Although at first glance, the Yucca Mountain facility seems to be a good direction for storing waste, when you really look into it, you will find that it is a false solution, but the industry needed something to show that they could deal with the waste. I suggest you do more research and you will find what I did:
1. The waste in containers around the country right now are too large to fit, and would have to all be repackaged. That is a bad idea, because you really never want to open a sealed waste canister once it is welded shut. A better idea is to have a two-layer design, so the outer canister can be sacrificial and replaced when it deteriorates.
2. The waste from reactor sites is far too hot to put in YM for a very long time, and their plans were to install big fans to circulate air through the facility for the first 150 years. Also, there was concern even with that, that the temperature would be far above the boiling point of water, making it virtually impossible for anyone to enter the facility esp. if there was any problem. The high temps would change the surrounding mountain structure, making it unstable.
3. To try to help with the degradation of the canisters, they added a titanium shield over a single-layer canister to help extend their life. We really don't know how to get anything to last more than 100 years without severe degradation. They would need these to remain intact for at least the first 300 years.
4. Transporting the canisters to the site is also problematic. Nevada was against this facility. They have no reactors and the big reason it was chosen was because the area by YM is already radioactive due to the fact that it was a nuke test area.
So after all this research, and a nuclear plant near my home at San Onofre which now has nuclear waste within 100 ft of the ocean, I believe the best solution is to leave the waste on the surface where it can cool, while placing it in double-walled canisters after about 50 years of cooling (the surface temp of the canisters can easily be at 400 degrees F.) Waste stored at locations like San Onofre should be moved away from the coast, but I doubt placing it on railroads will be feasible, and my plan was to move it about 5 miles inland from San Onofre. Moving about 10,000 canisters we have right now to one place at YM is asking for quite a few accidents.
And this does not handle the about another 10,000 canisters from the Hanford WA nuclear site which is far worse problem.
You can see the plan I finally proposed for San Onofre, for the near term (i.e. the first say 300 years).
This is not a partisan issue! Do not fall into the trap of blaming one party or the other. The fact is that we have no good solutions for this and all are pretty crappy.
Bottomline is that without a solution for the waste (reprocessing only handles the fuel and it is not allowed due to threat of use by terrorists, and the canisters are big and hard to handle specifically so they are hard to steal) we should not promote ANY expansion of nuclear energy. Please do more research!
Thanks to John for an excellent summary of the non-problems that opponents of nuclear power magnify into imaginary problems. The study by Vaiserman et al linked in the section "Low Dose Radiation is Beneficial" is one I hadn't seen. They cite the work of Ed Calabrese, who has written extensively about the scientific fraud perpetrated to create the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model for the relationship between radiation exposure and disease risk. Mike Conley and Tim Maloney are working on a book about Ed's work. They sent me an early draft that I summarized (with their permission) in my new book "Where Will We Get Our Energy?"
You have nailed this one. I used to be a Radiological Controls officer onboard a Nuclear powered ship, where in I was responsible for a lot of things radioactive, including the continuing training program on radiation risks and cleanup. Natural sources of radiation are plentiful, for instance from stone such as granite. Grand Central station in NYC emits quite a bit of radiation, the amount I can't remember, but what I do remember is that if a nuclear power plant emitted the same levels, it would not get a licenses or would have its license to operate revoked.
We monitored personal radiation exposure of all personnel onboard the ship. Most had higher exposures when in port where they were exposed to cosmic and other radiation sources. The lowest readings were always when the ship was underway. The only exception to that were the people that worked directly with sampling the reactor coolant, their doses were higher, but not very high at all.
Some forms of radiation are very damaging to cells, particularly the short-lived particulate forms such as alpha and beta radiation. Those are most damaging to people when ingested. One big source of alpha radiation is cigarette smoke as it contains tar, which comes from pitch blend that contains polonium, a big alpha emitter. Alpha is shielded by clothing or epidermal layers of skin and posses no real threat until ingested. Smoking exposes the lungs and mucous membranes to high amounts of alpha radiation.
Gamma radiation on the other hand is easily shielded using water and hydrocarbons, also, distance from the source drops the rad level by the square of the distance, so putting as much distance and stuff between you and the source will effectively shield a person. Neutron radiation on the other hand is really bad, there is no effective shielding, they have to slowed-down (energy level reduced) and absorbed. Water will reduce the energy level, but only a few materials are good for absorption. Boron is probably one of the best neutron absorbers. Boron is in Borax soap, so there is hope for some make-shift shielding if needed, although I don't know what the effectiveness would be.
Radiation has a bad reputation and thus nuclear power, coupled with the notable accidents also has a bad reputation, unfairly so. The new power plants under construction are much much safer than those of the past. For instance, the GE-Hitachi BWR 300, with a footprint about the size of a football field where the reactor is actually below ground. These small, somewhat modular reactors I believe are going to pivotal for expanding or replacing power infrastructure around the world. Salt reactors are also safer and offer some exceptional efficiency options. I am not a fan of coal, not because of the CO2, but because of the other air pollution and particulates, same with oil. Hydrogen and anything hydrogen powered is extremely damaging because the production and handling costs are very high and the higher temps produce NOx, an extremely damaging gas that turns water into acid rain. Nuclear is the obvious future, but it will take time to shift that overton window.
JLo: Thank you for your worthwhile information. The extensive US navy sub history is something I should have added — even though this was a brief overview...
Galen Winsor describes his hands-on experience with used nuclear fuel and radioactive materials. He explains how the rules associated with his profession changed during the period from 1947-1982.He also questions why those rules changed and who benefitted from the changes
Re: Are nuclear power reactors safe enough to operate?
I am a board certified nuclear engineer under the laws of California. The nuclear reactor safety issue that is raised in the peer-reviewed article at https://www.ndt.net/article/v04n05/oldberg/oldberg.htm is resolved in the peer-reviewed scientific literature by the publicaion of this artucke but this resolution is not accepted by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commissions, which however, has published no refutation of the claims that are made by my co-author and I in this article in the peer-reviewed scientific literature or elsewhere.
The French occasionally get it right. Their power grid has been serviced mainly by nuclear for the past 40-50 years. When I looked up the issue 30 years ago the French power grid was reliant on nuclear for 80 % of its power. Apparently they long before had solved the problem of dealing with so-called nuclear waste. Additionally we have long had nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines run by trained crew with no widely reported ill effects to crew members. The nuclear units powering aircraft I have heard are sufficient to service a small city (5,000 souls) which is about the crew size of a carrier (I think, have heard.)
I think a solution which might be looked into is to build numerous small nuclear plants to serve large population center grids. This would avoid the issue of the Three Mile island failure and the problem of securing a single major production facility against terrorist attack. The Fukushima failure was not one of operation but of location. My opinion is the plant was placed to be near a source of cooling water rather than be concerned about tsunami.
Ken: Yes, the French have led the world re nuclear power. One interesting thing is (my understanding) that they store all their nuclear waste in a building... In other words, Yucca Mountain would be like a million times safer — but that's not enough!
The French reprocess spent fuel using an immisiible-solvent process, either PUREX or one like it. PUREX separates plutonium and uranium (hence PUREX = Plutonium Uranium Extraction). This reduces the amount by 95% by weight, and recovers unused fuel. PUREX leaves higher actinides with the fission-product stream, which means they still need 300,000 year custody. If they use TRUEX (Trans-Uranium Extraction), that does a more complete separation, so their storage problem is reduced to 300 years. If they separated caesium and strontium from the other fission products, the storage amount needing 300-year custody would be reduced by another factor of ten, with half the rest being innocuous before thirty years, and the remainder not even radioactive. Caesium and strontium are produced at the rate of 92.6 kilograms, or about 46 liters, per GWe-year.
I am a big fan of pursuing nuclear energy as a way to add another way to produce (rather than harvest) energy in a way that produces zero carbon. I look forward to reading more articles in this stack.
I am disappointed the green energy movement doesn't acknowledge the aspects of their solution which are big problems. Just look at the batteries we need for electric cars, hybrids, and power reservoirs being constructed to hold power harvested by solar and wind. Lithium, cobalt, and nickel. These are the 3 primary components used to build lithium ion batteries. These must all be mined out of the ground and then sent to places where the raw materials are refined. This is a very dirty process involving heavy equipment, lots of energy, and also, lots of water. China is a primary supplier of refinement because many western countries don't want these dirty processes in their backyards. China has cheap labor, cheap dirty energy, and a monopoly on many of the products auto makers are dependent on (did you know that China alone emits more CO2 pollution than the US and Europe combined?)
The prototype for GE/Hitachi PRISM, the Experimental Breeder Reactor II at Idaho National Laboratory, was proven in 1986 to be "walk away safe." Look for the link to the article by David Baurac at http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Nuclear.html
Charles E. Till and Yoon Il Chang describe the successor, the Integral Fast Reactor, in detail in "Plentiful Energy," which is available from Amazon. Dr. Chang has generously given permission to link it from the above-cited page.
PRISM is the reactor part of the integral fast reactor. The other (and perhaps more important part) is on-site fuel processing using the pyroelectric process.
Robbo: Yes, and SMRs can be mass produced in a factory with very high quality controls. They can then be delivered on site with a truck. They can be installed in months instead of several years. Etc.
Thank you very much for your latest email about nuclear energy. I had recently asked about the problem of nuclear waste. I believe you answered my concern with this.
It also added other information that is valuable to me. I didn’t know (or maybe forgot) the Jimmy Carter prohibited reprocessing nuclear waste. The same with Yucca mountain. I vaguely remember that it was where some waste was, but maybe it was in rusting barrels and maybe near underground water.
What I would like to know more about: What were Carter’s justifications for prohibiting reprocessing? Can the waste at the 93 locations be reprocessed practically now? I know that France has been using nuclear power for most of my life. Are they a good model for us, or can it be done better?
I appreciate the information you have put out for quite some time. However, I think too much snark.
“The clear message above is that the nuclear radiation scare is largely a boogeyman generated by anti-Americans who would like us to shoot ourselves in the foot.” That statement and numerous asides about dishonesty and ignorance seriously hurt the readability of what you put out. It reminds me of a lot of social media that uses sensational language to generate clicks.
Carter's "justification" was that if the United States did not separate fission products from unused fuel, and put the fuel back into reactors, then no other nations would build nuclear weapons. I guess North Korea and Pakistan and Iran didn't get the memo.
His decision was hailed by opponents or nuclear power, mostly ignorant but the movers and shakers were exactly as John described them, as what must be a stroke of genius because Jimmuh Cahtuh was the smartest man ever to be president (except maybe Jefferson), and besides he was a nuclear engineer. Actually, while at the Naval Academy, he had enrolled in a class that would eventually have certified him to help operate a reactor on a nuclear submarine. But when his father became ill, he asked to be allowed to leave the Navy and the Naval Academy, to take over the family farm. He never finished the nuclear submarine reactor operator course, let alone any course on nuclear engineering.
I don’t know what, “ Carter's "justification" was that if the United States did not separate fission products from unused fuel, and put the fuel back into reactors, then no other nations would build nuclear weapons.” means
Glad the this info was helpful to you. As a scientists I call a spade-a-spade — even it may come across as "snark" to some. Nothing about it is sensational.
Although at first glance, the Yucca Mountain facility seems to be a good direction for storing waste, when you really look into it, you will find that it is a false solution, but the industry needed something to show that they could deal with the waste. I suggest you do more research and you will find what I did:
1. The waste in containers around the country right now are too large to fit, and would have to all be repackaged. That is a bad idea, because you really never want to open a sealed waste canister once it is welded shut. A better idea is to have a two-layer design, so the outer canister can be sacrificial and replaced when it deteriorates.
2. The waste from reactor sites is far too hot to put in YM for a very long time, and their plans were to install big fans to circulate air through the facility for the first 150 years. Also, there was concern even with that, that the temperature would be far above the boiling point of water, making it virtually impossible for anyone to enter the facility esp. if there was any problem. The high temps would change the surrounding mountain structure, making it unstable.
3. To try to help with the degradation of the canisters, they added a titanium shield over a single-layer canister to help extend their life. We really don't know how to get anything to last more than 100 years without severe degradation. They would need these to remain intact for at least the first 300 years.
4. Transporting the canisters to the site is also problematic. Nevada was against this facility. They have no reactors and the big reason it was chosen was because the area by YM is already radioactive due to the fact that it was a nuke test area.
So after all this research, and a nuclear plant near my home at San Onofre which now has nuclear waste within 100 ft of the ocean, I believe the best solution is to leave the waste on the surface where it can cool, while placing it in double-walled canisters after about 50 years of cooling (the surface temp of the canisters can easily be at 400 degrees F.) Waste stored at locations like San Onofre should be moved away from the coast, but I doubt placing it on railroads will be feasible, and my plan was to move it about 5 miles inland from San Onofre. Moving about 10,000 canisters we have right now to one place at YM is asking for quite a few accidents.
And this does not handle the about another 10,000 canisters from the Hanford WA nuclear site which is far worse problem.
You can see the plan I finally proposed for San Onofre, for the near term (i.e. the first say 300 years).
https://copswiki.org/Common/M1908
This is not a partisan issue! Do not fall into the trap of blaming one party or the other. The fact is that we have no good solutions for this and all are pretty crappy.
Bottomline is that without a solution for the waste (reprocessing only handles the fuel and it is not allowed due to threat of use by terrorists, and the canisters are big and hard to handle specifically so they are hard to steal) we should not promote ANY expansion of nuclear energy. Please do more research!
Thanks to John for an excellent summary of the non-problems that opponents of nuclear power magnify into imaginary problems. The study by Vaiserman et al linked in the section "Low Dose Radiation is Beneficial" is one I hadn't seen. They cite the work of Ed Calabrese, who has written extensively about the scientific fraud perpetrated to create the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model for the relationship between radiation exposure and disease risk. Mike Conley and Tim Maloney are working on a book about Ed's work. They sent me an early draft that I summarized (with their permission) in my new book "Where Will We Get Our Energy?"
You have nailed this one. I used to be a Radiological Controls officer onboard a Nuclear powered ship, where in I was responsible for a lot of things radioactive, including the continuing training program on radiation risks and cleanup. Natural sources of radiation are plentiful, for instance from stone such as granite. Grand Central station in NYC emits quite a bit of radiation, the amount I can't remember, but what I do remember is that if a nuclear power plant emitted the same levels, it would not get a licenses or would have its license to operate revoked.
We monitored personal radiation exposure of all personnel onboard the ship. Most had higher exposures when in port where they were exposed to cosmic and other radiation sources. The lowest readings were always when the ship was underway. The only exception to that were the people that worked directly with sampling the reactor coolant, their doses were higher, but not very high at all.
Some forms of radiation are very damaging to cells, particularly the short-lived particulate forms such as alpha and beta radiation. Those are most damaging to people when ingested. One big source of alpha radiation is cigarette smoke as it contains tar, which comes from pitch blend that contains polonium, a big alpha emitter. Alpha is shielded by clothing or epidermal layers of skin and posses no real threat until ingested. Smoking exposes the lungs and mucous membranes to high amounts of alpha radiation.
Gamma radiation on the other hand is easily shielded using water and hydrocarbons, also, distance from the source drops the rad level by the square of the distance, so putting as much distance and stuff between you and the source will effectively shield a person. Neutron radiation on the other hand is really bad, there is no effective shielding, they have to slowed-down (energy level reduced) and absorbed. Water will reduce the energy level, but only a few materials are good for absorption. Boron is probably one of the best neutron absorbers. Boron is in Borax soap, so there is hope for some make-shift shielding if needed, although I don't know what the effectiveness would be.
Radiation has a bad reputation and thus nuclear power, coupled with the notable accidents also has a bad reputation, unfairly so. The new power plants under construction are much much safer than those of the past. For instance, the GE-Hitachi BWR 300, with a footprint about the size of a football field where the reactor is actually below ground. These small, somewhat modular reactors I believe are going to pivotal for expanding or replacing power infrastructure around the world. Salt reactors are also safer and offer some exceptional efficiency options. I am not a fan of coal, not because of the CO2, but because of the other air pollution and particulates, same with oil. Hydrogen and anything hydrogen powered is extremely damaging because the production and handling costs are very high and the higher temps produce NOx, an extremely damaging gas that turns water into acid rain. Nuclear is the obvious future, but it will take time to shift that overton window.
JLo: Thank you for your worthwhile information. The extensive US navy sub history is something I should have added — even though this was a brief overview...
Galen Winsor - What stopped plutonium economy?
Galen Winsor describes his hands-on experience with used nuclear fuel and radioactive materials. He explains how the rules associated with his profession changed during the period from 1947-1982.He also questions why those rules changed and who benefitted from the changes
https://youtu.be/8VvGw1tkT1Q?si=qL0dPSK2GxsPdNk0
Sion: TY for adding an addidtional perspective.
I’ve basically been saying this for some time.
But no one wants to listen to the nonsensical ramblings of a deranged lunatic such as yours truly.
Rob: Maybe they aren't so non-sensical after all...
It still remains there virtually NO longterm waste fuel storage and re-use is clearly false as you also note facility onsite waste storage of waste.
OG: Yes, for political, not scientific reasons.
Dear Mr. Droz
Re: Are nuclear power reactors safe enough to operate?
I am a board certified nuclear engineer under the laws of California. The nuclear reactor safety issue that is raised in the peer-reviewed article at https://www.ndt.net/article/v04n05/oldberg/oldberg.htm is resolved in the peer-reviewed scientific literature by the publicaion of this artucke but this resolution is not accepted by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commissions, which however, has published no refutation of the claims that are made by my co-author and I in this article in the peer-reviewed scientific literature or elsewhere.
cordially,
Sidney Oldberg
Engineer/Scientist/Public Policy Researcher
Los Altos Hills, California
1-650-518-623-6636 (mobile)
terry_oldberg@yhoo.com
Natural radon that varies over the US is protective against lung cancer. The analysis is technical, but the results are clear.
Radon and lower lung cancer risk
Obenchain, R.L., Young, S. S., Krstic, K. 2019. Low-level radon exposure and lung cancer mortality. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. Volume 107, October 2019, 104418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yrtph.2019.104418 Free preprint: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert-Obenchain/publication/334230162_Low-level_radon_exposure_and_lung_cancer_mortality/links/62828c86dcb5ce0499d51787/Low-level-radon-exposure-and-lung-cancer-mortality.pdf
Thank you, Dr. Young.
John,
The French occasionally get it right. Their power grid has been serviced mainly by nuclear for the past 40-50 years. When I looked up the issue 30 years ago the French power grid was reliant on nuclear for 80 % of its power. Apparently they long before had solved the problem of dealing with so-called nuclear waste. Additionally we have long had nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines run by trained crew with no widely reported ill effects to crew members. The nuclear units powering aircraft I have heard are sufficient to service a small city (5,000 souls) which is about the crew size of a carrier (I think, have heard.)
I think a solution which might be looked into is to build numerous small nuclear plants to serve large population center grids. This would avoid the issue of the Three Mile island failure and the problem of securing a single major production facility against terrorist attack. The Fukushima failure was not one of operation but of location. My opinion is the plant was placed to be near a source of cooling water rather than be concerned about tsunami.
K.J.
Ken: Yes, the French have led the world re nuclear power. One interesting thing is (my understanding) that they store all their nuclear waste in a building... In other words, Yucca Mountain would be like a million times safer — but that's not enough!
The French reprocess spent fuel using an immisiible-solvent process, either PUREX or one like it. PUREX separates plutonium and uranium (hence PUREX = Plutonium Uranium Extraction). This reduces the amount by 95% by weight, and recovers unused fuel. PUREX leaves higher actinides with the fission-product stream, which means they still need 300,000 year custody. If they use TRUEX (Trans-Uranium Extraction), that does a more complete separation, so their storage problem is reduced to 300 years. If they separated caesium and strontium from the other fission products, the storage amount needing 300-year custody would be reduced by another factor of ten, with half the rest being innocuous before thirty years, and the remainder not even radioactive. Caesium and strontium are produced at the rate of 92.6 kilograms, or about 46 liters, per GWe-year.
I am a big fan of pursuing nuclear energy as a way to add another way to produce (rather than harvest) energy in a way that produces zero carbon. I look forward to reading more articles in this stack.
I am disappointed the green energy movement doesn't acknowledge the aspects of their solution which are big problems. Just look at the batteries we need for electric cars, hybrids, and power reservoirs being constructed to hold power harvested by solar and wind. Lithium, cobalt, and nickel. These are the 3 primary components used to build lithium ion batteries. These must all be mined out of the ground and then sent to places where the raw materials are refined. This is a very dirty process involving heavy equipment, lots of energy, and also, lots of water. China is a primary supplier of refinement because many western countries don't want these dirty processes in their backyards. China has cheap labor, cheap dirty energy, and a monopoly on many of the products auto makers are dependent on (did you know that China alone emits more CO2 pollution than the US and Europe combined?)
Robbo: SMRs (Small Module Reactors) are the future. Here is a reasonable piece <https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/nuclear-power-power-plant-smrs-clean-energy/>. Of course, environmental extremists will be attacking them...
I have advocated for SMRs in particular as well. Here's something I wrote with some links to positive news about SMRs
SMRs are one good answer for reduction of carbon.
+ Carbon free
+ Power generation (not harvesting)
+ On demand power
+ Small footprint
+ Price tag dropping from $4B to $1B
GE Hitachi BWRX-300 is one such solution.
https://www.energy.gov/.../first-us-small-modular-boiling...
https://youtu.be/y5Vt8vJrvm4
The prototype for GE/Hitachi PRISM, the Experimental Breeder Reactor II at Idaho National Laboratory, was proven in 1986 to be "walk away safe." Look for the link to the article by David Baurac at http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Nuclear.html
Charles E. Till and Yoon Il Chang describe the successor, the Integral Fast Reactor, in detail in "Plentiful Energy," which is available from Amazon. Dr. Chang has generously given permission to link it from the above-cited page.
PRISM is the reactor part of the integral fast reactor. The other (and perhaps more important part) is on-site fuel processing using the pyroelectric process.
Robbo: Yes, and SMRs can be mass produced in a factory with very high quality controls. They can then be delivered on site with a truck. They can be installed in months instead of several years. Etc.
Thank you very much for your latest email about nuclear energy. I had recently asked about the problem of nuclear waste. I believe you answered my concern with this.
It also added other information that is valuable to me. I didn’t know (or maybe forgot) the Jimmy Carter prohibited reprocessing nuclear waste. The same with Yucca mountain. I vaguely remember that it was where some waste was, but maybe it was in rusting barrels and maybe near underground water.
What I would like to know more about: What were Carter’s justifications for prohibiting reprocessing? Can the waste at the 93 locations be reprocessed practically now? I know that France has been using nuclear power for most of my life. Are they a good model for us, or can it be done better?
I appreciate the information you have put out for quite some time. However, I think too much snark.
“The clear message above is that the nuclear radiation scare is largely a boogeyman generated by anti-Americans who would like us to shoot ourselves in the foot.” That statement and numerous asides about dishonesty and ignorance seriously hurt the readability of what you put out. It reminds me of a lot of social media that uses sensational language to generate clicks.
You need to distinguish sensational and true from sensational but false.
My only point is that, however true, sensationalism hurts credibility.
Carter's "justification" was that if the United States did not separate fission products from unused fuel, and put the fuel back into reactors, then no other nations would build nuclear weapons. I guess North Korea and Pakistan and Iran didn't get the memo.
His decision was hailed by opponents or nuclear power, mostly ignorant but the movers and shakers were exactly as John described them, as what must be a stroke of genius because Jimmuh Cahtuh was the smartest man ever to be president (except maybe Jefferson), and besides he was a nuclear engineer. Actually, while at the Naval Academy, he had enrolled in a class that would eventually have certified him to help operate a reactor on a nuclear submarine. But when his father became ill, he asked to be allowed to leave the Navy and the Naval Academy, to take over the family farm. He never finished the nuclear submarine reactor operator course, let alone any course on nuclear engineering.
I don’t know what, “ Carter's "justification" was that if the United States did not separate fission products from unused fuel, and put the fuel back into reactors, then no other nations would build nuclear weapons.” means
Carter:
Glad the this info was helpful to you. As a scientists I call a spade-a-spade — even it may come across as "snark" to some. Nothing about it is sensational.