Tag: nuclear power

South Korea Monitors Fukushima Release

Decades ago, I worked as an environmental scientist based in Hong Kong. I still stay in touch with some of my staff, who now are very experienced in their careers. I had heard that Hong Kong people were being warned about buying seafood, particularly seafood from Japan due to the release of water from Fukushima. I received an interesting article yesterday and quote from a section of it in the original Chinese together with the translation. I have omitted the first paragraphs. The references vary in their language but Note 2 is in English.

I jump to the last paragraphs examining the above 7:30 report.

當然，你依然可以反駁，日方的數據是假的。那麼你也可以看看韓國新聞。根據昨日韓聯社的消息，上周四日本排放核廢水後，韓國政府已在該海域30個點位進行緊急輻射測試，所有樣本均符合安全標準，而截至目前為止，韓國內的海鮮或進口海產尚未測到輻射。 （注2）

事實上，韓國從來不信日本，甚至不信國際原子能總署，所以7月以來，韓國已在200個海洋點位自己做水質監測，日本也無任歡迎。但奇怪的是，中国居然沒有像韓國般，實事求是加入監測行列，只堅持嚇鬼不動搖地在大陸、香港做「大內宣」，讓「財經作家」那種寫手散播假資訊，唯恐天下不亂地製造恐慌。

「因此我們可以假定」，中央政府正在下一盤很大的棋，旨在「給中国人民上一課科普」，引導民眾搶購可測試核輻射的蓋格計數器，之後驀然回首，才發現自己家的輻射原來比東京強900多倍（注3）——也許是中国建材問題——背後的理由實在太令人暖心了。

“Of course, you can still argue that the Japanese figures are fake. Then you can also check out Korean news. According to Yonhap news yesterday, the South Korean government has conducted emergency radiation tests at 30 points in the sea after Japan discharged nuclear waste water last Thursday, all samples met safety standards, and so far no radiation has been detected in seafood or imported seafood in South Korea. (Note 2)

In fact, South Korea has never believed in Japan, or even the International Atomic Energy Agency, so since July, South Korea has done its own water quality monitoring at 200 ocean points, and Japan is not welcome. But strangely enough, China has not joined the monitoring ranks like South Korea, just insist on scaring ghosts and doing “big internal propaganda” in mainland China and Hong Kong, letting writers like “financial writers” spread false information, lest the world will cause panic.

“So we can assume” that the central government is playing a big game of chess, aimed at “teaching the Chinese people a lesson in popular science”, guiding the public to snatch up Geiger counters that test nuclear radiation, and then looking back to discover that their own home’s radiation is more than 900 times stronger than Tokyo (note 3) – perhaps China’s building materials problem – the reason behind it is too heartening.”

Notes (References):

1 https://t.ly/Vdvih

2 https://t.ly/BjuD4

3 https://t .ly/g7arY

As expected, the South Koreans have not been able to find fault with seafood or seawater. One has to question the motives of countries who spread fear about radiation when these same countries build and sell nuclear power plants. Is it a question answered as it so often is “Just follow the money trail”?

When Quick Decisions Lead to Wrong Conclusions

The final step: making sure to put numbers in their right context. Are we looking at the whole picture? What works for some people may not work so well for others.

There is a tremendous amount of excellent technical information about radioactivity on the web, but it is often hard for anyone without that specific training to understand. There are also a lot of misleading statements and conclusions on the web. These even appear in peer-reviewed scientific journal articles such as the Chinese paper given as a link in my blog Tritium Trivia. This paper showed the results of modelling various releases of tritium water from Fukushima. Unfortunately, the last step was forgotten. Showing great expanses of red all over the Pacific Ocean would lead nearly everybody to say “How terrible! Japan is polluting the Pacific Ocean with radioactive material.” However, at the end of the document the background levels of tritium in the Pacific Ocean are quoted and this puts the release data into perspective. But nowhere in the paper was the context of the data given, that is that the levels of tritium were so low compared to normal background levels that they would be impossible to distinguish from the background variability.

I have made the decision that I will try to make my blogs as easy to read as I can so that they are suitable for most users of the web. This is not easy with technical information and my background of writing technical reports. Word has an editor function that allows you to calculate the readability of the document. Yesterday, for the very first time I managed to achieve my goal.

I was so excited that I quickly finished the blog and published it only to realize within minutes that I had forgotten a crucial step. I had jumped to the conclusion too quickly and not fully put the information into context. I rapidly edited the post and republished it. However, my subscribers received a set of comments that were not quite right. In my joy of finding a way to explain just how low tritium levels can be, I forgot just how many hydrogen atoms are in a little water. 18 g of water (one mole for the technocrats) contains 6*1023 molecules of water, 12*1023 hydrogen atoms and about a million tritium atoms.  This is still just as teeny in radiation terms but the numbers 1 and a million sound so different. 1TU is only 0.118 Bq/L. I will explain what this means in future blogs.

I apologize to my subscribers. At my age you are allowed to call it a senior moment. However, I suspect that in our current haste over climate change mitigation, we are all making similar mistakes. We do the first part of the work but then forget to really look at the big picture and put everything into context.

There Is Already So Much Good Information on the Web

I have been having so much trouble writing this blog. There are so many people out there who can communicate in a clearer fashion than I can. Why would my blog make any difference to a world that needs so much help? Both you dear reader, and I need to remember that if we even educate or influence one other person, we have helped to change the world for the better.

It is impossible to share with others everything that I have learnt on this nuclear journey of mine, but I must try. Without nuclear power, we will find ourselves going back to the dark ages which was such a cruel world.

Renewable energy technologies can only take us so far. There are three major reasons for this. The first is energy density. Wind and solar power cannot provide enough energy to both manufacture themselves, mine the materials they require, recycle some of their components and still produce electricity for other purposes.  Nuclear can. Secondly, the resources to make enough wind and solar for both the developed and the developing world don’t seem to exist. Basic physics ensures that the energy required to completely recycle components is enormous.

Finally, the land requirements for wind and solar are huge but not impossible. Unfortunately, to find enough land, we destroy or badly harm biodiversity of all types including forests, wetlands, mangroves and our precious and diminishing arable soils. Nuclear power requires less space despite the stupidity about radiation caused by fear.

Nuclear Now is a 2022 American documentary film, directed and co-written by Oliver Stone. It is a film that I would like everybody to watch. It is very long film and really has too much information for one sitting. I have provided a link to the film below. Do make use of the link while it still works.

There is also a book that I would love everybody to read. Jack Devaney makes some points that I believe should be considered by regulators in every country. The book is finally available as a paperback from a number of sources. It is a big book but even reading the beginning chapters and the final chapters is more than worthwhile.

The book is not as negative as the title “Why Nuclear Power has been a Flop”suggests. The book supplies many fascinating insights.

“Jack Devanney is the principal engineer and architect of the ThorCon molten salt reactor power plant. Since 2011 he has pursued his idea of using shipyard construction technology to mass-produce safe, inexpensive power plants that can bring the benefits of electricity to all the world, with no CO2 emissions. He married the advanced nuclear technology developed and demonstrated by Oak Ridge Laboratory with his own engineering experiences with ships, power plants, and energy.” – Amazon.com

Jack also speaks on Decouple and has lots of information and fascinating ideas on his Geordian Knot News.  http://jackdevanney.substack.com

2d Basics About Nuclear Power Plants and Waste

Source: Canadian Nuclear Association https://cna.ca/reactors-and-smrs/how-a-nuclear-reactorworks/

Canadian nuclear power reactors are CANDU reactors – heavy water reactors developed by Canadian scientists and engineers. CANDU stands for Canada deuterium uranium, because it uses deuterium oxide (heavy water) as a moderator and coolant and uses natural (not enriched) uranium as a fuel. There are 19 in operation in Canada and another 11 elsewhere in the world. India also has 16 nuclear reactors that are based on the CANDU model.

I have included this schematic because it shows other important elements of a nuclear power plant.  When used fuel rods are first taken from a reactor, they are both thermally and radioactively hot and must be cooled down.  They are placed in a special cooling pool close to the reactor, shown as “used fuel management.”

About a decade ago, my husband Dr David Jones was invited as a guest speaker on uranium mining at a conference in Sweden.  We took the opportunity to visit every nuclear facility we could and included all stages of nuclear waste management. I talked them into giving me a copy of the video below which shows some of the aspects of waste handling in Sweden. It is worth watching.

Click on the video to start it

2c How Does Nuclear Energy Work?

Ultimately, all the energy we use arises from some form of nuclear energy. The Sun’s energy reaches our planet as a result of nuclear reactions in the Sun itself. This energy is critical to our survival on Earth. The sun provides the energy for photosynthesis and hence all our food, wood, and dung. All the fossil fuels were created many millions of years ago from plants that derived their energy from the Sun. Differences in the heat from the Sun hitting Earth at different latitudes drives our climate engine. These differences in heat around the globe creates the wind that drives our wind turbines. Going back in time, it was nuclear reactions out in space that created the elements we find on Earth.

This video introduces the concepts of nuclear fission and can be found on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D91T-B-PVE0 if you have challenges making the embedded video work.

All the commercial nuclear power plants (NPP) operating today use nuclear fission as their source of heat energy. Optimism suggests we may be able to use nuclear fusion at some time in the future as an alternative to nuclear fission.

A great deal of energy holds the protons and neutrons of an element’s nucleus together. The heavier elements tend to degrade into lighter elements. Elements close to iron (Fe) in the periodic table are very stable. When elements come apart for whatever reason we call this nuclear fission. Because it takes less energy to hold the resulting smaller nuclei together, a lot of energy is released. Uranium and plutonium have excessively big nuclei and fall apart relatively easily depending on the number of neutrons present. Looking at the periodic table below, the heaviest elements are shaded in yellow, and they are all radioactive. The heaviest elements may only exist for minutes or seconds as they are so unstable. Some of the elements with smaller nuclei have minor isotopes that are radioactive, depending on the number of neutrons in their nuclei.

This schematic works for most types of electricity generation power plants operating today. In the case of nuclear power stations, the heat source is a nuclear fission reactor which creates hot, pressurised steam which turns a turbine. The fossil fuel power plants work in a similar manner. After use, the steam condenses back to water and recycles past the heat source again.

Cooling water is kept separate from the recycling water for many reasons. For example, condenser water, which is cooling water, can be sea water and  taken directly from the ocean and returned to it at a slightly higher temperature. Marine life, close to a variety of power stations, is slightly different to that a little further away. In most cases, the slight increase in temperature leads to a greater density of some marine species. Detrimental effects are not found. The boiler water is usually exceptionally clean water with special additives to keep pipes and pumps from eroding or clogging up.

The giant cooling stacks are part of many diverse types of power stations and only emit steam from cooling water.

Even hydroelectric and wind power work in an analogous manner to that shown on the top part of the diagram above. There is no heat source, the power to drive the turbines comes from rushing water or air. There is no need for a cooling system. However, even hydroelectric schemes can have a small impact on water temperatures both upstream and downstream of the power plants.

The energy of the spinning turbines becomes electrical energy by moving magnets within the electrical generator. This short video was  cut in my talks and was used just to remind us about electrical units. It has taken from MW vs. MWh: Do You Know Your Electric Units? https://www.enerdynamics.com

https://www.enerdynamics.com/Energy-Insider_Blog/MW-vs-MWh-Do-You-Know-Your-Electric-Units.aspx

Since the beginning of 2022, many countries in Europe are doing a U-turn away from closing down their nuclear power stations to planning new nuclear power plants.

The BWR type reactors work in exactly the same way as shown in the general schematic for a power plant.

Light-water reactors use ordinary water, also called light water, to produce steam to drive their turbines. Water also acts as a neutron moderator that slows neutrons down so more reactions can occur. Water absorbs too many neutrons to be used with unenriched natural uranium as fuel. So, the fuel used is enriched to 3-5% U238. Canada’s CANDU reactors can use natural uranium as fuel, but they are not light-water nuclear reactors. Instead, the reactor water used is heavy water.

PWRs have one more system that circulates water. Water passing through the reactors is separate to that in the circuit that drives the turbines. In order to generate steam efficiently, the “reactor water” is maintained at a high pressure and thus higher temperatures can be reached.

Many people visualise nuclear waste from reactors as a liquid. All highly radioactive waste is solid and contained in fuel rods within a fuel assembly and then kept within further layers of protective containment  More details about waste handling is presented in later blogs.

2a Does Nuclear Power have a Place?

Why are we planning on decarbonising our world? Well, there are lots of reasons including the chance for some entities to make lots of money. The main reason is illustrated below:

How are we doing? Well,  I am sure that I saw graphs for Australia showing that our methane and nitrous oxide levels were coming down and I put the methane reduction down to the reduction in our cattle and sheep numbers over the last decade or so. I cannot find my reference to those graphs despite my attempts at filing the information I have read in the last few months. The recent data for methane emissions show that our levels are rising (IEA Methane Tracker). I assume that this is probably due to fugitive emissions from the Queensland newly developed gas fields.

I must apologise, as I gave the wrong impression at the first presentation of this information at U3A in Atherton. I did not put this information up on the screen, it was only verbal but some of the attendees will remember my statement about Australia’s methane and nitrous oxide levels coming down.

One of the difficulties I have found when preparing my talks is a disparity in numbers between one source and another. However, it is clear that on a per capita basis, Australia emits some of the highest levels of CO2 and methane. Methane is emitted from wetlands and in quite substantial amounts. Worldwide, the fossil fuel industry seems to be working hard to control fugitive emissions and flaring as shown on the slide below. A few more years of data will clarify the level of methane emission as the flattening of the curve may be due in part to restricted travel during the COVID epidemic. Methane is emitted from wetlands and in quite substantial amounts.

The next few graphs come from the International Energy Agency (IEA) website https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics. It is obvious that the bulk of worldwide CO2 emissions arise from the use of the fossil fuels coal, gas and oil. Gas produces about half the CO2 compared to coal for the generation of the same amount of energy. All the fossil fuels are valuable commodities in their own right for the manufacture of many goods we take for granted in our modern lives. They form the feedstock for so many chemicals, and they are a finite resource. It is such a waste when we just burn them to produce energy. Coal is still needed for the production of steel and a substantial proportion of Australia’s coal exports are used for this purpose. Recent technologies such as the use of hydrogen for steelmaking offer hope for the future.

Nuclear power plants have been producing a steady supply of electricity for over 30 years, but nuclear power has not been used to supply energy for other purposes. Despite the rapidly increasing construction of solar and wind power, again these energy sources are only used for the production of electricity. One of the obvious ways to decarbonise our energy, is to use electricity as a replacement for the production of heat and for transportation. Some public transportation systems around the world have always been electric. Electric trucks have been used in some transport sectors for nearly a century. China has been remarkably busy building high-speed, electric train networks this century.

Unfortunately, some of the EU countries such as France, Sweden and Germany have been closing down some of their nuclear power plants earlier than needed. France has had some of the cleanest electricity in the world at cheap prices, but the push for replacement by wind energy has taken them in the wrong direction. In the last few months, a number of EU countries have taken a U-turn and are planning more nuclear power plants. There has also been a real push to improve efficiency of electricity use within the EU. As can assumed from the graph below, even France produces significant levels of CO2 due to the use of oil for heating and transportation.

Despite the billions of dollars and euros spent on erection of new wind farms, the percentage of electricity produced through wind power has not increased in the OECD countries. Indeed, the use of coal has increased while gas which produces half the CO2 compared to coal has gone down.

1a Why Do We Fear Nuclear Power?

When nuclear reactions occur, two main forms of energy are released: heat and radiation. Radiation is used in nuclear power plants to cause more nuclear reactions to occur to keep the power plant operating.  The heat is collected by a “cooling system” and makes steam which then drives turbines and generates electricity.  Most of a nuclear power plant runs in a very similar way to electricity generation by a coal -fired or gas power plant.  They all have turbines and cooling systems. When we burn coal, gas or wood, the energy is released in two main forms: heat and radiation.  In this case, the radiation is in the form of infra-red radiation  and light which is not so useful except perhaps psychologically sitting in front of an open fire.

There are about 440 nuclear power plants in operation in 33 countries. Australia is not one of these. Australia is the only G20 country where nuclear power is banned by Federal law. Nuclear power production is currently not permitted under two main pieces of Commonwealth legislation—the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998 (the ARPANS Act), and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act).

Nuclear power plants provide 10% of the world’s electricity. It is one of the safest sources of power generation. It produces no CO2 or other pollutants during operation and is the only source of power where every stage of the entire life cycle is securely contained.

Civil nuclear power has more than 18,000 reactor years of experience. The first commercial power plants were built over 50 years ago in the 1960s. Many of the world’s current nuclear power plants were built decades ago and for many years, few new reactors were built due to the campaigns by antinuclear groups and community concerns following Chernobyl. This was concerning as the new technology with greatly improved safety and efficiency was not being implemented. Safety features were no longer just added on as the technology advanced but were an integral part of the designs.

A year ago, the USA and major countries in Europe were setting dates to rid themselves of nuclear. Even France that had 70% of its electricity produced by nuclear power plants was winding down the industry.  Sweden was replacing nuclear with wind power and Germany was determined to close all its nuclear power plants. However, other parts of the world, particularly Asia, had a different view and saw nuclear as an important part of the energy mix.  About 55 power reactors are currently being planned or constructed in 19 countries.

In 2022, attitudes seem to be changing. France’s president Emmanuel Macron has announced plans to relaunch the country’s commercial nuclear programme with the construction of at least six new nuclear power reactors – and the possibility of eight more for a total of 14 – if he is re-elected. He also announced he wants to extend the lifespan of older nuclear plants to 50 years or more from 40 years currently, provided it was safe to do so. Japan shut down most of its nuclear power plants following the Fukushima event but has then gradually reopened each plant following extensive safety assessment and refurbishment.

Over recent weeks, several Eastern European countries have stated they need nuclear power if they are to reach their 2050 climate goals.

The first set of blogs accompanying my PowerPoint slides provide some basic material on radioactivity and uranium, fact checks issues that worry most of us and asks the question “Why are we afraid of nuclear power?”.

Support from New Friends

(Written 18 January 2022)

The Save Chalumbin campaign has much support locally including both our local federal and state MPs. It is easy to find information about Chalumbin by just googling the name. Destroying ecology and habitat critical to the survival of endangered species, is not “green” power!

Even according to the project’s referral under the EPBC act, Epuron states: “Despite the avoidance, minimisation and mitigation measures…, the project is anticipated to have a significant residual impact on the greater glider, the red goshawk and the magnificent brood-frog.” Epuron sold the project to Korea Zinc about a month ago. Did they realise Chalumbin was one step too far?

The Red Goshawk is probably Australia’s rarest bird of prey.
This endangered raptor lives at Chalumbin.

At that first coffee meeting, I mentioned that nuclear required a lot less space on the ground than renewables. Some of the campaigners were thrilled with this idea, and even offered to develop a website for me so that I could blog about the benefits of nuclear power. This offer gave me the emotional impetus to act but I refused their offer of financial support to set up the website. I wanted to maintain my independence. Over the last couple of months, I have tried ridiculously hard to see both viewpoints on many issues. It can be hard to determine the facts and undertake your own assessment, but I have been trying to do so.

Since finishing slides for my presentations, the group has sent me some remarkably interesting documents about many topics relating to decarbonisation which have added to my already large and growing collection. I love articles that quote their sources because then I can go back and really look at what the original article said and look at actual data and assess it when I can. I am grateful for the support. There is so much out there and of such varying quality.

I do believe there is a real place for renewables, but we must not be blindfolded to the downsides. More and more, I do see a place for nuclear power and sincerely hope that many of the new designs for nuclear power plants are implemented. Some days, I have felt negative about the chances of nuclear power really taking off in time but slowly and surely, I am becoming increasingly optimistic.

There are now green groups and many individual environmentalists who once shunned the use of nuclear power generation, changing their minds. The Green Party in Finland is pro-nuclear. There are now members of the Green Party in Australia who are pro-nuclear. I have been disappointed by the Swedish Parliament who seems to be dominated by the Green Party and is planning, at huge financial cost, to shut down working nuclear power plants. This is even though most of the Swedish population are still pro-nuclear.

In the last week, I have discovered some of the pro-nuclear groups operating in Australia. Most of their information is fascinating and written by people so much more knowledgeable than me. I have gathered so much material about renewables and nuclear that I feel this blog should share some of the information or at least direct others to great sources.

I would like to say a big thank you to Helen Keough and Caroline Emms who have been working so hard to save Chalumbin. Their friendship and encouragement keep telling me to get out there and do what I can.