V.C. Summer has a history of operating safely, maintaining what he said was an “exemplary’’ record. The recent NRC concern centers on a pipe that delivers fuel to one of the power plant’s two emergency diesel generators, he said. Dominion found problems after testing the piping system, according to the NRC. //

In this case, officials at the V.C. Summer plant learned about cracks in fuel pipes in the facility’s diesel generator system in 2003. Utility workers fixed the initial crack, as well as other cracks four different times in the years after the initial work was done.

But the NRC says the utility never adequately assessed what could be done to make sure the diesel piping system did not experience more cracking. The most recent cracks were identified in November 2022 during a 24-hour test of the system. Workers found a small leak on one of two diesel generator systems. The leak increased over time and workers discovered a 140-degree crack around a pipe, records show.

The cracking occurred mostly in the power plant’s “A” diesel generator system, although one problem occurred in the plant’s “B” generator system. The plant has two backup diesel generators.

The cracking that led to the yellow safety finding follows separate, electrical problems with the plant’s diesel generator system in 2022. The NRC said the company, in that case, also failed to promptly resolve problems, issuing a white finding last year. White is lower in safety significant than yellow, but still considered notable.

It is an open secret that any nuclear warhead should contain fissile material. For bombs, they take uranium 235 or plutonium 239. To make them work, the warhead made with the use of these metals should weigh more than one kilogram. In other words, the warhead should have a critical mass. When transuranic element was discovered - californium - or rather, its isotope with an atomic weight of 252, it was found that its critical mass was only 1.8 grams. In addition, the decay of the element would produce 5-8 neutrons at once. This is very effective fission, given the fact that uranium and plutonium produce only 2-3 neutrons. In a nutshell, it was enough to squeeze a tiny "pea" of the substance to cause a nuclear explosion. This led scientists to the idea of using californium in atomic bullets. //

A bullet with a californium core would produce about 5 watts of heat. The heat in the bullet would change characteristics of the explosive and the detonator. Too much heat was dangerous, because the bullet could get stuck in the chamber or in the barrel of a gun or spontaneously explode when fired.

To store such bullets, a special refrigerator was required. The cooling device looked like a copper 15-cm thick plate with slots for 30 rounds. Between the slots, there were channels made, through which pressurized cooling liquid would circulate - liquid ammonia. The latter would create the temperature of about -15C° for the bullets. //

it was possible to use "frozen" atomic bullets during only 30 minutes after they would be removed from a refrigerator. Within this short period of time, one had to load the bullet, take a firing position, find the target and fire the gun. If it was impossible to make a shot, the bullet would have to be returned to the fridge to be cooled and frozen again. If a bullet would be left outside the fridge for over an hour, it was strongly forbidden to use it. To crown it all, the unused bullet would have to be disposed on special equipment. //

Understandably, 700 and even 100 kilos of chemical explosives is a lot. Yet, the shock wave from the explosion of an atomic bullet was a lot weaker, but radiation, in contrast, was strong. Therefore, a nuclear bullet could only be fired at a maximum distance, but still, a shooter could be exposed to a significant dose of radiation. One could fire the maximum of three nuclear bullets.

Nevertheless, one bullet was still enough to destroy a tank. Modern tanks have strong armour, but the amount of thermal energy would be enough to melt tank armour: the track and the tower would be welded with the body together. When hitting a brick wall, a nuclear bullet would evaporate about a cubic meter of bricks. Three bullets were enough for a building to collapse.

However, it was noticed during the tests that if the bullet would hit a tank filled with water, a nuclear explosion would not take place, as water slows down and reflects neutrons. It turned out that a bucket of water could be most reliable armour against an atomic bullet.

The Gayle & Max Dillard Science & Engineering Research Centre (SERC) at the US Abilene Christian University (ACU) in Texas will research and develop molten salt nuclear reactors.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently reviewing ACU’s August 2022 application to construct a 1 MWt low-power molten salt research reactor – MSRR – at the NEXT Lab. A detailed design engineering contract has been awarded to Zachry Nuclear Engineering, part of Zachry Group. Natura Resources aims to deploy its first molten salt reactor system in the new facility by 2026, followed by larger factory-built modular reactors for commercial operations in the early 2030s.

"China has labelled [this] a selfish and highly irresponsible action,"
Yeah, and China knows all about those actions. //

and other fascinating comments...

They were labelled a waste of time and money, but in 1957 the bulging tips of two exhaust shafts rising above Sellafield arguably saved much of northern England from becoming a nuclear wasteland. The towers of Windscale Piles have been a landmark for decades but soon the last of these Cold War relics will be gone.

Cumbria's skyline will change with the removal of the towers - known as Cockcroft's Follies - but had they not been in place 57 years ago, the entire landscape may have been drastically different.

Asks Beijing to stop the phone calls harassing civilians, as tests show impact of nuke plant water

Mike Goff, the prinicpal Deputy Assistant Secretary for nuclear energy at the DOE, shared a long list of reasons why he is more optimistic about the future of nuclear energy than he has been at any time in his 35 year career at national labs and as a direct DOE employee. //

He described his recent appearance at a Congressional hearing where 28 representatives asked questions with none of them asking “why nuclear?” Instead they asked how they could help nuclear, most of them wanted to help nuclear projects move faster. He said that the industry has a great opportunity to prove it can deliver. //

Regarding the operating fleet, he described how the DOE, industry and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) are cooperating to ensure that plants continue to operate safely and reliably. Several have already received subsequent license renewals that allow the plants to operate for up to 80 years, but there is no reason to believe that is the ultimate limit. There is already discussion about the activities needed to enable operation to 100 yrs. //

Then Goff made some statements that noticeably captured audience attention, based on both looking around the room and engaging in a number of conversations after the session. He told us that recent DOE studies show that the US needs 300 GW of total nuclear capacity by 2050. Getting there will require keeping as much of the existing fleet as possible while also building at a rate that exceeds the fastest achieved rate from the 1970s during the period from 2030-2050. //

Jim Schaefer, senior managing director of Guggenheim Partners, provided a strong message about the need for nuclear power for meeting decarbonization goals and the pressing need for the industry to improve its ability to deliver projects on time and on budget.

He leads a team of 100 clean energy-focused bankers that have completed 350 deals during the past 8 years. Most of those deals have been in solar, wind and battery storage. He and his team have realized that those technologies are not sufficient for meeting the goal of decarbonizing the grid. Investors and industry need to reallocate dollars towards clean firm technologies that can work all the time.

They have concluded that there is no doubt that hydrogen has a role; geothermal has a role; but that “advanced reactors are kind of it.” He said “Right now, to me, the greatest demand for any kind of energy product that has ever existed is the future need for advanced reactors.”

He sees growing recognition of this insight among investors, in DC, in the electric utility sector, and in the chemical and oil industries.

ian bremmer
@ianbremmer
·
the evolution of global nuclear weapons: 1950-2022:
0:52 / 0:52
4:01 PM · Aug 8, 2023

Despite the remarkably small amount of used fuel generated by nuclear power, despite the fact that the penetrating radiation in that fuel is effectively gone in 600 years, after which the fuel would have to be swallowed to be harmful, the nuclear establishment is adamant that long-lived radionuclides are an extremely difficult waste problem, requiring deca-billion dollar investments in deep geologic repositories. And even then they are a lurking, barely contained danger. //

Tc-99 is regularly injected into medical patients as a by-product of Tc-99 imaging Tc-99m is by far the most popular form of internal gamma imaging. Reference \cite{doe-1996} says ``a total of approximately 38,000 diagnostic procedures involving radioactive isotopes are performed each day in the U.S. Most of these procedures use Tc-99m." Tc-99m has a decay half-life of 6 hours and a specific activity of 19.5e17 Bq/g, 300 million times higher than the Tc-99 to which it decays. It emits a 141 keV gamma. Yet it is approved by the FDA for all sorts of diagnostic purposes, including children. The approved dose varies with use; but in many cases it is in excess 1.0e9 Bq or about 52 nanograms of Tc-99m. This would be 65 mGy to the body and 3.45 Gy to the thyroid.

EPA correctly says this is safe because of the short decay half-life and the fact that the biological half-life is about 1 day.\cite{epa-2002} Every atom of Tc-99m that decays produces an atom of Tc-99. The EPA claims Tc-99 is hazardous because of its long decay half-life.\cite{epa-2002} Yet Tc-99 has the same 1 day biological half life as Tc-99m. The dose the patient receives from the supposedly hazardous Tc-99 is about 100 millionth of the dose the patient receives from the Tc-99m. The medical profession for once is correctly unconcerned. //

The repository studies are exercises in monumental hubris. The idea that we can predict what will happen 100 years from now is preposterous. The idea that we can predict what will happen 1000 years from now --- well, there is just no word for it. And then we assume this omniscient species which can foretell the future for millenia, all of a sudden forgets how to measure radiation.

The humble, prudent, common sense approach is;

1) Shield and cool the used fuel adequately. We know how to do this. It is not difficult.

2) Keep the material where you can repair the shielding as necessary.

3) In no more than 600 years, effectively all the penetrating radiation will be gone. The valuable fissile and fertile isotopes can easily be extracted. The remainder will be low level waste that can be landfilled.

Forget about predicting the future for millenia and trying to come up with a system that will last that long.

If a nuclear overnight CAPEX of $2000/kW is possible, as the South Koreans, the Chinese, and the GKG claim, why in the world would you run $4000/kW, let alone anything higher?

