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 recently about the problems that the British are having with their project to build two nuclear reactors for the Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station in Somerset. They have contracted for the construction of French Areva reactors based on the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) design. The French intend the EPR design to be their entry into the competition for the next generation of commercial nuclear power reactors. Aside from union and financing problems, one of the things slowing down the British project is a concern over the safety of the design of the French reactors.
The French are also constructing a reactor based on the EPR design in Flamanville, France. Recently, the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) found “serious” problems with the steel housing that contains the reactor core. Chemical and mechanical tests found a high level of carbon in the steel of the pressure vessel. This level of carbon will reduce the mechanical strength of the pressure vessel which has to be able to withstand the enormous heat and pressure of the cooling water circulating through the reactor. The pressure vessel is forty two feet tall and is designed to cope with great mechanical and thermal shocks. The ASN says that the steel in the vessel is far below the required strength by perhaps as much as fifty percent of what is needed.
ASN are demanding that Areva conduct destructive testing on the one hundred and sixteen ton pressure vessel lid that was intended for installation at the Hinkley Point C power plant. EDF, the French utility that is in charge of both the Hinkley Point C project and the construction of the EPR in France have assured the ASN that they will carry out all necessary tests to prove the safety of their design.
This “flagship” project of Areva and the EDF utility is way behind schedule with the expected completion date moving from 2012 to 2017. It is also way over budget as the cost has risen from three and a half billion dollars to over nine billion dollars. The ASN has stated that if Areva and EDF cannot satisfy safety specifications, then ASN will consider stopping the construction of the reactor in France. If the construction on the Flamanville reactor is halted due to the carbon in the steel, then it might be necessary for Areva to build a new base and a new lid for the pressure vessel. This would delay completion even more and would also result in a huge increase in cost.
The British Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is working closely with the ASN in France. They say that they will assume that whatever the ASN concludes with respect to the safety of the EPR at Flamanville will also be assumed to apply to the reactors to be constructed at the Hinkley Point C power plant. If the ASN stops the Flamanville reactor construction on the grounds of safety, the ONR will stop the Hinkley Point project before construction of the reactors even begins. The financing of the Hinkley Point C project has not been worked out yet and EDF says that there is plenty of time to apply lessons learned at Flamanville to the construction of components for use at Hinkley Point C.
Two EPRs are under construction at Taishan, China. The pressure vessels were cast in the same forge where the Flamanville pressure vessel was made. ASN staff are going to China to discuss safety issues with Chinese authorities.
Flamenville reactor construction:
Suggestions that Russia is the frontrunner in a bidding process to build a new nuclear plant in South Africa are untrue, deputy director-general for nuclear energy Zizamele Mbambo said on the sidelines of the Brics summit in Russia on Thursday. iol.co.za
International Isotopes has amended its project participation agreement with New Mexico’s Lea County to reflect the delay in constructing its planned facility to deconvert depleted uranium hexafluoride. world-nuclear-news.org
Following World War II, the Unites States needed a remote area to test nuclear weapons. The Enewetak Atoll and the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands (M.I.) became the main sites of the United States Pacific Proving Grounds. The M.I.are about midway between Australia and Hawaii. They were far enough from shipping lanes and populations centers to be considered a safe place to test nuclear weapons.
The U.S. tests in the M.I. began in 1946 and in 1948 the locate population of fishermen and farmers were moved to another atoll a couple of hundred miles away. Between 1946 and 1958, there were a total of sixty seven nuclear bombs detonated on the two atolls. The explosions covered the islands with irradiated debris including some of the Plutonium-239 used in the warhead. Pu-239 has a half-life of twenty four thousand years.
At the end of the testing, the US Defence Nuclear Agency and the Department of Energy spent eight years cleaning up the contaminated soil. Unfortunately the U.S. Congress failed to allocate sufficient funds to decontaminate the islands to the point where they would be safe for human settlements. The DNA and the DOE would have preferred to dump the contaminated soil and other debris into the deep ocean but this was prohibited by international treaties. The agencies scraped the topsoil off the islands and mixed it with radioactive debris.
In 1979, over one hundred thousand tons of radioactive debris and contaminated topsoil generated by twelve years of nuclear explosions was buried in a three hundred and fifty foot crater on the northern tip of Runit Island. The nuclear waste was then covered by an eighteen inch thick cap of concrete consisting of three hundred and fifty eight concrete panels. The cap is known officially as the Runit Dome. The concrete dome over the crater was never intended to be permanent. The two hundred million dollar cleanup project was only supposed to hold the waste until a permanent solution was found.
Only half of the forty Marshal islands were cleaned up before rising costs caused the cleanup to end. Enjebi island where over half the inhabitants of the Marshall Islands had lived was never cleaned up. In 1980, the original inhabitants of Enewetak were allowed to return to their island. In 1983, the Marshall Islands signed a compact of free association with the U.S. which granted some privileges but not U.S. citizenship. Part of the deal was settling all claims past, present and future with respect to the U.S. Nuclear testing. The government of the M.I. was given responsibility for the Runit Dome waste depository.
The concrete is beginning to crack and the radioactive waste under the dome is starting to leach out into the surrounding soil. A 2013 report by the US Department of Energy found that the level of radioactivity in the soil around the burial hole was higher than the contents of the crater. The rising level of the ocean and more powerful storms and surges brought about climate change are now threatening the buried waste. There is a concern that the dome could be breached and the contents could spill out into the Pacific Ocean. Concerned scientists have pointed out the irony that the nuclear waste left behind by the U.S. tests is now being threaten by the climate change caused by carbon dioxide emitted by nations such as the U.S.
The U.S. government claims that it has no responsibility to help the M.I. deal with the Runit Dome depository. The M.I. is a very poor country and is still affected by the damage that the U.S. testing program did to their traditional livelihoods. health and environment. The international Nuclear Claims Tribunal says that the U.S. testing did at least two hundred and forty million dollars of damage to the M.I. Activists in the M.I. say that with the huge defense budget of the U.S., it could certainly afford to help the M.I. deal with the radioactive legacy of U.S. nuclear testing.
Runit Dome:
One of my goals for this blog is to inform people of the wider political, social and economic context of nuclear issues. The negotiations between members of the UN Security Council and Iran over the Iranian nuclear program have passed the deadline at the end of June but participants are hopeful that they will soon reach and acceptable deal. One of the major issues is the removal of crippling trade sanctions. Iran has serious economic difficulties brought on by the trade sanctions and is eager to find a way to get rid of them.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps was created in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini during the 1979 Islamic revolution which saw Americans taken hostage by the Iranians. However, what many in the U.S. don’t know is that the Corp is not just a military organization. It is also an industrial “empire” with significant political power. The business of the IRGC has grown tremendously over the last decade because of the support of a former president who was a member of the Corp and also from business opportunities created by Western trade sanctions. As Western companies pulled out of Iranian businesses such as the oil industry, the Iranian government awarded huge no-bid contracts to companies controlled by the IRGC.
A recent estimate of the annuals revenues from all of the IRGC’s economic activities is over ten billion dollars. That would be as much as seventeen percent of Iran’s GDP. The IRGC controls major Iranian companies in tourism, transportation, energy, construction, telecommunications and other market sectors. Many of the businesses that profit the Corps are not owned directly by the Corps but are operated by front companies and individuals connected to the Corps. not directly owned by the Crops.
If the Western Trade sanctions are lifted, the Iranian economy will boom and so will the fortunes of the IRGC empire. Lifting of trade sanctions will result in lower insurance, shipping and commission costs will allow Corp businesses to import spare parts, equipment and technology from international companies. To do business in Iran, foreign companies will have to be connected to Iranian companies many of which are be indirectly controlled by the Corps. This will be important because Corps companies such as Khatam Al-Anbia, a huge construction consortium with over eight hundred affiliated companies is itself on a list of banned companies because it is a “proliferator of weapons of mass destruction.”
Considering all this, it is not surprising that the Corps has been a public supporter of the nuclear negotiations. In addition, even though the Corps has proven resourceful in circumventing international trade restrictions, some projects could not be undertaken because Iranian companies lacked technology and expertise required. The removal of the trade sanctions will allow the Corps and its front companies to flourish. Even though the Corps friendly president is gone from office there are still high officials of the Iranian government connected to the Corps. Regrettably, although the Corps is pro-trade, some of its other political positions with international ramifications are considered “hard-line.” Lifting the trade sanctions will result in increasing the power of the IRGC.
Flag of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps:
Ambient office = 105 nanosieverts per hour
