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.
The security of Belgium’s nuclear power reactors has been in the news lately. Terrorists connected to the recent attack in Paris recorded surveillance tapes of a nuclear research official. A security guard for a nuclear power plant was shot a few days ago and his keycard was stolen. There is fear that terrorists are trying to obtain nuclear materials for a dirty bomb or may be planning on sabotaging a nuclear power plant. Belgium apparently has an extensive terrorist network and authorities have been criticized for not doing a better job of breaking it up. There have been problems with nuclear plant security in the past in Belgium.
In 2012, two men who worked at the Doel nuclear power plant in Belgium went to Syria to join ISIS. One was killed and another returned to Belgium. He was arrested and spent some time in jail. Knowledge of Belgium nuclear power plants that both of these men had is troubling to say the least. Such knowledge would be useful to terrorists attacking a nuclear power plant.
In 2013, two people climbed the fence around the Belgian Nuclear Research Center in the city of Mol. They broke into a laboratory and stole equipment.
In 2014, an unknown individual entered Reactor Number 4 at the Doel nuclear power plant and opened a valve which resulted in loss of seventeen thousand gallons of the oil that lubricates the turbines. The damage resulting from this sabotage was so serious that the reactor was shut down for five months. The person responsible was never identified and their motivation is unknown. What is known is that they easily penetrated the plant’s security system. And, it illustrated how easy it can be for someone with the right knowledge to wreck havoc in a nuclear power plant.
Another growing concern is the possibility of terrorists cyberattacks against infrastructure such as nuclear power plants. This year, the computers at the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control in Belgium were hacked and had to be shut down briefly.
There is also concern about the security of the highly-enriched uranium that the U.S. provides to Belgium for use in research reactors. These reactor primarily produce radioactive isotopes for medical use. The highly-enriched uranium, the medical isotopes or the radioactive byproducts of their production could all be used to make dirty bombs if stolen by terrorists.
Security analysts say that although terrorists could breach and damage Belgian nuclear power plants, they would not be able to cause a meltdown. Their powerful explosives could breach the containment vessel and damage the reactor but that would cause the reactor to shut down and there would be minimal danger to the public. Critics of such statements point out that with the right expertise, a well trained team and powerful explosives, terrorists might be able to cause a reactor meltdown.
Hopefully, the security at Belgium’s nuclear facilities will be strengthened and the Belgian authorities will have more success in apprehending members of the terrorist network.
Logo of the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control in Belgium:
India has made a strong commitment to nuclear power. They have plans for the construction of forty six nuclear power reactors to supply the electricity they desperately need. I have blogged before about my reservations about India’s ability to avoid corruption and shoddy construction in their nuclear industry. Concerns have been raised about nuclear regulation in India because the current regulatory agency has little independence and power. There is also the question of liability. India has one of the most severe laws in the world with respect to allocating responsibility for industrial accidents which would include nuclear power plant accidents. There has been a lot of activity lately in India to weaken or circumvent the law because it is inhibiting foreign investment and involvement in Indian nuclear projects.
On March 11, 2016, the Kakrapar nuclear power plant north of Mumbai suffered a loss of coolant. (Ironically, this was exactly five years after the big nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.) There has been little information released about the accident. What is known is that a pressure tube in the reactor burst, allowing the heavy water coolant and light water to escape. The pressure tubes were replaced in 2011 with tubes made from a new zirconium alloy. (These tubes are the same type that leaked at the San Onofre reactor in southern California and resulted in the permanent shut down of the plant.)
The nuclear reaction in the reactor was stopped following the detection of the leak. The leak of a mixture of light and heavy water continued for at least a week. An official of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission said that all the radioactivity was confined to the plant and that there was no threat to the public. The details of exactly what happened have not been revealed and the operators of the plant have not produced a plan for dealing with the problem. Authorities have said that repair will take longer than expected and the investigation of the accident will take time consuming.
The operators said that they needed to vent the containment building which suggests that the release of coolant caused an increase in pressure inside the containment vessel and there may have been contaminated steam that needed to be vented into the atmosphere. There is a venting system at the plant that has filters to trap any radioactive particles in the steam but it is unknown whether or not the filters operated correctly on all of the steam which has been vented.
Although, the Indian government maintains twenty five radiation monitoring stations across the country in the IERMON network to gather information for emergency responses to accidents at nuclear power plants, information with respect to radiation measurements is not made available to the public.
There are seventeen other nuclear reactors in India based on the same design and materials as the Kakrapar reactor. The accident at Kakrapar have raised concerns about the entire fleet of this type of reactors and there have been calls to shut down all of them until the cause of the accident at Kakrapar has been thoroughly investigated.
The weaknesses of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission and the lack of information on the Kakrapar accident do not inspire confidence in the safety of the Indian nuclear fleet and the new reactors being constructed or planned. As I have said in the past, one of the things that will sink nuclear power will be rejection by the public. Kakrapar is an example of a governmental response to a nuclear accident that will definitely damage the reputation of nuclear power.
Kakrapar nuclear power station:
