under the rates for electricity in neighboring states.
The president of Grain Belt Energy, a utility company in Lincoln, Nebraska said that the cost of electricity generated by nuclear power was about fifty dollars a megawatt hour. The current market price for electricity is about twenty dollars a megawatt hour. So ratepayers purchasing electricity from a nuclear power plant are losing about thirty dollar for every megawatt hour. It has been estimated that closing the Station could save between seven hundred million and nine hundred million dollars over the next twenty years.
If the Station is closed at the end of this year as recommended, it will result in lost jobs for its seven hundred and fifty workers. In order to mitigate the economic impact of closure on the employees, the OPPD said that it intends to develop a retraining program for Station workers.
Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station:
