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.
India is having problems with foreign nuclear technology providers because a controversial 2010 nuclear liability law. The law states that nuclear equipment suppliers are liable for damages caused by nuclear accidents. Since the 1950s when the United States was the only exporter of nuclear technology, the international standard with respect to liability has targeted the operators of nuclear power plants and not companies that provided the technology for nuclear power plants.
India’s 2010 law was ultimately based on the Indian response to the Bhopal poison gas disaster in 1984. Bhopal is considered to be the world’s deadliest industrial accident. Union Carbide owned the plant where the accident took place and families of victims are still after Union Carbide for compensation. Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the accident vary from two to four thousand with forty thousand people seriously injured.
In 2008, the U.S. and India signed an agreement on nuclear cooperation. The 2010 Indian liability law has basically been blocking major nuclear technology suppliers, including the U.S., from shipping nuclear technology to India which has serious power supply problems and wants to increase their nuclear power by thirteen times its current level.
GE-Hitachi, Westinghouse Electric Company and France’s Areva have received authorization to build two reactors each in India. Although the deals were signed years ago, no construction has yet taken place partly because of the Indian liability law. Even Indian manufactures of nuclear technology are afraid to sell equipment to the Indian government because they are concerned about being held liable in case of a nuclear accident.
Now a reinsurer called GIC Re that is run by the Indian government is developing a proposal for a “nuclear insurance pool.” This proposal would indemnify nuclear technology suppliers against any liability in case of an accident. Companies supplying equipment to construct Indian reactors would buy insurance from the pool and then pass the charges along to the purchasers of the equipment. An alternative proposal suggests that the Indian Nuclear Power Corporation of India could buy insurance for nuclear technology suppliers. These proposal could be implemented more quickly and easily than trying to change the 2010 law. Major suppliers of nuclear technology are cautiously optimistic but say that they need to see more of the specifics of the proposals which are still in development.
In December of 2014, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, visited India. One of the major topics for discussion was a proposal for Russia to supply India with a dozen nuclear reactors in the next two decades. There are already two Russian built nuclear reactors in India. An Indian nuclear affairs expert said that Russia seems to believe that it can construct the promised reactors under the existing liability laws without any problems. Russia intends to make export of nuclear technology and fuel a major part of its plans for international trade.
India would be better served by investing in renewable energy sources, conservation and efficiency instead of building more nuclear reactors.
General Insurance Corporation of India:
I have blogged in the past about cheap natural gas and declining electricity demand making nuclear power reactors less economical. Past recipient of many tax breaks, loan guarantees, guaranteed electricity prices and subsidies, now nuclear power is facing the prospect of having to compete with other sources of energy on a more level playing field. One of the unique aspects of nuclear energy is the fact that if the owners of a nuclear power plant in the United States cannot show that it is making a profit and cannot find someone who wants to buy the power plant, it can have the operating license pulled by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This would mean that the nuclear power plant in question would have to be shut down and decommissioned. About half of the one hundred nuclear power plants in the U.S. are directly competing with cheaper fossil fuels. As might be expected, owners of nuclear power plants are hard at work trying to find a way to stay in business.
Exelon Corporation has already had to close a nuclear power plant in New Jersey because it was not able to compete in the open energy market. Exelon has been a harsh critic of government support for other energy sources such as renewables. They apparently had no problem with government support when it helped the nuclear industry. Exelon is also complaining about the “regulatory burden” that it says is adding up to five percent to its operating costs per year. If all nuclear power plants were adhering scrupulously to all NRC regulations, the U.S. citizens and environment would be much safer. Hard to be sympathetic when failure to follow correct procedures could threaten the lives of millions of people near a nuclear power plant.
Exelon and other nuclear power plant owners are trying to get states to give them assistance in the form of price guarantees that may be higher than the market price for power or special consideration as a low carbon power source. While they complain about subsidies and quotas for renewable energy because of its low carbon footprint, they are actively seeking the same sort of government assistance for nuclear power. Without government help, the nuclear industry says that it will have to close more nuclear power plants because they can’t compete in the energy market place.
Many environmentalists who once opposed nuclear power are now supporting it as a low carbon energy source. Unfortunately, they are not considering all the different carbon sources in the entire nuclear fuel cycle as well as the carbon dioxide emitted in the construction of nuclear power plants and the transportation of equipment, materials and fuel. Even if you ignore the carbon issues and the lack of permanent nuclear waste depositories, the time needed to license and construct nuclear reactors is too long for nuclear power to help much with the climate crisis. We have to act in the next ten years to avoid disaster and the world simply cannot build and operate enough nuclear reactors to make much impact on the global supply of energy in that time. Renewables are getting cheaper every day and they do not have all of the baggage of nuclear power.
I often blog and post links about the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Despite concerns about earthquake and floods causing future accidents, the Abe government is determined to restart Japan’s idle fleet of nuclear reactors. Abe has made nuclear power a central theme of his administration. Both the restart of domestic reactors and the export of nuclear technology are seen by Abe as absolutely critical to the economic future of Japan. One problem that is ongoing and unanswered is what to do with all the radioactively contaminated waste produced by cleaning up the site of the Fukushima disaster.
It is estimated that one hundred and fifty two tons of contaminated waste including compost, incinerated ash, paddy straw and sewage sludge from the Fukushima cleanup have been accumulated from twelve prefectures. The government had intended to create permanent disposal sites in five prefectures mostly in northern and eastern Japan. However, the residents of those prefectures have blocked many of those projects.
In Shioya, Tochiga Prefecture in central Japan, local residents objected to the siting of a disposal facility because they were concerned about possible impact on an important hot spring. Over one hundred and seventy thousand people sign a petition against the project.
In Miyagi Prefecture, exploratory drilling to determine the best place to site a waste depository was halted by local resistance. Official’s vehicles were block by protestors when the officials came to the prefecture for a survey. A new ordinance to protect local water supplies was just passed in Miyagi and that may also interfere with the depository siting.
Gunma and Ibaraki Prefectures are far behind schedule in planning for depository siting. Neither prefecture has even developed a plan for selecting possible disposal sites.
Chiba Prefecture has begun removing wastes from a temporary storage site although Ministry of Environment officials are still trying to find another site that the waste can be moved to.
Fukushima Prefecture contains over eighty percent of the contaminated waste from the disaster. Existing waste disposal sites and new sites are being constructed in abandoned towns in the area of the power plant to take the most contaminated soil. Owners of the land that would be used have objected to the plan and this has slowed the siting process. Originally, it was hoped that disposal sites would be set up and operating by January of this year but this has not happened.
Japan was having problems storing the waste produced by nuclear power plants before the Fukushima disaster. Now they have to find a way to dispose of the debris from the disaster and it is not going well. Japan is highly populated but very small and it has a high density of people per square mile. The Japanese revere the small villages in the countryside and local residents have a lot of say over what happens in their area. Apparently a lot of Japanese citizens object to having a radioactive waste dump near their community.
Prefecture map of Japan:
