Tuesday, 20 December 2011
60 years since the world’s first nuclear reactor powered four light bulbs
also for a video tour of this reactor see: http://www.inl.gov/
Monday, 19 December 2011
Nuclear waste storage in Canada
Aside
from using a language that seems biased against nuclear power and aside
from making it like a sensational story, this series of articles seem
to be an in-depth reporting on the issue: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Friday, 16 December 2011
Will Saskatchewan build a nuclear power plant?
Listen
to Premier Brad Wall, Government of Saskatchewan, answering the
question whether Saskatchewan will build a nuclear power plant on
December 13, 2011. Paraphrasing: 1. Saskatchewan continues to find ways
to add value to uranium mining in the province, 2. Saskatchewan is
working with private sector and UofS establishing the nuclear research
centre there, 3. Saskatchewan is working with Hitachi on developing
small reactor technology, 4. Saskatchewan will continue working on nuclear
medicine reclaiming its leadership position in that field: http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/
See also the recent budget address: http://
Over the next 7 years our government will invest $40
million to establish Saskatchewan as an international leader in nuclear
medicine, science, engineering and safety. "
see: http://www.hitachi.com/
Thursday, 15 December 2011
Discovery of Radioactivity by Henri Becquerel
115
years ago, in 1896 Henri Becquerel while investigating phosphorescence
in uranium salts accidentally discovered radioactivity. He was born on
December 15, 1852. In honour of his birthday, here is a good historical
read on this life changing discovery: http://ansnuclearcafe.org/
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
An interview with Dr. Ted Hsu, recently elected Liberal MP for Kingston and the Islands, about science policy in Canada
A
must read interview with Dr. Ted Hsu, recently elected Liberal MP for
Kingston and the Islands, about science policy in Canada published in
the July-Sept. 2011 issue of Physics in Canada (http://www.cap.ca/en/article/
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Small modular reactors: key to future nuclear power generation in the US?
Do
small modular reactors hold the key to future nuclear power generation
in the US? a study released earlier this month from the Energy Policy
Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) concludes yes indeed: http://news.uchicago.edu/
“It would be a huge
stimulus for high-valued job growth, restore U.S. leadership in nuclear
reactor technology and, most importantly, strengthen U.S. leadership in a
post-Fukushima world, on matters of nuclear safety, nuclear security,
nonproliferation, and nuclear waste management,” the report said.
The SMR report was one of two that Rosner rolled out Thursday, Dec. 1,
at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington,
D.C. Through his work as former chief scientist and former director of
Argonne National Laboratory, Rosner became involved in a variety of
national policy issues, including nuclear and renewable energy
technology development.
The reports assessed the economic
feasibility of classical, gigawatt-scale reactors and the possible new
generation of modular reactors. The latter would have a generating
capacity of 600 megawatts or less, would be factory-built as modular
components, and then shipped to their desired location for assembly."
..., here is the link to the full report: https://
Monday, 12 December 2011
Why nuclear power plants might cost several times more than they should in initial capital investments
This
is a great read by Rod Adams as to why nuclear power plants might cost
several times more than they should in initial capital investments: http://atomicinsights.com/
TRIUMF continues to pursue the production of technetium-99m by medical cyclotron technology
TRIUMF
continues to pursue the production of technetium-99m by medical
cyclotron technology... even if this will be viable route, let's not
forget that a new reactor replacing the aging NRU not only could produce
medical isotopes but also it could allow neutron scattering to continue
for many years more... here is a recent report by TRIUMF on their
activities: http://www.triumf.ca/
This is the link to more details on their joint program with Natural Resources Canada: http://www.triumf.ca/
Safe disposal of nuclear waste from new nuclear power reactors without cost to taxpayers
Is
safe disposal of nuclear waste from new nuclear power reactors without
cost to taxpayers possible? The UK seems to have a solution: "From the
start of generation, operators of new nuclear power plants will be
required to set aside enough money to meet this expected cost. A cap has
also been set, giving operators certainty of the maximum that they
would pay, and this is set at about three times the current estimate."
... "What this boils down to is a charge per unit of electricity
generated. An operator can expect to pay £0.20 ($0.31) per MWh if the
facility is built to current cost estimates with a cap of £0.71 ($1.11)
per MWh. These compare to current prices of electricity for a large
industrial user of about £83 ($130) per MWh."... read more: http://
Ontario’s Long Term Energy Plan
Ontario’s
Long Term Energy Plan (OLTEP) allocates 46 per cent of future grid
space to nuclear generation, see here for the full plan in pdf: http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/
OSEA further suggests that Ontario
does not require nuclear power for baseload supply because of the
availability of hydroelectricity and the opportunities for major
industries to adopt Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems. Yet, the
report does not provide any numbers showing how much energy will be
required in the future. The OLTEP suggests, under its medium growth
forecast, that the province will require approximately 160 TwHs of
electricity per year. With no reference to these kinds of numbers in its
report, OSEA has a hard time proving that Ontario will not require
additional baseload power. In addition, there are no numbers showing the
potential available megawatts of power from hydroelectric and CHP
projects. This, again, makes it difficult to assert that Ontario will
not require additional baseload power." ... "While the report does
accurately describe the reasons why nuclear power is an incredibly
expensive and heavily subsidized form of energy, it does not prove that
renewable energy can replace nuclear. By failing to show how much energy
could be generated by the suggested baseload replacements, or how much
energy Ontario will require in the future, the report fails to
demonstrate that Ontario does not need nuclear power."
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
US steps up efforts on producing HEU-free medical isotopes
US
steps up efforts on producing HEU-free medical isotopes (I am not sure
whether there are any plans or efforts already on the way to convert the
HEU medical isotopes at NRU or not): "An agreement by the US Department
of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to fund
$2.3 million in development work at NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes
could lead to creation of a domestic supply for molybdenum-99, the most
widely used medical radioisotope. The cost-shared cooperative agreement
will help the Madison, Wisconsin, company with development of its
accelerator-based process for manufacturing the isotope by bombarding
targets of the naturally occurring isotope 100Mo with gamma rays." ...
"the US is without a domestic source of 99Mo, an isotope with a 66-hour
half-life whose decay product, metastable technetium-99 (99mTc), is used
in 8 out of 10 nuclear medicine procedures—about 16 million imaging
procedures annually in the US. For decades, roughly half the world’s
output of 99Mo has been provided, and most of the US demand has been
met, by the Canadian company Nordion, which processes HEU targets
irradiated at the aging National Research Universal (NRU) reactor in
Chalk River, Ontario.
In recent years the NRU has been forced to
shut down for extended periods, which produced severe shortages of 99Mo.
In October NRU operator Atomic Energy of Canada reaffirmed previous
commitments to halt medical isotope production in 2016." ... "In
addition to its cooperative agreement with NorthStar, the NNSA is
funding different novel approaches to 99Mo production at three other US
companies: GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
U of Saskatchewan cobalt-60 legacy
U
of Saskatchewan must see videos: "about the cobalt-60 legacy, new U of S
initiatives that advance nuclear medicine, and former or current U of S
scientists who’ve made advances in medical imaging and nuclear medicine
research. Some of these videos are produced by the U of S and some are
produced by others." http://www.usask.ca/cobalt60/
Also see: http://www.usask.ca/
Building CANDU in Ontario
Now
that the restructuring of AECL is completed is the time to make
decisions about new nuclear builds in Ontario as well as the future of
Chalk River Labs including building a new research reactor to replace
the aging NRU: "To win internationally we have to win domestically”. The
need for collaborative efforts between the Canadian nuclear industry,
its partners and all levels of government is needed to encourage growth
and development in the Canadian Nuclear industry, an industry expert
told local business and industry representatives..." ..."Mr. Lamarre
noted that to win internationally we have to win domestically and the
decision to build CANDU in Ontario would send a powerful signal to the
global nuclear marketplace that Ontario has a leading energy-generating
manufacturing technology. Mr. Lamarre said that support of Durham Region
is essential to CANDU and the future of the industry in Ontario and
Canada and that we all need to be ambassadors for this technology.
Mr. Lamarre finished by identifying the need for collaborative efforts
between the Canadian nuclear industry, its partners and all levels of
government in encouraging growth and development in the industry. Mr.
Lamarre identifying the potential of the creation a ‘nuclear cluster’ in
southern Ontario, incorporating existing nuclear industries and
offering opportunities for future expansion.
A clearly defined national nuclear energy strategy is supported by the Greater Oshawa Chamber of Commerce." read more: http://www.oshawachamber.com/
Companies should think nuclear
Companies
should think nuclear: "Imagine if a Hamilton company won a contract to
build a supertanker in its port. Now imagine if there was a contract to
build 90 supertankers throughout southern Ontario.
The
multimillion-dollar refurbishment of the Darlington nuclear power plant
scheduled to start in 2014 has the equivalent potential to boost the
province’s economy."... "“There does need to be some internal discussion
around (the importance of nuclear),” she said about government
departments. “People have to stop tiptoeing around nuclear.”"... read
more: http://www.thespec.com/news/
A national energy strategy?
A
national energy strategy must be established before it is too late, a
national dialouge is a good start!: "The federal government must start
playing a more active role in establishing an energy strategy and
coordinating with Canadian provinces. If they don’t, we will leave it up
to industry and our American partners to define what this strategy
should be."... "We need to address nuclear energy issues such as nuclear
waste management and the future role of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
(AECL), the exploration of inter-provincial energy and electricity
interconnectedness and opportunities, technology developments and
R&D investments for cleaner energy generation and extraction. We
also need to deal with energy supplies and security in northern
communities and the risks of deep water and Arctic drilling for oil and
gas resources."... read more: http://www.hilltimes.com/
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Wind farms littering the planet
A
point of view on the wind turbines for electricity production: "There
are many hidden truths about the world of wind turbines from the
pollution and environmental damage caused in China by manufacturing bird
choppers, the blight on people’s lives of noise and the flicker factor
and the countless numbers of birds that are killed each year by these
blots on the landscape.
The symbol of Green renewable energy, our
saviour from the non existent problem of Global Warming, abandoned wind
farms are starting to litter the planet as globally governments cut the
subsidies taxes that consumers pay for the privilege of having a very
expensive power source that does not work every day for various reasons
like it’s too cold or the wind speed is too high." read more: http://toryaardvark.com/2011/
Dec. 2 1942, a double milestone for nuclear research
Dec.
2 1942, a double milestone for nuclear research: first man-made
sustained nuclear chain reaction was created this day 69 years ago ( http://aps.org/publications/
This is also a nice summary of the history of uranium: http://www.virginiaenergyresources.com/s/UraniumFacts.asp?ReportID=138056
As
you may know Canada was also putting in efforts to achieve the
sustained nuclear chain reaction during the same time period, the reason
they lost to the Americans in the race was access to large quantities
of high purity graphite. There is a very nice write up by George C.
Laurence detailing these efforts: "Experiments in Ottawa
Heavy water
was scarce and costly to produce. The 185 kilograms, that the French
scientists had obtained from a hydroelectric plant in Norway and brought
to England, was most of the world's supply. Rough calculations with the
inaccurate data then available suggested that it might be possible to
obtain a large release of energy using some form of carbon, instead of
heavy water, with the uranium. Carbon would be less suitable for the
purpose but was cheaper and easier to obtain. I decided to experiment
with carbon and uranium oxide. The experiment would have to be done
mostly in overtime because my small section was very busy assisting
Canadian industry to become proficient in the radiographic inspection of
parts for military aircraft and other equipment. Months later, I
learned without surprise that similar experiments with carbon and
uranium had been started both in England and the United States at about
the same time.
The purpose of the experiment was to determine whether
a very large release of nuclear energy would be possible in a large
bulk of the kinds of uranium and carbon which I had. It would be
possible if at least as many neutrons were released by fission as were
captured. That implied that if an independent source of neutrons is
surrounded by a small quantity (i.e. a few tonnes) of the combination of
uranium and carbon, more neutrons would reach the surrounding walls
than if the combination of materials was not present.
In our
experiments in Ottawa to test this, the source of neutrons was beryllium
mixed with a radium compound in a metal tube about 2.5 centimetres
long. Alpha particles, emitted spontaneously from the radium,
bombarded atoms of beryllium and released neutrons from them. The
carbon was in the form of ten tonnes of calcined petroleum coke, a very
fine black dust that easily spread over floors, furniture and
ourselves. The uranium was 450 kilograms of black oxide, which was
borrowed from Eldorado Gold Mines Limited. It was in small paper sacks
distributed amongst larger paper sacks of the petroleum coke.
The
sacks of uranium and coke were held in a wooden bin, so that they
occupied a space that was roughly spherical, 2.7 m in diameter. The
wooden bin was lined with paraffin wax about five centimetres thick to
reduce the escape of neutrons. The arrangement is shown above, as a
sectional view through the bin and its contents.
A thin wall metal
tube supported the neutron source at the centre of the bin, and provided
a passage for insertion of a neutron detector which could be placed at
different distances from the source. In the first tests the detector
was a silver coin, but in most of the experiments it was a layer of
dysprosium oxide on an aluminum disc.
The experimental routine was to
expose the detector to the neutrons for a suitable length of time, then
remove it quickly from the assembly and place it in front of a Geiger
counter to measure the radioactivity produced in it by the neutrons.
The Geiger counter tubes and the associated electrical instruments were
homemade because there was very little money to spend on equipment.
The
relative rates of neutron capture and neutron release by fission were
calculated from the data obtained. If the release had been greater
than the capture it would have been possible to estimate the "critical
quantity" of uranium and coke, that is the minimum quantity needed to
produce a self-sustained reaction that would release a large amount of
nuclear energy.
Prof. B. Sargent of Queen's University joined me in
these experiments during the summer university vacations of 1941 and
1942. Progress was slow because the work was interrupted by other
duties and we lacked the better equipment that would be available today.
By
late summer in 1942, our measurements had shown that the release of
neutrons by fission in our combination of materials was a few percent
less than the capture. Therefore, it would not be possible to obtain a
large release of nuclear energy in that combination of materials even
if large quantities were used. There was too much loss of neutrons by
capture in impurities in the coke and uranium oxide and in the small
quantities of paper and brass that were present. We did not then
realize how a little impurity could lead to failure.
Meanwhile in the
United States, E. Fermi, H.L. Anderson, B. Field, G. Weil and W. Zinn,
after a first attempt that was also unsuccessful, did succeed in showing
that a large release of energy would be possible using purer uranium
and very pure carbon in the form of graphite. Using the necessarily
larger quantities, the Americans then built the first nuclear reactor
and operated it on December 2, 1942. They called it an "atomic pile".
In
the summer of 1940, R.H. Fowler visited Ottawa, followed soon by J.D.
Cockroft. They had been to the United States to stimulate greater
American interest in research of military importance. They told me
about the nuclear energy research in England and that in the United
States which they had just seen.
With Prof. Fowler's introduction, I
visited L.J. Briggs, who was chairman of the committee that coordinated
the American nuclear energy research at that time, and also J.B. Conant,
E. Fermi, H.C. Urey and P.H. Abelson and learned of their work. After
my visit, we received in Ottawa copies of reports on the American
nuclear energy research for the next two years. One of them that was
particularly helpful was "A Study Concerning Uranium as a Source of
Power" by J.B. Fisk and W. Shockly, dated September 17, 1940, a
remarkable theoretical discussion of the feasibility of a nuclear
reactor to have been written so early.
In response to Cockroft's
suggestion when he returned to England we received a gift of $5,000 from
Imperial Chemical Industries, which was involved in the nuclear
research in England, in support of our experiment. It was an important
addition to our budget, but I valued it most as an expression to Dr.
Mackenzie of British confidence in our work." read more: http://media.cns-snc.ca/history/early_years/earlyyears.html
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