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 posted about the process of vitrification in the past. Radioactive waste is mixed with sand and other chemicals and then the mixture is subjected to high temperature that melts it. After it solidifies, a glass cylinder is the result. This can be buried in a geological repository. The reason for vitrification is to prevent the possible leaching of radioactive materials out of the storage area by the flow of ground water. There are a variety of specific technologies and chemical mixture for vitrification. In addition to vitrification, there are also other approaches to embedding radioactive waste in some sort of solid material other than glass to immobilize it and prevent leaching. There is a new system which embeds the waste in synthetic rock being developed in Australia.
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) “is Australia’s national nuclear organization and the centre of Australian nuclear expertise. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization Act 1987 prescribes its general purpose. The purpose is translated into action through corporate drivers of vision, mission and strategic goals.” One of the missions of ANSTO is “to operate nuclear science and technology based facilities, for the benefit of industry and the Australian and international research community.”
In 2012, plans were announced for a nuclear medicine plant and a pilot plant for radioactive waste disposal at the ANSTO Lucan Heights site near Sydney. These two plants are referred to as the ANSTO Nuclear Medicine project. A molybdenum-99 plant and a waste disposal plant are under construction and both should be completed by the end of 2016. The idea is for the waste treatment facility to process waste from the manufacture of the molybdenum-99. The waste will be mixed with chemicals and baked into what is being called synthetic rock or Synroc.
The first step of the Synroc process consists of mixing the radioactive waste with chemical additives that result in a thick liquid. Then the liquid is dried and a granular powder is left. The powder is heated and then put into cans. The cans are put into a device that subjects them to intense heat and pressure which fuses the powder in a solid and causes the can to contract around the cylinder of solidified waste. One of the benefits of the Synroc process is to significantly reduce the volume of radioactive waste.
ANSTO technicians are working on demonstration models of different stages of the Synroc process. As stages are successfully embodied in working hardware, additional stages will be added. Ultimately, when the entire chain of hardware has been developed that can carry out all of the stages of the process, an industrial facility will be constructed based on the completed demonstration design. The creation of the demonstration system should help to answer engineering design challenges before the actual working plant is constructed.
Australia is in the process of siting, licensing and constructing a national facility for the management of radioactive waste. Following the completion of the facility, the Synroc cans created at the Lucas Heights facility from the molybdenum-99 production will be shipped to the disposal facility.
Synroc waste can:
Part Two of Two Parts. (Please read Part One first)
The problem with writing about evolving situations is that you may have to revise what you wrote on a day to day basis. That is what has happened with this blog post.
In the past week, Turkey has been firing artillery shells into Syria at Kurdish positions that threaten their alleged ISIS supply corridor. In the meantime, Saudi Arabia has been massing troops at their northern border to hold “military exercises.” They have also sent fighter planes to Turkey for possible use in northern Syria. There are rumors that Turkey and Saudi Arabia may be considering sending troops into Syria to topple the Assad regime.
If Turkey and Saudi Arabia do attack the Assad regime in Syria, then it is entirely possible, considering the threats that Putin has made to use tactical nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe, that the Russians might consider the use of such tactical nuclear weapons in Syria if they are being pushed back in a ground war. If the Russians push Turkish forces back and cross the border into Turkey, then the U.S. and NATO are bound by treaty to respond because Turkey is a member of NATO. We could be drawn into a war with Russia. If nuclear weapons had already been used in Syria, then the risk of escalation into World War III would rise.
UPDATE:
Robert Parry, an investigative journalist, reported yesterday that Russian officials have actual said what I was worried about above. Russia only has about 20,000 troops in Syria. Turkey and Saudi Arabia could send hundreds of thousands of men into Syria to support the rebels that they back and to topple the Assad regime. Highly place Russian sources have told Parry that Russia is “prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to save their troops in the face of a Turkish-Saudi onslaught.” He went on to point out the danger of escalation into a nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO.
Parry says that the only person who could prevent a Turkish-Saudi invasion of Syria is the U.S. President Obama. He goes on to say that apparently Obama is not prepared to forbid Turkey and/or Saudi Arabia from such action but he has told them that the U.S. would not support any such attack. The U.S. position is complicated by the fact that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations have been supporting rebel groups in Syria in the fight against Assad. Critics of U.S. involvement point out that some of the Syrian Rebel groups have links to Al Qaeda and even ISIS.
SECOND UPDATE:
NATO officials have recently stated that they would not be drawn into a war between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Russia. Normally Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which is the collective defense clause, would be invoked if any member nation is attacked. However, foreign ministers of NATO members such as Luxembourg, France and Germany have made it clear that they will not support Turkey in a war in the Middle East that Turkey provoked and that they would like to see the situation in Syria be “de-escalated.” Russia has called for an immediate meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the increasing Turkish aggression on the Turkey-Syrian border.
I am going to go ahead and post this essay although I realize that it may well be outdated by developments in the near future. I hope that cooler heads prevail and that conflict in the Middle East does not bring down human civilization.
Russian ORT-21 Tochka Missile:
Nuclear Expert in Japan: Plutonium “is everywhere… it is everywhere” after Fukushima reactors exploded. enenews.com
The US Department of Energy has agreed to grant a permit to support a small modular reactor project within the boundary of its Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site. world-nuclear-news.org
