Myths of Nuclear Power

By Anthony Stauffer

The internet is chock full of information on every subject imaginable, but, of course, a lot of it is misleading, inaccurate, or just plain wrong. It is up to the user to do sufficient research on the subject of interest in order to come to an educated decision of the opinion they arrive at. One of those myriad subjects is that of nuclear power. Myths and misconceptions abound in the field of nuclear power, and, unfortunately, many people believe these myths at face value without doing any investigation on their own. Granted, the physics and mathematics involved in the true understanding of how the process works is complicated. However, the conceptual portions are not that difficult, and the processes behind the generation of electrical power are quite simple to understand. Nevertheless, there will be many out there who still wont rid themselves of their doubts of nuclear power. Thats the world we live in This article is derived from the top four websites I visited on a Google search for misconceptions of nuclear power. Included at the end of the list of these sites is an article written by Alec Baldwin written in August of 2008 and published in the Huffington Post. My opinion on his article will be given at the end of this article. This article is also derived from my knowledge accrued after spending ten years operating nuclear propulsion plants in the United States Navy, and my five years of operating a civilian boiling water reactor generation plant in eastern Pennsylvania. The plants design is nearly identical to the plants which suffered irreparable damage due to the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan. I will tackle 13 myths and misconceptions here, attempting to keep my responses informative, yet concise, so as not to overwhelm the reader with too much information.

1. Three Mile Island killed interest in US nuclear power

For a while it did. The general populous of the United States was very nearly scared stupid because of the accident. The nuclear power industry as a whole was not even thirty years old at the time of the accident, and most of that time was spent on research and development of naval nuclear power. And not long after, Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas made names for themselves in the movie The China Syndrome. However, most of the nuclear plants in the United States have been given operating license extensions by the NRC, and there are initial licensing agreements being hammered out for nearly fifty more nuclear plants to be built in the next decade.

2. Long half-lives make radioactive fission products dangerous

The most radioactive product of nuclear power is Nitrogen-16; it is produced when Oxygen-16 (produced in the radiolytic decomposition of water) undergoes radioactive decay. The half-life of N-16 is 7.2 seconds, but the gamma ray emitted from the decay is

very energetic, and, therefore, very dangerous. It is not the length of the half-life that is the threat; it is the energy of the released particles from the radioactive decay of the radioactive waste. But, rest assured, proper shielding of these radioactive fission products is well understood and well used. I, personally, have been within a foot of a radiation source measuring 14 Rads, and thanks to a few inches of lead shielding; my actual dose was next to nothing. (http://mitnse.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/radiation_npp_07.pdf)

3. Nuclear Power is bad for the environment

Radioactive sludge does exist; there is no way around it. It is the result of water purification processes for use and reuse in nuclear power plants. However, the sludge very strictly controlled, and removal and transport from nuclear power plants of this sludge is carefully controlled under the strictest of guidelines. You will not find leaking barrels of radioactive sludge in a city sewer for turtles to trudge through. This article (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-20/leaking-nuclear-sludge-could-threatencolumbia-river.html) speaks of the site in Hanford, Washington. It is a site that contains radioactive waste from the development of Cold War nuclear weapons, and leakage from the containers threatens the regional water supply. It is a bad situation, but it is not related to nuclear power. The most common form of leakage from nuclear power plants over the years has been in the form of Tritium, an isotope of Hydrogen that has a half-life of 12.3 years and undergoes relatively low energy beta decay (18.6 KeV). If ingested, it can provide a hazard to living organisms. In humans, the threat lasts for about one to two weeks as the body undergoes water exchange. Aside from that, the controls in place concerning radioactive release are stringent, and highly unlikely. So, what comes out of the cooling towers at a power plant? It is water vapor produced in atmospheric heat exchange of a secondary water source for keeping the power plant cool. In the industry we sometimes refer to them as Cloud Makers.

4. Nuclear power is unnatural

Nuclear power is no more unnatural than the processes we use to distill different forms of fuel from oil, or the production of chemicals used in the pharmaceutical industry to produce the myriad drugs that Americans consume each year, or the production of any product not naturally found in the environment. If nuclear power is unnatural, then so is the seat youre sitting in right now while reading this article. Nuclear power is the result of human ingenuity to manipulate the natural forces of the universe. Enough said.

