Uranium and plutonium are the key elements in a nuclear reaction
Iran is enriching uranium and breaking the limit set by the nuclear deal. Here’s what 
that means. VOX, By
……….Uranium enrichment is a critical step in making nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.
Uranium and plutonium are the key elements in a nuclear reaction…….. specific starting materials, most commonly uranium and plutonium, must be processed or enriched to drive a chain reaction.
Here are some of the basics: Uranium is the heaviest naturally occurring element in the periodic table, with an atomic number of 92, representing the number of protons in its nucleus………..
Plutonium, on the other hand, is a synthetic element. It has an atomic number of 94 and is formed in nuclear reactors as a byproduct of neutrons being captured by uranium. Plutonium can be acquired from reprocessing spent fuel from conventional nuclear power plants, or reactors can be designed specifically to produce plutonium for use in weapons.
But making plutonium usually requires a reactor to begin with, so uranium remains the choke point for both uranium-based and plutonium-based weapons.
The nuclear reaction is the same for weapons and energy. The desired outcome is different.
So you have your uranium (or plutonium). Can you now make a bomb?
Not quite. Let’s wade into the history and science of splitting atoms to set the stage for nuclear negotiations today.
Researchers found since the 1930s that they could bombard uranium with neutrons to create heavier isotopes and form new elements that have never before been seen in nature, like plutonium.
An isotope is a variety of an element with the same chemical structure but a different internal composition. In comparing isotopes of an element like uranium, the atomic number stays the same, but the isotope number — the sum of the protons and neutrons in a nucleus — can differ. Uranium-235 (U-235), for example, has three fewer neutrons than uranium-238 (U-238), but they undergo the same chemical reactions.
In their experiments, German scientists Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Fritz Strassmann in 1938 found another curious result. Among the atoms resulting from neutron bombardment were much smaller atoms like barium, which has an atomic number of 56. Meitner, along with Austrian scientist Otto Frisch, realized that this was the result of splitting the uranium atom into smaller atoms, a phenomenon that also emits a huge amount of energy. The finding marked the dawn of the nuclear age.
Isotopes of atoms that can split apart (undergo fission) are described as fissile. When there are enough fissile atoms close together — a quantity known as critical mass — the particles ejected by fission can strike other fissile atoms, triggering more atoms to split apart and so on. The energy released in the process can generate heat to boil water to spin a turbine or wreak devastation from a bomb.
But not all uranium atoms can easily split apart and trigger a chain reaction. In fact, most can’t. In nature, about 99.7 percent of uranium is in the form of the non-fissile isotope U-238.
Only about 0.7 percent of uranium occurs in the fissile form of U-235. And in nature, U-235 is in such a low concentration that even if a stray neutron were to strike it with enough force to break it apart, it’s unlikely that the resulting neutrons would find another U-235 atom nearby to continue the reaction.
To produce a chain reaction, you need to increase the concentration of U-235 relative to U-238. This is called enrichment.
For plutonium, all isotopes are fissile, but some are easier to use in nuclear weapons than others. Plutonium rich in the isotope Pu-239, called weapons-grade plutonium, poses the fewest technical challenges and can be extracted from nuclear fuel that is only irradiated in a reactor for a short time.
Making uranium and plutonium useful is a major technical challenge
Enrichment is the sorting problem from hell.
Instead of uranium atoms, imagine you have a bag filled with 1,000 marbles, each identical in material, size, shape, color, and texture. However, there are seven marbles in the bag that weigh 1.3 percent less than the others. For 5-gram, 1.5-centimeter diameter marbles, we’re talking about a difference of about 65 milligrams for the light marbles, or the weight of a few grains of sand.
Since it’s tedious to weigh each individual marble, you’ll want to come up with some sort of group sorting mechanism. But weight is the only thing setting them apart and the difference between desired and undesired marbles is small, so the sorting process won’t be perfect and you’ll still have a mixture of light and heavy marbles at the end. So you run the results through the sorter again. And again. And again.
With each iteration, you have a higher percentage of lighter marbles, but every repetition costs time, money, and energy.
And remember, the marbles in this analogy are atoms, the smallest unit of matter, so they’re that much more difficult to manipulate, and it takes far longer to get the quantities you need when you’re trying to go from atoms of uranium to tons of it.
For a nuclear reactor cooled with ordinary water, you need only about 3 to 5 percent U-235 enrichment, but you need it by the ton. A 1-gigawatt nuclear reactor uses 27 tons of nuclear fuel per year. …
Uranium with more than 20 percent U-235 is considered highly enriched. Conversely, the residual uranium with U-235 removed is called depleted (this is the uranium used in armor-piercing ammunition).
A nuclear weapon, on the other hand, requires even higher enrichment, typically around 90 percent, though it needs much less mass than a reactor. The Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, used 141 pounds of highly enriched uranium, though only 2 percent actually underwent fission due to inefficiencies in the design of the bomb. The Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki used just 14 pounds of plutonium.
The International Atomic Energy Agency defines a “significant quantity” of nuclear material for a weapon to be 55 pounds of U-235 within a quantity of highly enriched uranium, or 17.6 pounds of plutonium.
Some countries with civilian nuclear reactors, like South Korea, don’t bother with the whole enrichment process and have opted instead to buy their nuclear fuel on the open international market. But for others, like France, mastering the fuel cycle is a vital pillar of their energy strategy.
The enrichment process has become easier, which makes controlling nuclear weapons harder
Both Iran and North Korea have developed surreptitious enrichment networks for producing nuclear material. These facilities are hard to detect and easy to reconfigure, so without regular inspections and monitoring, the possibility of a clandestine nuclear weapons program remains.
This wasn’t always the case.
The Manhattan Project marked the first successful effort to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. One of the earliest and most primitive enrichment techniques used in this endeavor was gaseous diffusion. Here, uranium is reacted with fluorine to make uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6). The gas is then pumped through membranes, the idea being that lighter isotopes of uranium would diffuse faster than heavier isotopes (fluorine has only one naturally occurring isotope, so any differences in the mass of the gas come from uranium).
But each stage of the process could only separate a tiny amount of uranium, so gaseous diffusion required huge buildings and devoured energy to power the pumps needed to move the gas through the separation stages.
“The original ways of doing it were very inefficient,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “They required very large amounts of land, lots of power.”
For example, the K-25 gaseous diffusion building in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was completed in 1945 at a cost of $500 million. It was half a mile long and 1,000 feet wide, making it the largest building under one roof at the time. The facility employed 12,000 workers at its peak and consumed enough electricity to power 20,000 homes for a year.
These days, uranium enrichment is much more subtle. The most common tool is the gas centrifuge. This is where uranium hexafluoride gas is fed into a column spinning at upward of 100,000 rotations per minute.
As the centrifuge spins, the heavier isotopes push harder against its wall than the lighter ones. The centrifuge also induces the gas to circulate within the device, further increasing separation. The output of one centrifuge is then fed into another and another in an arrangement called a cascade.
Centrifuges are more energy-efficient than other enrichment techniques and are harder to detect. The centrifuges themselves don’t take up much floor space, so their plants have a much smaller physical footprint than gaseous diffusion facilities. They also don’t draw as much electricity, nor do they leave much of a heat signature.
A declassified 1960 report from a contractor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory noted that “it would not be too difficult to build a relatively small clandestine gas centrifuge plant capable of producing sufficient enriched uranium for a small number of nuclear weapons.”
The point is a primitive enrichment apparatus is massive; a modern one is small.
“Centrifuges are the only [enrichment process] today that makes economic sense,” said R. Scott Kemp, director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy at MIT. “[A centrifuge plant] capable of producing a weapon can fit in a garage or a small office building, and the energy consumption is less than typical office lighting per square foot.”
That’s why arms control discussions focus so much on centrifuges, and why the Iran nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — went to great lengths to specify the number and type of centrifuges allowed, as well as how closely they are monitored. Centrifuges are the key variable in how long it takes to enrich a usable quantity of uranium, whether for fuel or for weapons.
To produce nuclear energy, where you need tons of uranium but at low levels of enrichment, an enrichment operation would need many parallel cascades, but only a handful of enrichment stages. For a weapon, which demands kilograms of uranium but at much higher enrichment, it’s almost the reverse: You would only need a few parallel cascades, but those cascades would involve dozens of stages. With enough centrifuges, getting enough usable uranium for either would only take a few weeks.
The term of art for the amount of effort required to enrich uranium is a separative work unit,or SWU. It’s built on a complicated formula, and it’s useful for describing the efficiency of a centrifuge cascade. It takes about 120,000 SWU per year to produce enough fuel for a 1-gigawatt nuclear reactor, but it only takes about 5,000 SWU to have enough material for a nuclear weapon. So a country with enough enrichment capacity to sustain a small nuclear energy program theoretically has enough throughput to build dozens of weapons.
And switching between a nuclear fuel centrifuge arrangement and a nuclear weapon arrangement isn’t all that difficult or time-consuming. It’s a matter of changing how pipes are routed, so converting a plant from supplying energy material to supplying weapons material could take no more than a few months.
The term of art for the amount of effort required to enrich uranium is a separative work unit,or SWU. It’s built on a complicated formula, and it’s useful for describing the efficiency of a centrifuge cascade. It takes about 120,000 SWU per year to produce enough fuel for a 1-gigawatt nuclear reactor, but it only takes about 5,000 SWU to have enough material for a nuclear weapon. So a country with enough enrichment capacity to sustain a small nuclear energy program theoretically has enough throughput to build dozens of weapons.
And switching between a nuclear fuel centrifuge arrangement and a nuclear weapon arrangement isn’t all that difficult or time-consuming. It’s a matter of changing how pipes are routed, so converting a plant from supplying energy material to supplying weapons material could take no more than a few months………….https://www.vox.com/2018/6/11/17369454/iran-uranium-enrichment
Expert opinion: small nuclear reactors a very bad deal for Scotland
“Even if a safe and affordable design were to emerge from the current research projects, the whole concept relies on there being a sufficient guaranteed pipeline of orders for the construction and ramping up to scale of a large and expensive production facility,” NCG said.
“Without such a pipeline – itself requiring an unlikely level of long-term policy consistency – it is difficult to see the private sector being willing to finance such a facility.”
“We need to rapidly scale up investments in clean, safe renewable power and improving energy efficiency rather than fall for the latest sales pitch of the failing nuclear industry.”
Small nuclear reactors for Scotland? No thanks, say experts, The Ferret, Jenny Tsilivakou on July 7, 2019
India’s nuclear power programme unlikely to progress. Ocean energy is a better way.
The problem is apparently nervousness about handling liquid Sodium, used as a coolant. If Sodium comes in contact with water it will explode; and the PFBR is being built on the humid coast of Tamil Nadu. The PFBR has always been a project that would go on stream “next year”. The PFBR has to come online, then more FBRs would need to be built, they should then operate for 30-40 years, and only then would begin the coveted ‘Thorium cycle’!
Why nuclear when India has an ‘ocean’ of energy, https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/why-nuclear-when-india-has-an-ocean-of-energy/article28230036.ece
If it is right that nothing can stop an idea whose time has come, it must be true the other way too — nothing can hold back an idea whose time has passed.
Just blow the dust off, you’ll see the writing on the wall: nuclear energy is fast running out of sand, at least in India. And there is something that is waiting to take its place.
India’s 6,780 MW of nuclear power plants contributed to less than 3% of the country’s electricity generation, which will come down as other sources will generate more.
Perhaps India lost its nuclear game in 1970, when it refused to sign – even if with the best of reasons – the Non Proliferation Treaty, which left the country to bootstrap itself into nuclear energy. Only there never was enough strap in the boot to do so.
In the 1950s, the legendary physicist Dr. Homi Bhabha gave the country a roadmap for the development of nuclear energy.
Three-stage programme
In the now-famous ‘three-stage nuclear programme’, the roadmap laid out what needs to be done to eventually use the country’s almost inexhaustible Thorium resources. The first stage would see the creation of a fleet of ‘pressurised heavy water reactors’, which use scarce Uranium to produce some Plutonium. The second stage would see the setting up of several ‘fast breeder reactors’ (FBRs). These FBRs would use a mixture of Plutonium and the reprocessed ‘spent Uranium from the first stage, to produce energy and more Plutonium (hence ‘breeder’), because the Uranium would transmute into Plutonium. Alongside, the reactors would convert some of the Thorium into Uranium-233, which can also be used to produce energy. After 3-4 decades of operation, the FBRs would have produced enough Plutonium for use in the ‘third stage’. In this stage, Uranium-233 would be used in specially-designed reactors to produce energy and convert more Thorium into Uranium-233 —you can keep adding Thorium endlessly.
Seventy years down the line, India is still stuck in the first stage. For the second stage, you need the fast breeder reactors. A Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) of 500 MW capacity, construction of which began way back in 2004, is yet to come on stream.
The problem is apparently nervousness about handling liquid Sodium, used as a coolant. If Sodium comes in contact with water it will explode; and the PFBR is being built on the humid coast of Tamil Nadu. The PFBR has always been a project that would go on stream “next year”. The PFBR has to come online, then more FBRs would need to be built, they should then operate for 30-40 years, and only then would begin the coveted ‘Thorium cycle’! Nor is much capacity coming under the current, ‘first stage’. The 6,700 MW of plants under construction would, some day, add to the existing nuclear capacity of 6,780 MW. The government has sanctioned another 9,000 MW and there is no knowing when work on them will begin. These are the home-grown plants. Of course, thanks to the famous 2005 ‘Indo-U.S. nuclear deal’, there are plans for more projects with imported reactors, but a 2010 Indian ‘nuclear liability’ legislation has scared the foreigners away. With all this, it is difficult to see India’s nuclear capacity going beyond 20,000 MW over the next two decades.
Now, the question is, is nuclear energy worth it all?
There have been three arguments in favour of nuclear enFor Fergy: clean, cheap and can provide electricity 24×7 (base load). Clean it is, assuming that you could take care of the ticklish issue of putting away the highly harmful spent fuel.
But cheap, it no longer is. The average cost of electricity produced by the existing 22 reactors in the country is around ₹2.80 a kWhr, but the new plants, which cost ₹15-20 crore per MW to set up, will produce energy that cannot be sold commercially below at least ₹7 a unit. Nuclear power is pricing itself out of the market. A nuclear power plant takes a decade to come up, who knows where the cost will end up when it begins generation of electricity?
Nuclear plants can provide the ‘base load’ — they give a steady stream of electricity day and night, just like coal or gas plants. Wind and solar power plants produce energy much cheaper, but their power supply is irregular. With gas not available and coal on its way out due to reasons of cost and global warming concerns, nuclear is sometimes regarded as the saviour. But we don’t need that saviour any more; there is a now a better option.
Ocean energy
The seas are literally throbbing with energy. There are at least several sources of energy in the seas. One is the bobbing motion of the waters, or ocean swells — you can place a flat surface on the waters, with a mechanical arm attached to it, and it becomes a pump that can be used to drive water or compressed air through a turbine to produce electricity. Another is by tapping into tides, which flow during one part of the day and ebb in another. You can generate electricity by channelling the tide and place a series of turbines in its path. One more way is to keep turbines on the sea bed at places where there is a current — a river within the sea. Yet another way is to get the waves dash against pistons in, say, a pipe, so as to compress air at the other end. Sea water is dense and heavy, when it moves it can punch hard — and, it never stops moving.
All these methods have been tried in pilot plants in several parts of the world—Brazil, Denmark, U.K., Korea. There are only two commercial plants in the world—in France and Korea—but then ocean energy has engaged the world’s attention.
For sure, ocean energy is costly today.
India’s Gujarat State Power Corporation had a tie-up with U.K.’s Atlantic Resources for a 50 MW tidal project in the Gulf of Kutch, but the project was given up after they discovered they could sell the electricity only at ₹13 a kWhr. But then, even solar cost ₹18 a unit in 2009! When technology improves and scale-effect kicks-in, ocean energy will look real friendly.
Initially, ocean energy would need to be incentivised, as solar was. Where do you find the money for the incentives? By paring allocations to the Department of Atomic Energy, which got ₹13,971 crore for 2019-20.
Also, wind and solar now stand on their own legs and those subsidies could now be given to ocean energy.
Scientifically ignorant, is Australia’s Morrison government being conned into buying Small Modular Nuclear Reactors?
Fukushima, the ‘nuclear renaissance’ and the Morrison Government, Independent Australia, By Helen Caldicott | 25 June 2019 Now that the “nuclear renaissance” is dead following the Fukushima catastrophe, when one-sixth of the world’s nuclear reactors closed, the nuclear corporations – Toshiba, Nu-Scale, Babcock and Wilcox, GE Hitachi, Cameco, General Atomics and the Tennessee Valley Authority – will not accept defeat, nor will the ill-informed Morrison Government…..
To be quite frank, almost all of our politicians are scientifically and medically ignorant and in an age where scientific evolution has become extraordinarily sophisticated, it behoves us – as legitimate members of democracy – to both educate ourselves and our naive and ignorant politicians for they are not our leaders, they are our representatives.
Many of these so-called representatives are now being cajoled into believing that electricity production in Australia could benefit from a new form of atomic power in the form of small modular reactors (SMRs), allegedly free of the dangers inherent in large reactors — safety issues, high cost, proliferation risks and radioactive waste.
But these claims are fallacious, for the reasons outlined below.
Basically, there are three types of small modular reactors (SMRs), which generate less than 300 megawatts of electricity compared with current 1,000-megawatt reactors.
1. Light-water reactors
These will be smaller versions of present-day pressurised water reactors, using water as the moderator and coolant, but with the same attendant problems as Fukushima and Three Mile Island. Built underground, they will be difficult to access in the event of an accident or malfunction.
Because they’re mass-produced (turnkey production), large numbers must be sold yearly to make a profit. This is an unlikely prospect because major markets — China and India — will not buy our reactors when they can make their own.
If safety problems arise, they all must be shut down, which will interfere substantially with electricity supply.
SMRs are expensive because the cost per unit capacity increases with a decrease in reactor size. Billions of dollars of government subsidies will be required because investors are allergic to nuclear power. To alleviate costs, it is suggested that safety rules be relaxed.
2. Non-light-water designs
These include high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) or pebble-bed reactors. Five billion tiny fuel kernels consisting of high-enriched uranium or plutonium will be encased in tennis-ball-sized graphite spheres that must be made without cracks or imperfections — or they could lead to an accident. A total of 450,000 such spheres will slowly and continuously be released from a fuel silo, passing through the reactor core and then recirculated ten times. These reactors will be cooled by helium gas operating at high very temperatures (900 degrees Celcius).
A reactor complex consisting of four HTGR modules will be located underground, usually to be run by just two operators in a central control room. Claims are that HTGRs will be so “safe” that a containment building will be unnecessary and operators can even leave the site (“walk-away-safe” reactors).
However, should temperatures unexpectedly exceed 1,600 degrees Celcius, the carbon coating will release dangerous radioactive isotopes into the helium gas and at 2,000 degrees Celcius, the carbon would ignite, creating a fierce, Chernobyl-type graphite fire.
If a crack develops in the piping or building, radioactive helium would escape and air would rush in, also igniting the graphite.
Although HTGRs produce small amounts of low-level waste, they create larger volumes of high-level waste than conventional reactors.
Despite these obvious safety problems, and despite the fact that South Africa has abandoned plans for HTGRs, the U.S. Department of Energy has unwisely chosen the HTGR as the “next-generation nuclear plant.” There is a push for Australia to follow suit.
3. Liquid-metal fast reactors (PRISM)
It is claimed by proponents that fast reactors will be safe, economically competitive, proliferation-resistant and sustainable.
They are fueled by plutonium or highly enriched uranium and cooled by either liquid sodium or a lead-bismuth molten coolant. Liquid sodium burns or explodes when exposed to air or water, and lead-bismuth is extremely corrosive, producing very volatile radioactive elements when irradiated.
Should a crack occur in the reactor complex, liquid sodium would escape, burning or exploding. Without coolant, the plutonium fuel could reach critical mass, triggering a massive nuclear explosion, scattering plutonium to the four winds. One-millionth of a gram of plutonium induces cancer — and it lasts for 500,000 years. Extraordinarily, they claim that fast reactors will be so safe that they will require no emergency sirens and that emergency planning zones can be decreased.
There are two types of fast reactors: a simple, plutonium-fueled reactor and a “breeder,” in which the plutonium-reactor core is surrounded by a blanket of uranium 238, which captures neutrons and converts to plutonium.
The plutonium fuel, obtained from spent reactor fuel, will be fissioned and converted to shorter-lived isotopes, caesium and strontium, which last 600 years instead of 500,000. The industry claims that this process, called “transmutation,” is an excellent way to get rid of plutonium waste. But this is fallacious because only ten per cent is fissioned, leaving 90 per cent of the plutonium for bomb-making and so on.
Then there’s construction. Three small plutonium fast reactors are grouped together to form a module and three of these modules will be buried underground. All nine reactors will then be connected to a fully automated central control room operated by only three operators. Potentially, then, one operator could face a catastrophic situation triggered by the loss of off-site power to one unit at full power, another shut down for refuelling and one in startup mode. There are to be no emergency core cooling systems.
Fast reactors require massive infrastructure, including a reprocessing plant to dissolve radioactive waste fuel rods in nitric acid, chemically removing the plutonium and a fuel fabrication facility to create new fuel rods. A total of 14-23 tonnes of plutonium are required to operate a fuel cycle at a fast reactor, and just five pounds is fuel for a nuclear weapon.
Thus fast reactors and breeders will provide extraordinary long-term medical dangers and the perfect situation for nuclear-weapons proliferation. Despite this, the Coalition Government is considering their renaissance. https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/fukushima-the-nuclear-renaissance-and-the-morrison-government,12834
Salt Lake City-based Energy Strategies – study shows NuScale’s small nuclear reactors too costly for Utah
Environmental group says new nuclear power plant too pricey for Utah’s municipal utilities, KSL.com SALT LAKE CITY — A group opposed to a new type of nuclear plant being developed said Thursday the price of power produced there would be more than other carbon-free energy sources, making it a bad investment for Utah’s municipal utilities.
“We feel the numbers are independent and speak for themselves,” Michael Shea, a senior policy associate for the Healthy Environmental Alliance of Utah, told reporters at a news conference discussing the findings in a new study.
The study, by Salt Lake City-based Energy Strategies, found power produced by the small modular nuclear reactors to be built in Idaho would cost more than $66 per megawatt hour, compared to as low as just over $38 for wind and solar power.
“It does not make economic sense from a market perspective for a group like (the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems) to be investing in what is essentially a subsidized science project that has not ever been proven,” Shea said…….
Longtime consumer protection watchdog Claire Geddes spoke at the news conference about her confidence in the study and her concerns about the impact of higher costs on the public.
Geddes, who said she has worked on utility issues since 1992, suggested the local governments supervising municipal utilities don’t have the resources to adequately vet the project.
“It’s really not fair to the public,” she said. “I would stress that these cities understand, before they go into it, what the risks are to their citizens and their businesses.”
Both the environmental alliance and Geddes called for further study by the municipal power system before local governments make a final decision next year on what would be a 40-year contract. ……
Besides the cost concerns, Williams said the new type of nuclear plant can’t be presumed to be safe and would still produce at least as much nuclear waste as a traditional plant.
The intent is for the municipal power system to purchase all 12 modular reactors at the plant being built by an Oregon-based company, NuScale Power, system spokesman LaVarr Webb said.
The power generated would be used by the 46 members, mostly municipalities, in Utah and other states, Webb said, and would sold to other users including the federal government for use by the Idaho National Laboratory and the Department of Energy……..https://www.ksl.com/article/46578424/environmental-group-says-new-nuclear-power-plant-too-pricey-for-utahs-municipal-utilities
Most robots are not up to the task of cleaning up nuclear wastes
Cleaning up nuclear waste is an obvious task for robots, Economist, 19 June 19,
But designing ’bots that can do it is hard SOME PEOPLE worry about robots taking work away from human beings, but there are a few jobs that even these sceptics admit most folk would not want. One is cleaning up radioactive waste, particularly when it is inside a nuclear power station—and especially if the power station in question has suffered a recent accident.
Those who do handle radioactive material must first don protective suits that are inherently cumbersome and are further encumbered by the air hoses needed to allow the wearer to breathe. Even then their working hours are strictly limited, in order to avoid prolonged exposure to radiation and because operating in the suits is exhausting. Moreover, some sorts of waste are too hazardous for even the besuited to approach safely.
So, send in the robots? Unfortunately that is far from simple, for most robots are not up to the task. This became clear after events in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, which suffered a series of meltdowns after its safety systems failed following a tsunami. The site at Fukushima has turned into something of a graveyard for those robots dispatched into it to monitor radiation levels and start cleaning things up. Many got stuck, broke down or had their circuits fried by the intense radiation…… (subscribers only) https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/06/19/cleaning-up-nuclear-waste-is-an-obvious-task-for-robots
Holtec and Ukraine developing Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (dodgy underground devices)
Consortium established for SMR-160 deployment in Ukraine, WNN 12 June 2019
The consortium document was signed by Holtec CEO Kris Singh, Energoatom President Yury Nedashkovsky and SSTC President Igor Shevchenko. The signing ceremony – held at Holtec’s headquarters in Camden, New Jersey – was attended by senior Holtec officials and delegations from Mitsubishi Electric, the US Department of Energy and Energoatom.
The consortium is a US company registered in Delaware with each of the three parties owning allotted shares. Its technology operation centre will be based in Kiev, Ukraine…….
The MoU includes the licensing and construction of SMR-160 reactors in Ukraine, as well as the partial localisation of SMR-160 components. The Ukrainian manufacturing hub is to mirror the capabilities of Holtec’s Advanced Manufacturing Plant in Camden, and will be one of four manufacturing plants Holtec plans to build at distributed sites around the world by the mid-2020s.
Holtec’s 160 MWe factory-built SMR uses low-enriched uranium fuel. The reactor’s core and all nuclear steam supply system components would be located underground, and the design incorporates a wealth of features including a passive cooling system that would be able to operate indefinitely after shutdown….
The SMR-160 is planned for operation by 2026.
The SMR-160 is currently undergoing the first phase of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s three-phase pre-licensing vendor design review process. State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine, the nuclear regulatory authority in Ukraine, is expected to coordinate its regulatory assessment of SMR-160 under a collaborative arrangement with its Canadian counterpart. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Consortium-established-for-SMR-160-deployment-in-U
Edwin lyman on the safety of these reactors “Holtec SMR-160. The Holtec SMR-160 will generate 160 MWe. Like the NuScale, it is designed for passive cooling of the primary system during both normal and accident conditions. However, the modules would be much taller than the NuScale modules and would not be submerged in a pool of water. Each reactor vessel would be located deep underground, with a large inventory of water above it that could be used to provide a passive heat sink for cooling the core in the event of an accident. Each containment building would be surrounded by an additional enclosure for safety, and the space between the two structures would be filled with water. Unlike the other iPWRs, the SMR-160 steam generators are not internal to the reactor vessel. The reactor system is tall and narrow to maximize the rate of natural convective flow, which is low in other passive designs. Holtec has not made precise dimensions available, but the reactor vessel is approximately 100 feet tall, and the aboveground portion of the containment is about 100 feet tall and 50 feet in diameter (Singh 2013)
For these and other SMRs, it is important to note that only limited information is available about the design, as well as about safety and security. A vast amount of information is considered commercially sensitive or security-related and is being withheld from the public. ….
in the event of a serious accident, emergency crews could have greater difficulty accessing underground reactors.
Underground siting of reactors is not a new idea. Decades ago, both Edward Teller and Andrei Sakharov proposed siting reactors deep underground to enhance safety. However, it was recognized early on that building reactors underground increases cost. Numerous studies conducted in the 1970s found construction cost penalties for underground reactor construction ranging from 11 to 60 percent (Myers and Elkins). As a result, the industry lost interest in underground siting. This issue will require considerable analysis to evaluate trade-offs…. ” https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/2017/11/29/edwin-lyman-on-small-modular-reactors/ erious accident, emergency crews could have greater difficulty accessing underground reactors.
Energy experts doubt the viability of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs)
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Caution urged over modular nuclear reactors, New Civil Engineer, 9 JUNE, 2019 Energy heavyweights have urged caution over the idea of rolling out small modular reactor (SMR) technology to replace cancelled and decommissioned nuclear power projects.
The warnings came during a discussion on the potential ‘clean energy gap’ left by cancelled nuclear projects like Wylfa and older plants being decommissioned early. One potential solution to the gap would be to accelerate the progress of SMR development, which are marketed by their supporters as a more affordable nuclear power option, and safer than larger projects, such as Hinkley Point C. However National Infrastructure Commission chief economist James Richardson warned that the industry had failed to deliver on technological promises in the past. “You have to have a degree of caution with new nuclear technology,” he said. “We have been promised things time and time again and typically the industry tends to be more expensive and take longer than planned. I would be cautious against SMRs, they are a question for the 2030s.” “SMRs are not going to help in the next decade because they are just not available. By the time they turn up we can see if they are still cost effective or if renewable’s have gone beyond.” UK Energy Research Centre director Jim Watson agreed, and added we need to decarbonised power before SMR’s can be deployed. “I would also be cautious; we need to remember that 2030 is when we need to have decarbonised our power system by and I think there is a limit to which nuclear can help deliver that. We don’t know what the real cost of these SMRs are. History does make us cautious.” ……. https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/caution-urged-over-modular-nuclear-reactors/10042995.article |
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Mars and travel to Mars – will kill astronauts with ionising radiation
EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY: RADIATION WILL MAKE MARS MISSION DEADLY, https://futurism.com/the-byte/space-radiation-mars-mission-deadly JUNE 5TH 19__DAN ROBITZSKI__
Slow Down
Elon Musk once said he’d likely move to Mars in his lifetime. But before we settle the Red Planet, the European Space Agency (ESA) urges extreme caution.
That’s because it lacks the natural barriers that protect us Earthlings from cosmic radiation, which would put astronauts at risk of deadly health conditions. But they’re working on it — the ESA says it has partneredwith particle accelerators to recreate cosmic radiation in a controlled setting and build shields that can protect future explorers.
Harsh Conditions
“The real problem is the large uncertainty surrounding the risks,” said ESA physicist Marco Durante in the press release. “We don’t understand space radiation very well and the long-lasting effects are unknown.”
Shields Up
The ESA found that a six-month stay on Mars would expose astronauts to “60% of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their entire career.”
As it stands today, we can’t go to Mars due to radiation,” said Durante. “It would be impossible to meet acceptable dose limits.”
READ MORE: Radiation Makes Human Missions to Mars Too Dangerous: ESA [ExtremeTech]
Ionising radiation in space will kill astronauts headed for Mars
The radiation showstopper for Mars exploration https://phys.org/news/2019-06-showstopper-mars-exploration.html, by European Space Agency 3 June 19, An astronaut on a mission to Mars could receive radiation doses up to 700 times higher than on our planet—a major showstopper for the safe exploration of our solar system. A team of European experts is working with ESA to protect the health of future crews on their way to the Moon and beyond.
Earth’s magnetic fieldand atmosphere protect us from the constant bombardment of galactic cosmic rays—energetic particles that travel at close to the speed of light and penetrate the human body.
Cosmic radiation could increase cancer risks during long duration missions. Damage to the human body extends to the brain, heart and the central nervous system and sets the stage for degenerative diseases. A higher percentage of early-onset cataracts have been reported in astronauts.
“One day in space is equivalent to the radiation received on Earth for a whole year,” explains physicist Marco Durante, who studies cosmic radiation on Earth.
Marco points out that most of the changes in the astronauts’ gene expression are believed to be a result of radiation exposure, according to the recent NASA’s Twins study. This research showed DNA damage in astronaut Scott Kelly compared to his identical twin and fellow astronaut Mark Kelly, who remained on Earth.
A second source of space radiation comes from unpredictable solar particle events that deliver high doses of radiation in a short period of time, leading to “radiation sickness” unless protective measures are taken.
Europe’s radiation fight club
“The real problem is the large uncertainty surrounding the risks. We don’t understand space radiation very well and the long-lasting effects are unknown,” explains Marco who is also part of an ESA team formed to investigate radiation.
Since 2015, this forum of experts provides advice from areas such as space science, biology, epidemiology, medicine and physics to improve protection from space radiation.
“Space radiation research is an area that crosses the entire life and physical sciences area with important applications on Earth. Research in this area will remain of high priority for ESA,” says Jennifer Ngo-Anh, ESA’s team leader human research, biology and physical sciences.
While astronauts are not considered radiation workers in all countries, they are exposed to 200 times more radiation on the International Space Station than an airline pilot or a radiology nurse.
Radiation is in the Space Station’s spotlight every day. A console at NASA’s mission control in Houston, Texas, is constantly showing space weather information.
f a burst of space radiation is detected, teams on Earth can abort a spacewalk, instruct astronauts to move to more shielded areas and even change the altitude of the station to minimize impact.
One of the main recommendations of the topical team is to develop a risk model with the radiation dose limits for crews traveling beyond the International Space Station.
ESA’s flight surgeon and radiologist Ulrich Straube believes that the model should “provide information on the risks that could cause cancer and non-cancer health issues for astronauts going to the Moon and Mars in agreement with all space agencies.”
Recent data from ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter showed that on a six-month journey to the Red Planet an astronaut could be exposed to at least 60% of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their entire career.
“As it stands today, we can’t go to Mars due to radiation. It would be impossible to meet acceptable dose limits,” reminds Marco.
Measure to protect
ESA has teamed up with five particle accelerators in Europe that can recreate cosmic radiation by “shooting” atomic particles to speeds approaching the speed of light. Researchers have been bombarding biological cells and materials with radiation to understand how to best protect astronauts.
“The research is paying off. Lithium is standing out as a promising material for shielding in planetary missions,” says Marco.
ESA has been measuring the radiation dose on the International Space Station for seven years with passive radiation detectors in the DOSIS 3-D experiment. ESA astronauts Andreas Mogensen and Thomas Pesquet wore a new mobile dosimeter during their missions that gave them a real-time snapshot of their exposure.
The same European team behind this research will provide radiation detectors to monitor the skin and organ doses of the two phantoms traveling to the Moon onboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft.
Problems in nuclear fusion, radiation risks – some active wastes, intermittency
Fusion- some new issues http://newrenewextra.blogspot.com/2019/06/fusion-some-new-issues.html–3 June 19, Renewables are doing very well these days, with costs falling, but some say that we will also need other non-fossil options to respond to climate change. Nuclear fission is one, but it is having problems- it’s proving to be expensive and, some say, risky. Some are hopeful that new technology will improve its lot, but for others the big hope is that, at some point in the future, nuclear fusion will be available and will avoid the problems that fission faces.
It is usually claimed that fusion will be cleaner and safer, with no fission products to store and no risks of core melt downs. Moreover, since it uses hydrogen isotopes (deuterium and tritium), which are relatively easily obtained (deuterium from sea water, tritium from lithium), fusion can provide energy more or less indefinitely, into the far future. It may not be a renewed resource, but it is large. An exciting high tech solution – that could, some say, be available soon!
However, the reality is a bit more complex, with there being issues at each stage of the fuel-to-energy process, and a lot more work to do. In terms of fuel, it takes energy to extract deuterium from water, and lithium reserves, although relatively large, may be increasingly depleted given the growing demand for Lithium Ion batteries for electric vehicles. In terms of fusion plant operation, there will be radiation exposure risks and the potential for accidental release of active materials – tritium has a 12.3 year half-life, and tritiated water can be a major health hazard. Depending on the fusion system used, there will also still be some active wastes to deal with- the components and containment structures will be activated by the high radiation fluxes and have to be regularly stripped out. They will be less long-lived than fission wastes, but they are still an issue.
More generally there is the issue of plant operation in power terms. It is early days yet, since we only have experience with small prototype test projects, like JET at Culham, and no detailed plans for full scale power stations. However, it seems likely that the plants will not be run continually, but in pulses. When eventually finished, and fully commissioned (maybe by 2030?) the 500 MW rated €15bn ITER project being built in the south of France is expected to generate power in up to 10 minute bursts, and for at the most 1 hour. The proposed larger DEMO follow up (in the 2040s?) willevidently also only run in bursts, but of 2-4 hours.
One implication of this intermittent generation is that commercial scale fusion reactors, when and if they emerge, may be used not to generate base-load continuous power, but for producing hydrogen in batch-production mode. That can be used as a storable fuel for heating or be converted into various synfuels for vehicle use. It may thus be that fusion will focus on these more lucrative markets rather than trying to compete in the very tight electricity market.
There are other approaches to fusion which might offer other power options. The USA’s laser-fired ‘ignition’ system has its fans. Certainly some see the ‘inertial confinement’ approach, with tiny fuel pellets being compressed, using multiple focused laser beams, to reach fusion conditions, as winning over Tokomak magnetic constriction plasma systems like ITER. We shall see, with Google even entering the field, offering advanced electronics. Germany, Japan, South Korea and China are also in the game, as is Russia, which is where the original Tokomak design came from. TheUK national hopes rest with the MAST spherical Tokomak at Culham and derivatives like the ST40.
Few of these technologies seem likely to be running at full scale before the 2030s or even 2040’s, but some do claim that they can be ready earlier. In 2014, Lockheed surprised everyone by claiming that for their ‘compact fusion’ programe they were aiming for a ‘prototype in 5 years, defence products in 10, clean power for the world in 20 years’. We may see, but for the moment it all seems rather speculative and long term. Some of the rivals may get there faster, but, even assuming everything goes to plan, a commercial-scale ITER follow up is not now seen as likely to be available to feed power to the grid until after 2050!
Breakthroughs in smaller-scale laser fusion or some such are possible, and some reports seem to suggest imminent success (or at least a sustained positive output by 2024), but for the moment, there are the practicalities of the large scale Tokomak approach being developed by ITER to face. Some of the issues are quite worrying. The high radiation fluxes will present some operational safety issues. Indeed, a recent paper in Nature has warned that not enough attention had so far been given to safety.
It compared the current 500MW rated ITER project with the hypothetical DEMO commercial-scale follow-up project, maybe running in the 2040/50s. In ITER, it said, the risk of radiation exposure comes from fusion neutrons emitted from the plasma, γ-radiation emitted by neutron-activated components, X-rays emitted by some heating and current drive generators, and the β-radiation emitted from tritium. DEMO, would have a similar range of radiation – the main difference being the size of the inventories of typical radioactive products. It would presumably be the workforce who were most at risk, but there could also be public exposure issues, especially if there was a major loss of containment
The Nature article says that it’s been calculated that the radioactivity due to materials activation in a future fusion reactor may be three orders of magnitude more than that in a typical fission reactor with the same electrical power output, while the total radioactivity is comparable. It adds ‘from this point of view, fusion reactors may be potentially unsafe if low-activation materials are not deployed. Note that this finding may also be applicable to the more recent fusion reactor concepts with even low-activation materials adopted. This means that radiation exposure control for fusion reactor design and operation is of critical concern […] Thus, several radiation protection provisions, such as confinement barriers, radiation shielding and access control, must be applied in order to meet the maximum public dose limits required by the regulatory body and at the same time to keep individual occupational doses for workers as low as reasonably achievable.’
It also says ‘a fusion demonstration reactor is generally expected to have an order of magnitude more decay heat power than ITER, comparable to that of a fission reactor with the same electrical output power’ And finally, ‘in DEMO, radio-active waste activity after 100 years, assuming that low/reduced-activation materials are used for the first wall & structure material, could be around 20–50 times more than for ITER. The larger tritium inventory is also significant for tritiated waste management. In fact, this large amount of radioactive waste and especially tritiated waste will result in a large burden for waste disposal sites in the country where DEMO is located’.
There do seem to be some serious issues, and the ITER project has attracted its fair share of criticism. Breakthroughs are always possible, but artificial fusion may not be the way ahead after all! We may have to rely on the (free) fusion reactor we already have- the sun. Maybe a safer option. And a faster one- we have working renewables now: we don’t need to wait for fusion topossibly start dealing with climate change decades hence.
USA’s “Doomsday plane” – the pilots might survive, anyway
This ‘Doomsday Plane’ Can Survive a Nuclear Attack https://www.livescience.com/65603-doomsday-plane-can-survive-nuclear-attack.htmlm By | May 31, 2019
USA Dept of Energy funding bankrupted French company AREVA – now resuscitated as Framatome
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Lightbridge fuel development gains DOE funding, WNN 30 May 2019, Framatome has received a voucher through the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) programme to support development of Lightbridge Fuel in collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory (INL). ….. Enfission – a joint venture of Lightbridge Corporation and Framatome – was set up in January 2018 to commercialise nuclear fuel assemblies based on this technology.
The GAIN initiative was launched in November 2015 to provide a way to fast-track nuclear innovation,….. This is Framatome’s third GAIN voucher and its first supporting the Lightbridge Fuel design. Framatome said its collaboration with INL under this GAIN voucher will “leverage the laboratory’s experience in fuel and material development, as well as its performance knowledge, to facilitate Framatome’s understanding of phenomena unique to uranium-zirconium metallic fuel”. …… For this work DOE will fund INL at a value of USD477,000…… https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Lightbridge-fuel-development-gains-DOE-funding |
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$125 million to NASA to develop nuclear rockets
NASA JUST GOT $125 MILLION TO DEVELOP NUCLEAR ROCKETS, https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-develop-nuclear-rockets DAN ROBITZSKI_ 29 May 19, For the first time since the 1970s, NASA is developing nuclear propulsion systems for its spacecraft.NASA didn’t request any money for a nuclear propulsion program, but it will get $125 million for the research as part of the space agency’s $22.3 billion budget that Congress approved last week, Space.comreports. If the program succeeds, nuclear propulsion could significantly cut down on travel time during missions to Mars and beyond.
Test Launch
Republican leadership sees nuclear propulsion as an important step along the way to deep space missions and the 2024 Moon landing with which Congress has tasked NASA, per Space.com. Alabama Representative Robert Aderholt described nuclear propulsion as “critical” for the 2024 launch in a budget meeting last week.
“As we continue to push farther into our solar system, we’ll need innovative new propulsion systems to get us there, including nuclear power,” Vice President Mike Pence told the National Space Council in March.
Sorting It Out
But before NASA can embrace nuclear-powered technology, there’s the matter of navigating regulations that govern the use of nuclear energy.
For the time being, the space agency hasn’t announced any plans to use nuclear propulsion for any of its planned missions, according to Space.com, but that may change as the technology develops.
USA govt pouring money into dodgy new nuclear projects
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U.S. Department of Energy Further Advances Nuclear Energy Technology through Awards of $10.6 Million , MAY 23, 2019 WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced funding selectees for multiple domestic advanced nuclear technology projects. Three projects in three states will receive varying amounts for a total of approximately $11 million in funding. The projects are cost-shared and will allow industry-led teams, including participants from federal agencies, public and private laboratories, institutions of higher education, and other domestic entities, to advance the state of U.S. commercial nuclear capability.The awards are through the Office of Nuclear Energy’s (NE) funding opportunity announcement (FOA) U.S. Industry Opportunities for Advanced Nuclear Technology Development. This is the fourth round of funding through this FOA. The first group was announced on April 27, the second group was announced on July 10, the third group was announced on November 13, 2018, and the fourth groupwas announced on March 27, 2019. The total of the five rounds of awards is approximately $128 million. Subsequent quarterly application review and selection processes will be conducted over the next four years.
“There are a lot of U.S. companies working on technologies to make the next generation of nuclear reactors safer and highly competitive, and private-public partnerships will be key to accomplishing this goal,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. “The Trump Administration is committed to reviving and revitalizing the U.S. nuclear industry, and these partnerships are needed to help successfully develop innovative domestic nuclear technologies.” The prior version of the bill would have cost residential customers about $2.50 a month or $300 million a year with the money going mostly to the nuclear plants but also to other resources that do not produce carbon dioxide emissions, like wind and solar. Democrats on the House committee opposed the removal of the credit for renewable resources and the speed at which the bill was proceeding through the legislature. The bill could be voted on by the full House as soon as May 29, according to analysts at Height Capital Markets in Washington. The solicitation is broken into three funding pathways:
The following two projects were selected under the Advanced Reactor Development Projects pathway:…….. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/us-department-energy-further-advances-nuclear-energy-technology-through-awards-106 |
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1 This Month
29 Jan. Thursday 7-8 p.m. Webinar – World’s Largest Nuclear Station in Port Hope, ON?
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
31st January – Challenging the War Machine – a DECLASSIFIED UK SUMMIT
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