Atomic Insights

he was a brilliant nuclear engineer There are some other views about that: "He started nuclear power school (a six month course of study that leads to operator training) in March, 1953. In July 1953, his father passed away and he resigned his commission to run the family peanut farm." https://atomicinsights.com/jimmy-carter-never-served-nuclear-submarine…

(Background: I am an engineer that has spent most of their career in energy - fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables - the whole shebang. I care deeply about climate change, and recognise the non-negotiable need of humanity for ever-increasing amounts of energy.) Take it from me - I would absolutely love renewables to displace all other forms of energy. However, from an engineering point of view, I know this is simply not feasible without some strong developments in energy storage and distribution. With today's technology, nuclear is the only real threat to the hegemony of fossil fuels, and the only practical hope of reaching climate goals (let alone long-term energy security goals). I think the fossil fuel industry knows this, and so frame their anti-nuclear rhetoric as a renewables-vs-nuclear debate, backing renewables. If I wore a tinfoil hat, I would say that a lot of the support for renewables (and hostility towards nuclear) was encouraged/stoked/funded by the fossil fuel lobby. There's an interesting blog that catalogues cases where the fossil fuel industry has scratched on nuclear. If you're interested, I'll link it below. https://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun/ As for SMRs specifically, I think they have a lot of legs. Reactors that can be assembled (and serviced) in factories would go a long way to lowering the overall cost of the reactors (even accounting for the reduced energy-cost density of the individual reactors). Questions welcome. I created an account…

>all of human development has been about spending more energy per capita at less cost What? No. That makes no sense. Human development includes a lot of things that have nothing to do with that ridiculous and narrow definition. >Those who take climate change seriously should have gone all in on nuclear, but somehow there was enough of an overlap between that group and anti-nuclear activists that it never happened. That's what's truly baffling. Follow the money: https://atomicinsights.com/how-important-has-oil-money-been-to-antinuc… >Barring [nuclear energy], abundant, cheap, stable, and regrettably unclean energy from fossil fuels is the second best option. What about increasing renewable energy options? What about increasing carbon efficiency by introducing it as a concept into markets via a carbon tax significant enough to drive innovation and behavior change? What about increasing city density and improving subways and trains? What about reducing meat consumption?

A lot of it seems to come down to very, very agreesive regulation. Eg, plant designs got approved, work started, then the regulators came back and said "actually, you need to make some major changes to the design", so everything paused and some completed work was torn up, new designs were made, approved (slowly), and then work restarted from scratch. Then it happened again. And again. The changes weren't bad per se; in one case the regulators decided that the plant needed to be resistant to aircraft impacts; in another that it needed to be more resistant to tornados. But when you have a fantastically complex and expensive engineering project, going back and requiring retroactive changes after approval and after bg has already started is going to blow the budget to hell. And it did. From the Federal Register notice for the aircraft impact change: > In making these additions, the NRC is making it clear that the requirements are not meant to apply to current or future operating license applications for which construction permits were issued before the effective date of this final rule. This is because existing construction permits are likely to involve designs which are essentially complete and may involve sites where construction has already taken place. Applying the final rule to operating license applications for which there are existing construction permits could result in an unwarranted financial burden to change a design for a plant that is partially constructed. Such…

Connect the dots. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jun/15/johnhooper (2000) Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was last night within sight of an historic deal to shut down Germany's nuclear energy industry - the fourth largest in the world. https://atomicinsights.com/gazprom-profiting-mightily-from-german-nucl… (2011) Gazprom profiting mightily from German nuclear exit https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-germany-russi… (2022) The Former Chancellor Who Became Putin’s Man in Germany Gerhard Schröder, who is paid almost $1 million a year by Russian-controlled energy companies, has become a pariah.

Fun fact, "friends of the earth" was originally funded by Robert Anderson, CEO of Atlantic Richfield oil, to oppose nuclear. https://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun-robert-anderson/

>There hasn't been a POTUS or VPOTUS with a technical background in the last 45 years (Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer). So obviously none of them would be authoritative on such topics. Jimmy Carter was a very smart guy, but he was not a nuclear engineer. https://atomicinsights.com/jimmy-carter-never-served-nuclear-submarine…

The blog post simply links to a scanned 1991 document from the major anti-nuclear players laying out their strategy. It includes folks like Ralph Nader. ICYMI: https://atomicinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/Antinuclear-strategy-Apr… Given the absolutely massive popularity of the antinuclear movement, the fringe belief is actually to think the legal intervenors that came out of it had negligible impact. Germany for example had a 100% complete fast breeder reactor called SNR-300, designed to provide sustainable low carbon 24/7 energy for decades. Before it could turn on for the first time, protestors rioted. They never turned it on. Today it's an amusement park. Now that is impact.

I couldn't find anything for Greenpeace, but I did find Friends of the Earth (which like Greenpeace, also split from Sierra Club), was split off "because of the [Sierra Club's] positive approach to nuclear energy. The founding donation of $500,000 (in 2019 USD) was provided by Robert Orville Anderson, the owner of Atlantic Richfield oil company." [1, 2, 3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_Earth [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/28/the-dirty… [3] https://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun-robert-anderson/

Here's a specific complaint about the application of a new and unnecessary airplane strike rule to an already approved design: https://atomicinsights.com/nrcs-imposition-of-aircraft-impact-rule-pla… Personally, I think what will happen is that other countries like China and South Korea will build lots and lots of NPPs cheaply and quickly and the US will only consider making changes to the way things are done after looking incredibly inept in comparison. The NRC is only one of many things that needs to change.

These cost overruns are largely caused by the excessive regulations imposed by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Even very minor changes to the design have to go through an extremely costly and time-consuming amendment process. In contrast, the NRC can decide at any time to change their mind about an already approved design, even after millions of dollars and years of time invested. https://atomicinsights.com/nrcs-imposition-of-aircraft-impact-rule-pla… https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/plant-vogtle-georgia-power-southern-c…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/13/are-fossil-fuel… https://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun/

Really makes me wonder what the world would be like now if Watergate hadn’t happened: https://atomicinsights.com/why-did-richard-nixon-so-strongly-endorse-n…

> HTGR https://atomicinsights.com/chinas-high-temperature-reactor-pebble-bed-… has a summary of the past experimental reactors (skip half way down to the heading “Brief high temperature reactor history”), and explains some of the reasons past reactors have failed to be commercialised. It also explains one central problem with using gas: “Even with higher temperatures and higher efficiency, each core can produce 1/10th of the electricity of light water reactors, but [China’s] HTR pressure vessel is described as ‘the world’s largest and heaviest pressure vessel.’ Pressurized gas has a far lower capacity to move heat than pressurized water.”. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=high-temperature+gas+reactor

https://atomicinsights.com/south-texas-project-unit-1-tripped-at-0537-… Failure of feedwater supply attributed to cold-related failure of sensors.

>Although I think some among the anti-nuclear movement may have had subversive intent This is a dramatic understatement. It was coordinated by the Rockefeller Foundation from the very beginning: https://atomicinsights.com/how-did-leaders-of-the-hydrocarbon-establis… >They may be wrong about the relative safety of nuclear power but they aren't morally defective people, so shaming them isn't appropriate. The moral failing that you're missing is arrogance. People who actually study radiation were not leading this movement.

If you only found one data point from the past 8 years in that source, then I'm sorry but you're just going to have to read a little harder. If that's a struggle, come back after you've watched Pandora's Promise with a truly open mind. The source above addresses why renewables aren't a complete solution. Fossil fuel companies also know that renewables aren't a complete solution, which is exactly why fossil fuel companies funded and ran anti-nuclear propaganda campaigns back in the 1970s, encouraging civilians to opt for solar instead! Because they knew it was never going to happen! https://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun-part-18-an-oldie-but-a-goodie-o…

You are right that I should have been clearer about the nuclear plant. However, the reason reactor unit 1 went offline appears to be accurate. https://atomicinsights.com/south-texas-project-unit-1-tripped-at-0537-… > The trip resulted from a loss of feedwater attributed to a cold weather-related failure of a pressure sensing lines to the feedwater pumps, causing a false signal, which in turn, caused the feedwater pump to trip.

I'm all for more nuclear, but FYI, nuclear plants were affected like everything else in Texas this week: https://atomicinsights.com/south-texas-project-unit-1-tripped-at-0537-… Ideally new ones would be designed better to avoid this possibility, but new nuclear plants take a minimum of 5 years if you're really sprinting. It's probably the most difficult, expensive, and time-consuming option compared to weather-hardening existing power plants and building new wind, solar, and storage.

> A nuclear plant stopped generating because the turbine froze; components were exposed to open air because Texas doesn't normally get that cold. That’s not true. The plant tripped because of a false alarm. The operators said the reactor would be back online shortly after safety checks. A whole turbine doesn’t freeze. The turbines are in buildings, not outside. Edit: Apparently, South Texas has its turbines outside. But these didn’t freeze but pressure-sensing lines failed. Source: https://atomicinsights.com/south-texas-project-unit-1-tripped-at-0537-…

Isn't the answer "Denver"? The city has a higher radiation dosage than average yet no more medical issues. Or at least that's something I heard once. A quick google brought up this site (which I have no idea who is sponcering) https://atomicinsights.com/science-falsified-no-safe-dose-hypothesis-r… Also https://www.google.com/search?q=denver+radiation

Yes, some things have such a low marginal price that metering is pointless, for example unlimited coffee refills at a restaurant. That doesn't mean it's free, you still have to pay for the cup. And that was Rod Adams' take on electricity, too, more than a decade ago: https://atomicinsights.com/too-cheap-meter-its-now-true/

However, there probably is quite a bit of tritiated water. Yes. Here's the tank farm.[1] It could probably be let out into the ocean without much harm, if not done all at once. But there's opposition to that. Meanwhile, it decays with a half-life of 12 years, so eventually it will be harmless. Frustratingly, the concentration of tritium is too low for commercial extraction. [1] http://atomicinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/fukushimatanks_sm.jpg

Going rate at the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) is 250+ $/hour to just review documents which are several hundred thousand pages long. 'One of my key concerns was the effect on the schedules for new license applications – not only do applicants have to pay $273 for every regulator hour, but they have to pay the staff and contractors that they use to apply for permission and answer regulator questions. Longer licensing processes cost more in salaries and other overhead and they push potential revenue out into the future.' http://atomicinsights.com/2011/12/audit-the-nrc.html

> How do we communicate to civilisations in the future what we did in that mountain? The more dangerous stuff burns itself out quickly (short half-life), and the longer-lasting stuff is not very dangerous given the type of radiation it is and can be blocked quite easily So, probably bury it deep enough with little external sign that it's actually there, and if it is actually discovered it won't be that big of a deal: > The main concern associated with spent nuclear fuel – radioactivity – diminishes with time. > About 40 years after it's done making power, the heat and radioactivity of the fuel bundle will have fallen by over 99%. * https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148416881180674 > About three containers are needed to store the quantity of fuel that is removed each 12-24 months; the space taken up by even a 60 year plant life is less than is needed for a Wal-Mart even without any efforts to efficiently stack the containers. * https://atomicinsights.com/time-for-plan-b-yucca-mountain-project-shou…

I stand corrected. I had trouble finding articles detailing how the nuclear plant was brought down, but then I found this: > On Monday, Feb. 15, 2021, at 0537, an automatic reactor trip occurred at South Texas Project in Unit 1. The trip resulted from a loss of feedwater attributed to a cold weather-related failure of a pressure sensing lines to the feedwater pumps, causing a false signal, which in turn, caused the feedwater pump to trip. This event occurred in the secondary side of the plant (non-nuclear part of the unit). The reactor trip was a result of the feedwater pump trips. The primary side of the plant (nuclear side) is safe and secured. […] We evaluated Unit 2 and have confirmed that we do not have the same issues that caused the feedwater pump trips in Unit 1. and subsequently, an answer to my question of 'how': > Some people have wondered how “pressure sensing lines” for a feed water pump could have been affected by cold outside air temperatures. There are no turbine halls at STP, both of steam turbines are out in the open air. I’m sure there is a design reason for this choice, but it isn’t apparent. (from https://atomicinsights.com/south-texas-project-unit-1-tripped-at-0537-…

Plutonium can be hazardous, but we've been able to work with it very safely. There is little reason to worry about storing it safely. "During the Manhattan Project in 1944 and 1945, 26 men accidentally ingested plutonium in quantities that far exceeded what is now considered to be a lethal dose. Since there has been a consistent interest in the health effects of this brand new substance (first discovered by Glenn Seaborg’s team at the University of California in 1940), these men were closely tracked for medical studies. Forty Years Later As of 1987, more than four decades later, only four of the workers had died and only one death was caused by cancer. The expected number of deaths in a random sample of men the age of those in the group is 10. The expected number of deaths from cancer in a similar group is between two and three." https://atomicinsights.com/how-deadly-plutonium/ Of course that doesn't count the demon core. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core

Unthinking, I'd always gone for Ralph Nader's 'the most toxic substance known to mankind'. http://atomicinsights.com/how-deadly-plutonium/ tells a different story. Point being - 'During the Manhattan Project in 1944 and 1945, 26 men accidentally ingested plutonium in quantities that far exceeded what is now considered to be a lethal dose. Since there has been a consistent interest in the health effects of this brand new substance (first discovered by Glenn Seaborg’s team at the University of California in 1940), these men were closely tracked for medical studies. Forty Years Later As of 1987, more than four decades later, only four of the workers had died and only one death was caused by cancer. The expected number of deaths in a random sample of men the age of those in the group is 10. The expected number of deaths from cancer in a similar group is between two and three.'. On the other hand, better play safe!

Lookie, lookie! Isn't it spooky? Just now: http://atomicinsights.com/will-china-convert-existing-coal-plants-nucl… Recently: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/ENF-Irradiation-trials-of-HTR-PM-fue… A while ago: https://www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/Downloadable/Meetings/2014/2014-04-0… & http://atomicinsights.com/htr-pm-nuclear-heated-gas-producing-superhea… Once upon a time, a road not taken: http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2008/10/primer-on-nuclear-safety-25-d… So, despite all the knowledge surrounding this, only China seems trying to implement this currently, after the Germans failed miserably. Search for skyshine here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor and mishandling mechanics here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300 So, who again insists on staying with coal power? (Pick your poison)