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 blogged before about problems with disposal of radioactive filters that look like big socks used to trap radioactive particles coming out of fracking well operation. Some of these radioactive elements have half-lives of over fifteen hundred years. North Dakota has a law against dumping these sock filters in landfills so they are supposed to be transported to other states for proper disposal. Instead, a lot of frackers are just dumping them by the road or in community dumpsters and walking away.
Annually, the oil and gas industry in the U.S. produces over twenty billion barrels of wastewater and millions of tons of solid wastes including naturally occurring radioactive materials from the soil such as uranium. Some of this liquid and solid waste contains so much radioactivity that it is dangerous to be close to it.
Unfortunately, unlike other U.S. industries that produce toxic liquid and solid wastes, the oil and gas industry enjoys an exemption from the national environmental laws that govern the handling of toxic waste. The EPA issued a ruling in 1988 to this effect. This means that the responsibility for regulation of such waste falls on individual states. In the past ten years, many states have just not been able to deal with the rising tide of waste from shale drilling. It may be that the state regulators have not dealt with drilling operations in the past. Sometimes there are not sufficient state funds to ramp up environmental protection. In some cases, powerful oil and gas interests are able to buy politicians who prevent strong regulations from being passed or enforced.
Recently, the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) issued a report on the situation. They reviewed the state regulations for dealing with radioactive waste from oil and gas operations in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The report said, “…state regulatory frameworks remain sparse, where they exist at all.”
The report gives details of a series of illegal dumping incidents in the state of North Dakota These incidents involve the filter socks that I have talked about before. In 2014, an Associated Press investigation found that there have been over one hundred and fifty attempts to dump radioactive waste at landfills in North Dakota that were not licensed to accept such waste. In all of these cases, state regulators did not fine or impose any sort of sanction on any of the entities which attempted the dumping. The WORC report points out that North Dakota is the only state that has what can be considered a “relatively comprehensive” regulatory framework for dealing with the radioactive materials generated by oil and gas drilling operations.
The Chairman of the WORC said that “Oil and gas companies essentially handle and dispose of radioactive waste at their own discretion. Some have resorted to the cheapest option, illegally dumping it.” As oil prices have dropped over the past year, concern has risen about illegal waste disposal as a way of reducing operating costs.
Environmentalists are very worried that if radioactive waste is dumped in landfills that are not constructed to isolate it, rainfall and water runoff could carry the radioactive particles into rivers, streams and ground water that provide drinking water. The companies treating water for human consumption may not have any idea that there are radioactive contaminants in their sources. It is estimated that over five hundred thousand tons of drill cuttings and shale gas waste products have been dumped in municipal landfills around the U.S.
Last August, a coalition of environmental groups stated that they were preparing to sue the EPA to force it to draft regulations to control the radioactive and toxic waste generated by the oil and gas industry. The EPA had assumed that the states were capable of drafting and enforcing regulations that would be adequate. In spite of efforts by Western states to improve and expand radioactive waste regulation, they are still far from accomplishing that goal.
Rolls-Royce plans to help Rosatom avoid falling foul of regulators by sharing the lessons it has learned from producing instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for the nuclear power industry. world-nuclear-news.org
Nuclear will be no good as climate change mitigation action says South Australia’s Royal Commission. nuclearnewsaustralia.wordpress.com
Most of the 99 operating nuclear power plants in the U.S. were built in the 1970s. They were originally licensed by the NRC to operate for forty years. Having reached the end of their original intended lifespan, most of the aging power reactors have been relicensed for another twenty years. The wisdom of giving these aging reactors another twenty years of operation has been questioned. Now there is a call for even longer license extensions.
A group of nuclear power plant operators has formed under the leadership of Dominion Resources Inc. to lobby for extending the licenses of these old reactors even further. Dominion announced early in November that it would seek to have the NRC issue an extension for power reactors beyond the additional twenty years that have been granted. The NRC will release a draft report in December that will cover what safety measures will be needed in order for aging power reactors to be relicensed beyond the current twenty years.
As might be expected, this has stirred a serious backlash among those opposed to nuclear power. They point out that with every year that passes, the risk created by operating nuclear reactors past their original licensed lifespan increases the probability of breakdowns and accidents. Without increasing serious risk management of these aging reactors, the activists say that we are courting disaster.
Long term bombardment of neutrons makes both metals and concrete in nuclear power reactors more brittle. As components that were built decades ago wear out, it becomes harder and harder to find replacements that are an exact match. Aging power reactors in the U.S. are wearing out and springing leaks that interfere with continuous operation. At Davis Besse in Ohio, it was discovered in 2002 that corrosion had nearly eaten all the way through a steel reactor cap. Piping in Vermont Yankee has been springing leaks lately. And there is always the issue of spent nuclear fuel. The cooling ponds of U.S. reactors are filling up with spent fuel which will have to be moved soon. Without a permanent geological repository, temporary dry cask storage is the only choice but it will be expensive to construct and vulnerable to adverse weather, leakage, and terrorist attacks.
If this new round of license extensions is granted by the NRC, one of the first reactors to benefit would be at the Surry plant in Virginia which is owned by Dominion. A final decision on the licensing extension will not be made until after 2020. It is believed that if the U.S. extends the licenses for commercial power reactors, this will influence the global nuclear power industry and other countries will follow suit. It is currently estimated that about thirty-eight percent of global nuclear power generation will be retired by 2030. The U.S. is going to lead the retirement simply because its nuclear power reactor fleet is the oldest in the world.
Recently a power reactor was shut down in Florida because it was becoming too expensive to repair and keep in operation. It is likely that with cheap natural gas and competition from renewables, more of these old reactors will be shut down because they are not longer competitive even if they are still licensed. In the end, it may not matter if the old reactors have extended licenses or not. They may wind up being shuttered simply because they are too expensive to operate. Time will tell.
Corrosion in Davis Besse reactor cap:
Kansai Electric seeks to operate aging reactor beyond 40-year limit. japantoday.com
Iran has called on the IAEA and world leaders to close the investigation of the so-called “Possible Military Dimensions” of its nuclear program – the PMD file. Otherwise they will have to choose between the case and the nuclear deal. rt.com
Nuclear power is the only source that can provide the baseload electricity that South Africa needs to sustain its long-term economic growth while reducing its carbon emissions, according to a panel of experts from industry, civil society and academia. world-nuclear-news.org
171 Bq/Kg from a school playground sand in Kamakura city / Jumped up over 6 times as last year. fukushaima-diary.com
Thirteen prefectures say no to hosting nuclear waste depository. japantimes.co.jp
Why nuclear energy is Obama’s Nixon-to-China opportunity. aei.org
Indigenous Groups Pulled Out Of Sydney’s Climate March When Nuclear Power Came To The Party. buzzfeed.com
