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.
Nuclear power is often praised for its low-carbon emissions as a way of slowing climate change being fed by the use of fossil fuels worldwide. I have blogged before about the overlap between radioactive contamination and oil drilling. There are filters like huge socks that capture naturally occurring radioactive materials brought up from fracking wells. Disposal of these radioactive filters is causing a major problem in North Dakota. There is overlap between oil drilling and nuclear power being planned for the Arctic.
Russia is working on the development of floating nuclear reactors that could provide power for ports, industries and offshore oil and gas drilling in the Arctic. The first Russia floating reactor design is called the Akademik Lomonosov. It will be about four hundred and fifty feet long and will be able to produce seventy megawatts of electricity. The current design will have to be towed because it has no engines for propulsion. Future designs are being planned that will have independent mobility. The small floating reactors will be carried on icebreaking hulls so they will be able to plow through ice on the Arctic Ocean. Once the prototype has been developed and tested, the plan is to mass produce these floating reactors.
Russia began construction of the Akademik Lomonosov in 2007 but there have been delays that have put the project behind schedule. Now Russia hopes to have an operational floating reactor by 2016. This first reactor will be used to power Pevek, a town on the coast of the East Siberian Sea. They will dock the reactor near the town and run a cable to the town’s power grid.
Rosatom, the Russian government owned nuclear consortium has announced that fifteen countries have expressed interest in purchasing Russian floating nuclear power reactors. China, Algeria, Indonesia, Malaysia and Argentina have been mentioned as potential customers. Last year, Russia and China signed an agreement to cooperate in the construction of one of these floating nuclear power plants.
A Canadian company named Dunedin Energy Systems is also working on small floating nuclear reactors which could provide energy for remote mining projects in Canada’s Arctic region. The company’s president points out that floating nuclear power reactors have been in use for decades to power nuclear vessels. This may be true, but these reactors are special rugged designs built to cope with turbulent ocean conditions and potential combat damage. They are built by national militaries and are very expensive. Nuclear reactors for commercial vessels have never caught on.
I am concerned that these small floating nuclear reactors may not be held to the high construction and regulatory standards of military vessel reactors. The Russians have already polluted the Barents Sea near their border with Norway by sinking nuclear reactors for disposal. Now the radioactive pollution is threatening Norwegian fishing grounds. The Arctic ocean is a harsh environment. There have already been problems with drilling rigs being damaged by storms. I think that have floating nuclear reactors in the Arctic ocean is a very bad idea and could lead to serious nuclear accidents.
Artist’s concept of the Akademik Lomonosov:
Ambient office = 100 nanosieverts per hour
I have done several blog posts on nuclear fusion research. I posted one article on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project. ITER is a huge project to build a tokamak nuclear fusion reactor in order to move from purely experimental fusion research to an actual system to generate electricity that could be a prototype for commercial power reactors. Today, I am going to delve into some of the management issues that have slowed progress at ITER.
Ten years ago, a group of nations selected a site in the south of France to build ITER. China, the European Union, Japan, Korea, Russia, the United States and India were involved in the project. About four and a half billion dollars were awarded in construction contracts and about three and a third billion dollars in manufacturing contracts. Construction at St-Paul-lez-Durance in France began five years ago. Over two thousand people are working on the project. Some buildings have been completed and the first big components are being delivered.
There have been many problems and delays in the project. Tens of millions of dollars have been wasted by an inadequate management process. The seven members of the project are each designing and building components. When one member does not deliver a critical component on time, there is a domino effect that causes delays for the completion of other components by other members. There are arguments over who should pay for the delays and cost overruns.
Recently, the new director-general of the ITER Organization, Bernard Bigot, published an article about the problems plaguing ITER. It is his opinion that one of the major problems is the lack of a “clearly defined authority to manage the entire project.” Successful projects need a manager that has the power to make critical decisions. Bigot says that it is obvious that the management structure for ITER is “poorly adapted to the challenge of building a large, complex research facility.” A 2013 ITER internal report said that the ITER Organization was “ill-defined and poorly implemented.”
According to Bigot, “The management structure has proved incapable of solving issues and responding to the project’s needs, so accumulating technical difficulties have led to stalemates, misunderstandings and tension between staff around the world. These problems stem from how the organization was set up through an international treaty in 2007.”
“The deputy director-general from each of the participating members have responsibility for one technical of administrative department and they are official representative for the members. The procurement of components, systems and buildings was divided between the member states. Work is allocated on the basis of the industrial capacity of each member. Forty five percent of the cost is borne by the European Union and nine percent is covered by the other members outside of the E.U. “
The ITER Organization is “responsible for validating the design of the facility; compliance with safety regulations; coordination of manufacturing and quality control of the numerous components; their on-site assembly; and later, the operation of the facility.” Each member has a procurement agency that receives designs from the ITER Organization and then farms out the work to their contractors. While there are benefits to each of the members from this system, the paperwork and confusion of so many different semi-independent agencies is proving to out weight those benefits.
Bigot proposes radical changes in the ITER Organization. The director-general will now have full authority over the whole project. The procurement agencies in the member nations will be brought under the direct control of the ITER Organization. There will be monthly meetings of a new executive board comprised of different departments to accelerate dispute resolution and decision making. There will have to be team building efforts so that all actors feel responsibility for the whole project and not just their specific departments. Bigot has asked for a new discretionary fund under his control. He will submit a new schedule along with new cost and risk analysis by the end of this year. While fully aware that there will be future problems, delays and unexpected costs, Bigot is confident that he can improve on the past management process.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., there are interesting fusion projects going onat private companies exploring alternative approaches to generating electricity by fusing lighter elements into heavier elements. All of these projects are aimed at creating fusion power reactors that are not as big, complex or expensive as ITER. It may very well be the case that other better approaches to nuclear fusion will be developed and commercialized before ITER is completed.
Artist’s concept of ITER:
The U.S. Export-Import Bank was created in 1934 by an executive order of the President. Its purpose is “financing and insuring foreign purchases of United States goods for customers unable or unwilling to accept credit risk. The mission of the Bank is to create and sustain U.S. jobs by financing sales of U.S. exports to international buyers.” Its charter was last extended to June 30th, 2015. If Congress does not act quickly, the charter will expire.
Supporters of the U.S. nuclear industry claim that the Ex-Im Bank must be rechartered in order for the U.S. to be able to compete in the international nuclear marketplace. They say that without the support of the Ex-Im Bank, U.S. nuclear companies cannot compete with the aggressive Russian marketing of nuclear technology because the Russian nuclear industry is heavily supported by the Russian government. Critics of these claims say that extending the Ex-Im Bank charter will just encourage corruption and make the U.S. taxpayers liable for corporate losses. They recommend that the U.S. government streamline export regulations for countries that want to purchase U.S. nuclear technology. They also say that U.S. companies must offer superior products and services at competitive prices.
Another claim made by the supporters of rechartering the Ex-Im Bank is that an export credit agency like the Ex-Im Bank is often made a requirement for bidding on international nuclear contracts. The say that if the U.S. does not have such an agency, then U.S. companies cannot bid for these contract. Opponents of the rechartering say that foreign buyers ask for such credit support just because it is available. U.S. companies, backed by private financing, already compete successfully for foreign nuclear business against government-supported companies of other nations.
Ex-Im Bank supporters say that uncertainty over the future of the Bank will make potentials buyers less confident about the purchase of U.S. nuclear technology. Critics point out that U.S. nuclear products and services are the world’s “gold standard” for the global nuclear market and they are not worried about the disappearance of the Bank hurting U.S. competitiveness. The critics say that it would be better for the U.S. nuclear industry to proceed on its own merits without be tied to the turbulence and uncertainty of political disputes over funding and chartering of government agencies.
Critics of the renewal of the Ex-Im Bank charter say that far from being critical to the flourishing of the U.S. nuclear export business, the U.S. government may, in fact, be an obstacle to the industry. They say that the current “commercial nuclear export regime is convoluted and burdensome and spread between three different federal agencies—all of which increases costs, imposes delays, and limits innovation.” They say that government subsidies create dependency in subsidized industries that actually undermines competitiveness.
Ultimately, the U.S. nuclear industry should be able to stand on its own without the need for taxpayer support which may disappear as political currents shift. The fears about other governments subsidizing their nuclear industries may be overblown. The Russian government is poised to substantially reduce its support for nuclear exporting companies in the near future. France’s nuclear export company, Areva, is in serious financial trouble. And Japan’s nuclear industry is still reeling from the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that it had approved the first step of “Project Aim,” a plan to downsize the agency to “meet the demands of an evolving work load, while maintaining its ability to project public health and safety.” nuclearstreet.com
In Iran nuclear negotiations, diplomats at odds over how to keep tabs on so-called undeclared facilities. latimes.com
