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.
Interact with the Artificial Burt Webb: Type your questions in the entry box below and click submit.
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.
Still excessively high level of radiation is detected from fish caught inside of Fukushima plant port. fukushima-diary.com
Legislation to cut carbon emissions currently before the Illinois general assembly would ensure the continued operation of the state’s nuclear power plants, according to Exelon. world-nuclear-news.org
The R Street Institute, a Washington D.C. based think-tank, recently issued a report titled “The Role of US Research and Development Policy in Nuclear Power” authored by George David Banks. R Street says this about themselves, “The R Street Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan, public policy research organization Our mission is to engage in policy research and outreach to promote free markets and limited, effective government.”
Banks says that “US federal research policy should recognize the nuclear sector as a national asset and treat it equally with other non-greenhouse gas emitting energy sources.” He also claims that ” the civilian nuclear sector is key to the USA’s influential role in world nuclear safety and non-proliferation, but warns that the country’s international influence will be eroded if the country becomes a “marginal” supplier of nuclear goods and services.”
Banks focuses on problems facing the U.S. nuclear industry such as the fact that only a few new reactors are under construction, the U.S. market share of nuclear technology exports is falling, competition is heating up from foreign suppliers of nuclear technology that are often state run or state supported companies, and deregulation has posed challenges for the industry. Cheap natural gas from shale has reduced the demand for new nuclear power reactors. There are federal and state mandates and subsides for alternate renewable and sustainable energy sources. The cheap natural gas and the support for renewable are the biggest challenges according to Banks.
Last June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its proposal for a Clean Power Plan which will reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from power generation by thirty percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Banks criticizes the EPA plan because he says that it does not adequately recognize nuclear power. His report recommends that nuclear power be considered and supported along with other low-carbon energy sources. “Regulators and grid operators should pursue initiatives that provide adequate compensation for the positive attributes of nuclear power, including on-site fuel, diversity of supply and reliability.” The report blames the recent shut down of uncompetitive nuclear power reactors in the U.S. on what it calls market distortions and flaws. It says that these shutdowns are “a threat to grid reliability and the attainment of environmental and climate objectives.”
The R Street report states that the U.S. nuclear power industry must increase its effectiveness in order to compete with cheap natural gas and subsidies that support other types of power generation. It recommends that the U.S. change the focus of research programs to advanced reactor designs and new materials. It says that the U.S. government must fund research that the nuclear industry cannot pay for that involved high risks but also high rewards. Currently federal R&D projects usually require private sector partners to supply at least twenty percent of the cost of projects. The report suggests that even this is too much to require and other arrangements should be explored.
First of all, I would like to point out that nuclear power generation is not a no-carbon emission energy source. Depending on rough estimates over the lifespan of a nuclear power plant including the fuel cycle, nuclear power generates more carbon dioxide than hydropower, about the same amount as wind and a little less than current solar power stations. Second, with respect to the share of the global nuclear technology market, the major U.S. company involved in exporting reactors and supporting technology is Westinghouse which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba, a Japanese company. Third, the changes to the global nuclear energy marketplace are just that, they are not distortions or flaws. If nuclear energy cannot compete, it should be abandoned. Fourth, the U.S. government has already spent trillions of dollars on nuclear research which wound up benefiting private companies and it is about time the private sector paid for their own research. Fifth, it can take up to ten years to submit, test, license, build and operate a new nuclear power reactor. We simply do not have the time to waste in combating carbon dioxide emissions. And, finally, spent nuclear fuel is piling up all over the U.S. with no permanent repository available before 2050 at the earliest. I strongly disagree with the conclusions and recommendations of the R Street report.
Still excessively high level of radiation is detected from fish caught inside of Fukushima plant port. fukushima-diary.com
Legislation to cut carbon emissions currently before the Illinois general assembly would ensure the continued operation of the state’s nuclear power plants, according to Exelon. world-nuclear-news.org
I have often blogged about the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March of 2011. The current Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, has made nuclear power a major part of his economic development plan for Japan. Despite public opposition, he is working to restart the idled fleet of Japan’s nuclear power reactors. He is also promoting the manufacture and export of nuclear technology to other countries. Japan passed a law after Fukushima that appears to be aimed at suppressing media coverage of those who oppose Abe’s plan and try of offer evidence against his claims about the benefits of nuclear power and nuclear technology exports.
In the past, the Japanese media often spoke truth to power. Now the national media appears to be losing its passion for challenging powerful interests. Although the new law is vague, the Japanese government has succeeded in sending a message to the media. If they criticize the government position with respect to Fukushima, the nuclear industry and/or the government nuclear regulatory agencies, they risk losing access to high level officials in corporations and government. This has led to the practice of “self-censorship” where media organizations voluntarily stay away from sensitive subjects such as the nuclear contamination caused by Fukushima, corporate corruption and failure of government regulatory agencies.
PM Abe appointed Katsuto Momii to be chairman of NHK, the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting organization and the largest media organization in Japan. It operates two terrestrial TV stations, two satellite TV stations and three radio stations. After his appointment, Momii said “We cannot say left when the government says right.” An Abe aide sent a letter to media organizations late last year that demanded “fair” campaign coverage. Many in the media saw the letter as a threat to their government access if they were too critical. Prior media self-censorship usually involved the Imperial Family.
A former NHK producer and current professor of media studies at Musashi University says that “Criticism of the government has dropped sharply.” A producer of a major nightly television news show was reassigned to a new position because she would not follow internal warnings about not criticizing the Abe government. Shigeaki Koga, a guest commentator on the same news show, will be dropped in March because he criticized the way that the Abe government dealt with the killing of two Japanese hostages of ISIS. The network producing the news show denied that they had made any decisions with respect to anchors or guests on the show.
A government representative said that the airing of the segment criticizing how the hostage crisis was handled showed that there was press freedom in Japan. However, just this month, three thousand people including journalists, scholars and other people involved in the Japanese media, signed a statement of concern over press freedom. As Koga, the guest commentator on the news show, put it, “We’ve reached the stage where even without the government doing anything, mass media produce articles that cozy up to authorities or refrain from criticism. The public is not getting the right information to make decisions.”
Japan Broadcasting Corporation logo:
Government today insisted that no provision related to compensation under the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (CLND) has been waived off in the recent Indo-US agreement and said the provision of Rs 1500 crore is for immediate compensation only. economictimes.indiantimes.com
The second unit of the Shin Wolsong plant was connected to the power grid today following the successful completion of commissioning tests, plant owner Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) announced. world-nuclear-news.org
North Korea has been in the news recently with respect to the theft of electronic records from the Sony studios in Los Angeles, California. They have also been making the usual threats to annihilate the U.S. with a rain of nuclear warheads. It is though that they may have between ten and sixteen nuclear bombs made of plutonium and/or weapons grade uranium but it is doubted that they have the missile technology necessary to reach the continental U.S. Now there is a new report on the North Korean nuclear weapons programs.
Joel Wit, a senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University and David Albright, a nuclear nonproliferation expert are embarking on a fifteen month study involving North Korean nuclear weapons. The study is taking place at the Washington, D.C. Institute for Science and International Security. It is a project of the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Combining satellite imagery, media coverage of North Korea and their extensive knowledge of nuclear proliferation, Wit and Albright created three different scenarios about possible North Korean progress during the years from 2009 to 2014 which followed the collapse, in 2008, of international six-party talks dealing with the N.K nuclear weapons programs. The report concludes that these five years were very productive for the N.K. nuclear weapons program. Contrary to popular opinion, the Institute concluded that N.K. already has plutonium warheads that are small enough to install on medium-range and intercontinental-range missiles.
The first scenario has N.K. doubling its stockpile of nuclear warhead to about twenty with yields of about ten kilotons each by 2020. These plutonium warheads could be miniaturize enough to be mounted on intermediate-range and shorter-range ballistic missiles. The second and most likely scenario would see N.K. continue on its current course and producing fifty nuclear warheads by 2020. The third and worst case scenario finds N.K. growing its stockpile of nuclear bombs to over one hundred with yields between twenty and fifty kilotons by 2020. This scenario includes N.K. making major advances in designing tactical weapons that could be deployed on battlefields.
Even though there are a variety of international sanctions against the spread of nuclear weapons technology, N.K. can still obtain nuclear technology in various ways including purchasing through Chinese front companies and smuggling across the Chinese-North Korean border. The U.S. is concerned that some of the technology currently being supplied to China for Chinese nuclear projects may wind up in N.K. The U.S. Congress is considering implementing harsher sanctions against foreign companies working with N.K.
N.K. already has missiles that can reach South Korea and Japan. In the future, they may produce a few Taepodong space launch vehicles that could be repurposed missiles for attacking the U.S. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday that “The United States remains committed to the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and will continue — in close consultation with our allies — to bring pressure to bear on North Korea in support of that goal.” The U.S. and other major powers are trying to find a way to bring N.K. back to the negotiating table. It is understood that the more nuclear weapons that N.K. has, the more difficult it will be to convince them to surrender them.
