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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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.
After years of negotiation, Iran finally signed a deal with members of the U.N. Security Council to halt any activity that could lead to the creation of nuclear weapons. Sanctions are being lifted and Iran is rejoining the world marketplace. One new business arrangement involves the U.S. purchasing heavy water from Iran. The U.S. does not produce heavy water and has to buy heavy water from foreign suppliers such as Canada and now Iran. The U.S. buys and imports about seventy five tons of heavy water each year.
Most of the hydrogen in ordinary water consists of the isotope with a single proton in the nucleus of the atom. The isotope of hydrogen with a proton and a neutron in the nucleus is referred to as deuterium. Deuterium atoms comprise about .015% of the hydrogen in ordinary water. Water which contains a higher than normal percentage of deuterium is called “heavy water.” Heavy water used in nuclear reactors may contain over 99% deuterium atoms. Heavy water was first produced in 1932 a few months after the discovery of deuterium. Heavy water reactors such as the CANDU reactors can burn natural uranium because of the neutron moderating capability of heavy water. Heavy water was extensively used in the early days of research on nuclear reactors. It is currently used in plutonium production, nuclear research and some industrial applications.
Iran built a heavy water reactor at Arak in the early years of the 21st century which was a major concern for those fearing that Iran was working on a nuclear weapons program. Such reactors are useful for producing plutonium that can be used to make nuclear warheads. They have limited utility for other purposes. Iran also constructed a heavy water production plant in Arak to supply heavy water to the Arak reactor. Under the Iran nuclear deal, Iran was forced to modify the Arak reactor to make it much less suitable for the production of plutonium. The heavy water plant is still operating.
Under the Iran nuclear deal, for the near future, Iran has to keep its stockpile of heavy water under one hundred and thirty tons. Later, the stockpile level must be below ninety tons. The U.S. and Iran have been working on finding buyers for Iranian heavy water but have been unsuccessful. Iran’s stockpile of heavy water is rising and, unless it is reduced, it will exceed the maximum level established in the deal.
In order to help Iran meet its obligations, the U.S. has just agreed to purchase thirty two tons of heavy water from Iran for eight million six hundred thousand dollars. The U.S. is hoping that its purchase of heavy water will signal to the world that Iran’s heavy water is of high quality and that purchasing it is legitimate. U.S. officials have said that they are just helping Iran get started in developing an international customer base that will be necessary if Iran intends to keep producing heavy water.
The heavy water being purchased will be shipped from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee in the next few weeks. It will be utilized by the ORNL to conduct experiments involve in the use of neutron to explore the nature of some materials. Some of the heavy water may be sold to other organizations for use in the production of semiconductors and fiber optic equipment.
Critics of the purchase in Congress have asked the Obama administration exactly how they were going to pay for the heavy water. Currently Iran is not allowed to enter the U.S. financial system or conduct business in dollars. The Obama administration is working on how and when to let Iran into the U.S. financial system. The critics also wanted assurances that Iran would not use the money from the purchase to fund weapons related nuclear research or terrorist activities.
Aerial photography of Arak heavy water plant:
One of the main selling points in the push to expand nuclear power is the claim that it is “low-carbon” and well suited to fight climate change caused by carbon dioxide emissions coming from fossil fuel power plants and fossil fuel engines. Many state and national governments are currently adopting quotas for low-carbon energy sources and nuclear power proponents are pushing for nuclear power to be classified as low-carbon along with such sources as hydro, solar, wind and biogas. While it definitely emits less carbon dioxide than a coal or natural gas power plant, a nuclear power reactor is not quite as low-carbon as many think.
The Committee on Climate Change of the government of the United Kingdom has called for less than fifty grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) to be emitted in the generation of each kilowatt hour of electricity by the year 2030. It has been suggested that any new nuclear power plants that are constructed in the U.K. starting now should have to follow the fifty gram CO2 limit.Due to the long lead time required for the licensing and construction of a nuclear power plant, it is quite possible that even power plants that are under construction or just starting construction may not be generating power for the grid before 2030.
When considering the entire life cycle of a power source, there are five main areas to analyze. Construction, operation, fuel production, dismantling and waste disposal. Although many analyses of carbon generation by nuclear power plants have been carried out, there is no universally accepted scientifically agreement on how much CO2 is emitted by a nuclear power plant in its lifetime.
Starting in chronological order, construction of a nuclear power plant consumes an enormous amount of concrete which generate CO2 as it cures.
Next, the production of uranium fuel also generates CO2 as fossil fuels are consumed in digging, milling and transportation. As the high grade deposits of uranium are exhausted, the use of fossil fuels and the generation of CO2 will increase because of the greater energy cost of fuel production for deposits with lower percentages of recoverable uranium.
Operations of a nuclear power plant produce little CO2.
Since the problem of nuclear waste disposal has not be solved as yet, it is hard to estimate CO2 emissions associated with waste disposal. Underground repositories will have to dug which will consume fossil fuels. And waste will have to be transported to the repositories which will also consume fossil fuels.
Finally, the costs that will be associated with the decommissioning of nuclear power plants is not well defined so estimates of CO2 generation are difficult but there will be fossil fuels needed for the equipment that dismantles retired nuclear power plants and fossil fuels consumed in the transportation of the debris from the dismantling. This will generate CO2.
A recent meta-study of the most thorough analyses of CO2 emission of nuclear power plants found that over half of the studies said that nuclear power plants generated more than the fifty grams of CO2 limit called for by the CCC. Some studies claimed that CO2 generation of nuclear power plants during their life cycles were under fifty grams but close analysis of those studies showed that they failed to adequately consider the possible contribution of decommissioning and/or waste disposal to the total CO2 emitted.
With respect to renewable power sources, a recent study found that a life cycle analysis of hydropower, biogas, wind and solar all fell under the fifty grams limit for CO2 generation. The cost and efficiency of some renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic solar are rapidly evolving and their CO2 emission should fall even further.
Whatever positive arguments can be made for the construction of nuclear power plants, it appears that lowering CO2 emissions to help mitigate climate change is not one of them.
There is a lot of concern being expressed these days about the possibility that ISIS might be interested in committing nuclear terrorism. There have been indications in the past several years that ISIS is trying to acquire nuclear materials which could be used to construct a dirty bomb.
Moldavia is a nexus for smuggling nuclear materials from Russia and other former members states of the Soviet Union. In a sting conducted several years ago, one of the men apprehended said that members of ISIS were in Moldavia trying to buy nuclear materials for a dirty bomb.
Some of the people involved in the Paris terrorist attack last November were making video surveillance tapes of a Belgian nuclear worker in Brussels. A couple of Belgians who worked on at a nuclear power plant traveled to Syria to join ISIS. One of them subsequently returned to Belgium. It is possible that ISIS was working on a plan to either steal nuclear materials for a dirty bomb or was planning to attack and sabotage a Belgian nuclear power plant and only changed their plans at the last minute because some of their people had been captured.
Pakistan is a nuclear power. It is estimated that they have at least a hundred and twenty nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them. The hostilities between Pakistan and India have led to war several times since the two countries were created in 1949. India also has nuclear weapons and it is feared that nuclear war could break out between Pakistan and India. Recently, Pakistan announced that they were going to create and distribute small tactical nuclear weapons to area along the Pakistan-India border.
Earlier this year, the director of Pakistan’s intelligence agency said that hundreds of Pakistanis were going to Syria to join ISIS. He expressed concern about what these men might do if they returned to Pakistan. A terrorist network in Pakistan has recently been eradicated. It is possible that ISIS may try to obtain nuclear materials from Pakistan to use in the construction of dirty bombs. They might also just kidnap nuclear scientists from Pakistan and force them to help make dirty bombs with uranium from Syria and Iraq.
There is also a growing fear that militants sympathetic to ISIS might be able to steal Pakistani nuclear weapons. In recent years, militants have attacked supposedly secure military facilities in Pakistan. This suggests that they might be able to enter secured nuclear facilities where weapons are stored. On the other hand, Pakistani military officers with experience in nuclear weapons security claim that militants would not be able obtain nuclear weapons, safety mechanisms and trigger code words which are kept in separate locations. A former member of the Pakistani army has pointed out that Pakistan has never had any nuclear materials or nuclear weapons stolen.
Although there are over sixty military groups in northwest Pakistan, the number that are sympathetic to ISIS is relatively small. The estimated number of actual ISIS members is small. The Pakistani army has over seven hundred thousand men. Pakistani officials are confident that their nuclear arsenal is safe from ISIS.
Pakistani Army Emblem:
