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.
One of the byproducts of the operation of nuclear reactors is the creation of plutonium. Plutonium is a toxic radioactive metal that is primarily useful for the creation of nuclear weapons. Hundreds of tons have been produced by nuclear reactors and every day more is being produced. There has been an attempt to use plutonium in conventional reactors as fuel or in fast breeder reactors to produce more fuel but there has been little success in creating an economically viable use for the metal. There is also great international concern that terrorists could obtain plutonium from the stockpiles scattered around the world and use it to construct a nuclear or dirty bomb. Currently fifteen countries have stockpiles of plutonium.
The U.K. has the biggest stockpile of plutonium in the world. One hundred and forty tons have been produced at the Sellafield facility in northwest England. The U.K. government has no current plans for what to do with the plutonium and the cost of security for the stockpile keeps rising. The cost of maintaining this stockpile is not reported as a cost of nuclear power so proponents continue to claim that nuclear power is economically viable.
Japan intended to create fuel from their plutonium but endless technical problems at their conversion facility have prevented this program from achieving success. They have a stockpile of forty seven tons of plutonium and are uncertain as to whether it will ever be put to a productive use.
This week, two nuclear fuel carriers, the Pacific Egret and Pacific Heron, set out from England on a mission to retrieve a small amount of plutonium from Japan and take it to the United States. They have been fitted with naval cannons and there are heavily armed security squads on both ships.
Japan is sending seven hundred and thirty pounds of plutonium from their Tokai Research Establishment to the U.S. Most of this plutonium was given to Japan by the U.K. for experimental purposes at the Tokai Fast Critical Assembly facility. There has been concern that this particular plutonium is a security threat presenting a “high risk of theft of diversion.” It could be used to make forty nuclear bombs.
The shipment of plutonium from Japan to the U.S. is part of the U.S.-led Global Threat Reduction Initiative also referred to as the Materials Management & Minimization (M3) program. This program was established to removed weapons-grade plutonium and uranium from other countries and ship it to the U.S. for safe storage. The plutonium will be sent to the Savannah River site in South Carolina. The U.S. Department of Energy has plans to import almost two thousand pounds of plutonium currently stored in seven other countries. There are plans for twelve shipments over the next seven years.
International groups that monitor the transport of nuclear fuel and waste around the world are highly critical of this mission. A British watchdog group has issued a statement that said, “The practice of shipping this plutonium to the US as a safeguard is completely undermined by deliberately exposing this prime terrorist material to a lengthy sea transport, during which it will face everyday maritime risks and targeting by those with hostile intentions. We see this as wholly unnecessary and a significant security threat in today’s volatile and unpredictable world.”
U.S. critics of the plan to transport the plutonium to the Savannah River site claim that there is no plan for what to do with the plutonium once it reaches Savannah River. They are afraid that the Savanna River site is being used as a dumping ground for dangerous international nuclear waste.
One of the main problems with plutonium is that the world once prized this metal during the arms race of the Cold War. Now it is a liability. But there are still dreams of using it for fuel and, until those dreams are abandoned, it will be difficult to substantial reduce the amount of plutonium lying around in national stockpiles.
Tokai nuclear research campus:
On 1/19/2016, TEPCO announced they measured Cesium-134/137 from 40.5 % of fish in 20km radius sea area from Fukushima plant. Fukushima plant port is excluded. fukushima-diary.com
J. Winston Porter’s recent opinion piece regarding eliminating energy credits for wind and solar was misleading considering his support of nuclear energy. greenvilleonline.com
A bill that would promote nuclear power in Washington state as a clean power source was passed out of a Senate committee this week, but with some opposition. tri-cityherald.com
The Los Alamos National Laboratory could resume production of plutonium pit triggers for nuclear weapons. washingtontimes.com
Part Two of Two Parts: (Please read Part One first)
5. Proliferation: As more and more nuclear reactors are built, the odds that nuclear materials and nuclear expertise will spread to hostile groups and/or nations. There are global systems to monitor and account for weapons-grade nuclear materials but they would be overwhelmed by the production from fifteen thousand reactors.
6. Uranium abundance: It is estimated that at the current rate of burning uranium in existing reactors, the world supply of easily accessible uranium will be consumed in eighty years. In order to produce fifteen terawatts of power, the current reserves of economically viable uranium would last about five years. After that, the increasing difficulty of obtaining uranium from marginal ore deposits would send the price higher and higher.
7. Uranium extraction from seawater: Although currently uranium is mined from a variety of ore deposits worldwide, it is also possible to extract uranium from seawater. It is estimated that there are over two trillion pounds of uranium in the water of the world’s oceans. If it could be economically extracted, it could supply fifteen terawatts generated by conventional reactors for over five thousand years. However, as uranium is extracted, the concentration drops in the remaining seawater so the cost would rise steadily. Abbott estimates that after about thirty years of extraction, it would become too expensive to be practical.
8. Exotic metals: A variety of exotic metals are used in the construction of a nuclear reactor containment vessel. Hafnium is use to absorb neutrons, beryllium is used to reflect neutrons, zirconium is used in the coating of nuclear fuel rods, and niobium is alloyed with steel to make it resistant to neutron embrittlement. Mining and refining these metals adds to nuclear construction costs and environmental damage. These metals also have other industrial uses that compete in the marketplace. Construction of a nuclear reactor every day would rapidly deplete these metals and lead to an exotic metal supply crisis.
Abbott points out that these problems will be present for the use of thorium as a fuel as well as uranium. He acknowledges that it is possible to use breeder reactors to increase the utility of uranium but he goes on to say that the technology for breeder reactors is more complex and difficult to develop and operate than conventional reactors. The use of breeder reactors would increase the cost and possibility of accidents.
Abbott says that many of these problems would be present for fusion reactors as well as fission reactors but he says that fusion reactors will not be developed in the near future. I will have to take exception to this particular remark by Abbott. There are at least half a dozen fusion projects that may be less than ten years away from producing small inexpensive fusion reactors that will not have many of the problems that he lists above for fission reactors.
No nuclear advocates today are calling for replacing all other energy sources like Abbott’s analysis. There are calls for nuclear power to produce about one terawatt of energy. This might be possible to accomplish in the short run. However, even looking at the problems that seven percent of Abbot’s fifteen thousand reactors would take shows that such a plan is unrealistic.
Abbott concludes that, “Due to the cost, complexity, resource requirements, and tremendous problems that hang over nuclear power, our investment dollars would be more wisely placed elsewhere,” Abbott said. “Every dollar that goes into nuclear power is dollar that has been diverted from assisting the rapid uptake of a safe and scalable solution such as solar thermal.”