The answer is we've seen nuclear CAPEXes of $8000/kW and higher. Vogtle 3/4 is above $10,000/kW. Flamanville 3 is in the same range. This cannot happen in a properly functioning, competitive market. In such a market, there is only one price, the best price. If nuclear cost is as critically important to the planet as Figure 6 claims, we must figure out what turns a $2000/kW plant into a $10,000/kW plant and eliminate it. The GKG publication Why Nuclear Power has been a Flop attempts to do just that. //

Only truly cheap nuclear offers humanity what it must have: both cheap electricity and low CO2 emissions. Expensive nuclear offers humanity the choice of impoverishment or global warming.

The argument against LNT is simple and conclusive. LNT cannot replicate both the increased cancer incidence we clearly see when a large dose is received over a very short period and the lack of detectable increase when the same or much larger doses are acquired over far longer periods.1 Any model that cannot do that must be rejected.

This means we must have a replacement. That replacement harm model must be well defined. Unless you can program your harm model, you do not have a model. No qualitative handwaving about unspecified thresholds and hormesis need apply.2 The replacement must allow one to compute the harm (eg Lost Life Expectancy) associated with a given plume and population distribution. LNT can do that. The replacement must as well.

At the same time, the replacement must recognize our ability to repair radiation damage, and the fact that repair takes time. LNT cannot do this. Einstein once said ``as simple as possible, but no simpler". The Sigmoid No Threshold Model (SNT) is about as simple as you can get and still replicate both the clear harm inflicted by a dose rate spike and the lack of detectable harm from the same dose spread over a long period. //

1 In some cases, LNT is off by more than a factor of 100.
2 Hormesis holds that small, properly timed doses of radiation can be beneficial, in much the same way as vaccines.

If all goes well, it might take another five-to-10 years before ITER achieves the promised goal of a ten-fold “return on power” (500 MW of fusion power from 50 MW of input heating power). //

Ironically, I am convinced that the ITER fiasco will actually accelerate, rather than slow down, progress toward the practical realization of fusion power. //

One indication is accelerated plans by China and Japan to build their own national “DEMO” plants, without necessarily waiting for the results of ITER to come in. Both nations have reactor projects underway, which could in effect substitute for the role of ITER and accelerate development on the basis of knowledge and technologies that did not exist when the final design of ITER was approved, in 2001.

South Korea is designing a “K-DEMO” reactor, intended to generate approximately 2.2 GW of thermal power and supply over 500 MW to the electricity grid.

“Oppenheimer” is a 3-hour epic about the life of J Robert Oppenheimer. In certain ways, it’s reminiscent of how movies used to be made. The dialogue is smart. The editing was crisp, and (because I know the sound editor), the soundtrack was terrific—being “big” when it was needed and subtle when required. It’s also a “whodunit” wrapped in soft commie propaganda inside leftist messaging. //

The film bends time by blending Oppenheimer’s 1954 security clearance revocation hearing with the 1957 Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the nomination of former AEC chairman Lewis Strauss. Christopher Nolan flips back and forth from Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearing (shot in color) to the Commerce Committee public hearing, as if they are being held contemporaneously. //

The movie soft-pedals Oppenheimer’s lack of personal morals throughout. //

Oppenheimer recognized Nazis as imperialists and evil, as Jew-hating madmen but apparently couldn’t see the Jew-hating Karl Marx and mass-murdering Joe Stalin in the same light. The film follows a well-worn script that communists weren’t “all that bad”. It tracks the oft-used illustration of how communists were “ruined” just for being communists. It never mentions that most American communists were counting on and willing to foment a Soviet-style revolution in America. //

“Oppenheimer” is an interesting story, but the film is way too long. It spends too much time mythologizing a conflicted (mostly immoral) man and ultimately left me empty – not caring for the man beyond the fact that (if he liked it or not) helped end the war against Japan with the deaths of 100,000 dead civilians. Oppenheimer had an unintended hand in my dad coming home from the war. For only that reason, I thank him.

Matt Huber is a professor of geography at Syracuse University. He writes about energy, economies and the way that energy sources have influenced modern societies and economies.

One of his first books was Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom, and the Forces of Capital (2013) which is very briefly described as follows:

Looking beyond the usual culprits, “Lifeblood” finds a deeper and more complex explanation in everyday practices of oil consumption in American culture. Matthew Huber, associate professor of geography and the environment, uses oil to retell American political history from the triumph of New Deal liberalism to the rise of the New Right, from oil’s celebration as the lifeblood of postwar capitalism to increasing anxieties over oil addiction.

In April 2022, Huber published a significant piece in Jacobin with Fred Stafford that explains how his research has revealed that most of the financial benefits associated with renewable power system development and electricity production “deregulation” have been captured by entities that the Left is supposed to dislike.

When we look at the actually existing decentralized renewable energy industry, we see many things the Left should abhor — deregulated markets, tax shelters for corporations, a rentier development model, and an anti-union industry dependent upon a transient and insecure workforce.

Though the environmental left may not want to accept it, the small-is-beautiful approach of decentralized energy provides ideological cover for a ruthless form of renewable energy capitalism. And even worse, it threatens our fight to halt climate change in its tracks.
-- In Defense of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Jacobin 40/04/2022

Huber believes that large, capital intensive power plants have been valuable investments as anchors in our electricity grid. Contrary to the characterizations offered by critics and advocates of radical transformation, he believes that the grid is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century and that we should add to its capabilities instead of seeking to completely rebuild it with a different generation model.

Darryl Siemer is a professional chemist who spent his career in nuclear waste remediation at the Idaho National Laboratory. While there, he developed a reputation as someone who will not go along to get along and apparently made quite a few waves by suggesting improvements in processes or technical decisions that might have resulted in the loss of numerous jobs by actually completing tasks and reducing expenditures on technical dead ends.

In a world dominated by “cost plus” contracting, beneficial suggestions are often quite unwelcome and can result in efforts to isolate and marginalize the source. //

Darryl points out that there are several fatal flaws in the current technical path being followed at the Hanford tank farm. He is certain that attempting to segregate the sludge in the tanks is difficult enough to be called impossible within the constraints of any foreseeable expenditures. He knows that the borosilicate glass that has been chosen as the final waste form is incompatible with several of the components of the sludge. Finally, he believes that it is a fantasy to assume that there will be any available “somewhere else” that will accept the material, no matter what form it is in.

Darryl’s suggested path forward dodges each of those flaws in a rather elegant, “lazy cheapskate’s” approach to solving the very challenging problem.

Aside: One of the highest compliments I can pay to a scientist or engineer is to point out that they are following a “lazy cheapskate” approach. In my view, a good problem solver should be a lazy cheapskate who prefers to ponder rather than work, and to come up with a solution that will not result in any excessive costs and the minimum possible work in the future. End Aside.

Plutonium-239 (Pu-239) is a nuclear fuel source that should play an important role in a sustainable, rapidly growing nuclear power enterprise. It is a natural byproduct that is created inside every fission reactor using uranium fuel. It is fissile with characteristics that are similar to U-235, the fissile material that provides most of today’s nuclear power.

During the 1960s and into the 1970s, energy visionaries spoke and wrote about a coming Plutonium Economy that would gradually replace the existing Hydrocarbon Economy and give human society an inexhaustible fuel source. //

It’s easy to imagine that people whose wealth and power came from the Hydrocarbon Economy weren’t thrilled about the near-term prospect of having their comfortable lives disrupted by a powerful new competitor.

A sustained campaign aimed at demonizing plutonium began sometime in the early 1970s. Plutonium has been called the most toxic substance known to man. //

Jack Devanney says:
August 3, 2023 at 3:03 PM

Excellent post.

I would add that a combination of thorium and plutonium is pretty useless as a weapon.

In ThorCon’s case, we found that even if you pulled the fuel out at the ideal point when the plutonium was 94% Pu-239, as long as the fuel contained 10 times as much thorium as Pu-239, it would not go critical. no matter how much Pu you had. Thorium soaks up neutrons. To make a weapon from this stuff , you would need a Thorex plant which is even more difficult than a Purex plant.

The tragedy is with no HALEU, designs like ThorCon cannot spike the fuel with thorium and we lose this safeguard.

B.F. Randall
@Mining_Atoms
Word Fission power does not have a natural lobby or constituency. Fission consumes far too few resources--and produces far too much energy for a large supply chain. The world uranium market is only worth about $790 million. That's enough heat to provide all of humanity's energy nearly 6x current consumption (in a closed fuel cycle). The cow dung fuel market in India is valued at $4 billion.

@mdawese11
is doing precisely what everybody who understands objective reality and cogent energy policy should do: educate, persuade, lead. As Orwell said: restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent humans. Well done, Mark.
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Mark Dawes
@mdawese11
·
Jul 28
In the @DailyMailUK on why we need nuclear power to tackle climate change.

And why the positive response is to campaign with groups like @emergencyreact @Gen_Atomic for the environment.

Interest in nuclear energy as a climate change solution is rising, but no new commercial projects are planned in the U.S. right now

Creativity and Ideation
Each year, the Nuclear Innovation Bootcamp equips a select group of students and early-career professionals with the tools and understanding needed to approach the clean energy challenges of today and tomorrow.

The nuclear waste buried far beneath the earth will be toxic for thousands of years. How do you build a warning now that can be understood in the far future?

“This place is not a place of honor,” reads the text. “No highly esteemed dead is commemorated here… nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.”