5. A nuclear reactor is similar to a nuclear bomb

This particular myth infuriates me every time I see it or hear about it. I cannot tell you how many times people have asked me, What happens if the reactor explodes? The physics behind a nuclear reactor and nuclear weapon are completely different. A bomb is meant to unleash an uninhibited nuclear chain reaction (supercriticality) to produce an explosion. A nuclear reactor, on the other hand, is meant to produce a constant (or critical) chain reaction to heat water for the purpose of steam production to drive a turbine to produce electricity. Both a weapon and a reactor rely on a critical mass and a critical geometry, but, the weapon is designed to run out of control, if you will. A

reactor is designed in such a way that, if a meltdown occurs, any slag generated will not have the chance to achieve critical geometry outside of the vessel. For those of you well versed in the Chernobyl accident (here is a great article concerning a day trip taken to the site:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2005/oct/23/ukraine.darktourism.observerescapesection), the Elephants Foot of molten core material was known to have achieved criticality after leaking into the plants basement, but not the supercriticality required for detonation. Explosive supercriticality, as found in a nuclear weapon, requires compression of an unmoderated, essentially pure, fast nuclear fuel.

6. Americans receive too much exposure from nuclear power plants

This is the biggest falsehood Ive ever heard about concerning nuclear power. While I was in the Navy, I did two six month deployments, spending the majority of my time in the propulsion plants. Combined, I received less radiation exposure during those deployments than a single flight deck operator received from natural radiation from the Sun during a single deployment. The Sun is the largest source of radiation exposure to human beings than a nuclear plant will ever be. In my fifteen years as a nuclear power plant operator, I have received about 1.5 Rem of total body dose. Thats an average of 100 millirem per year, or one-third the annual dose received by every human being on this planet from natural radiation sources. For civilian plants, even though each person that works at one is issued a dosimeter, outside of the buildings housing the plant there is very little detectable radiation. If you live right next to a nuclear plant, you receive no more exposure from the plant than somebody living 100 miles away.

7. Nuclear power is not safe

Is it safe to drive a car? Is it safe to go sky-diving? Is it safe to strip mine? Is it safe to travel into space? Is it safe to fight a fire? Safety is in the hands of the operators and the protocols and procedures those operators are trained on. Safety also arises from design elements incorporated into the machinery used for whatever you are building and operating. As for nuclear plants, they are very much over-engineered from a safety standpoint. And each nuclear plant design here in the United States is engineered to a standard. The beyond-design-basis accident, which includes the all of the following: the most reactive time in core life, the maximum number of rods expected to not insert on an automatic scram signal, the rods which did not insert are the most reactive rods in the core, the minimum number of safety systems are available for core reflooding, Minimum possible protection is provided by containment barriers, a double-ended shear of unisolable reactor core piping has occurred, and maximum release of radioactive particles to the public has occurred. There are more, but you get the idea. Based on all of these factors, at the plant that I worked at, the frequency of an event of this magnitude was calculated to be 3x10-6 events per year. Or, using the inverse of this value, there are 333,333 years between any two such events. Granted, thats all based on a calculation, but how many things in our society are based on probabilities? Not the least of which are

the insurance premiums we all must pay. The safety of nuclear power comes from the proper initial and continuing training that all plant operators must go through.

8. Yucca Mountain has been disbanded!

What will we do with all this nuclear waste? By far, this is the most popular question posed to the nuclear power industry. We already discussed above the fate of radioactive sludge produced during purification processes. It is taken to designated Low-level Radioactive Waste Disposal sites for burial such as the facility in Barnwell, South Carolina (http://www.chemnuclear.com/pdfs/Bnwl_WA_23.pdf). The waste is transported in
high integrity containers (the Avantech Corporation is one of the most well-known producer of HICs: http://www.avantechinc.com/nuclear-power/container.php) as specified by the regulations set forth by the NRC (http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doccollections/cfr/part020/part020-appg.html). As for High Level Radioactive Waste, most commonly known as spent fuel, it is stored in two ways. First, and most well-known since the Fukushima tragedy, is the Spent Fuel Pool. It is a large pool located at the top of a facilitys reactor building, where spent fuel assemblies are stored under several feet of water in specific order so as not to allow for inadvertent criticality. However, the scare arose when plants realized that their spent fuel pools were rapidly running out of space. Enter stage right, ISFSI, the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation. Within these installations, found on just about every nuclear site, are stored Dry Casks of roughly 60 fuel assemblies under pressurized hydrogen (http://cryptome.org/eyeball/isfsi/isfsi-eyeball.htm). They are quite the ingenious invention, and have bought a great amount of time until we have to worry about running out of storage space again.

9. America doesnt support nuclear power

That couldnt be more wrong. Even following the disaster at Fukushima, 57 percent of Americans still support the initiative of expanding nuclear power in the United States (http://www.gallup.com/poll/153452/americans-favor-nuclear-power-year-fukushima.aspx).

10.What if there is an American Chernobyl event?

This is impossible. I know what youre saying, nothing is impossible In this particular case, it is. Chernobyl was probably the most horrific design of a nuclear power plant ever devised. The entire purpose behind Chernobyl was not for power generation, but for production of weapons grade Plutonium. Here were three design flaws of Chernobyl (http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/reports/kr79/kr79pdf/Malko1.pdf). First, not only was the reactor a fast breeder reactor, but it was a boiling water design with a high positive void coefficient. This means that, when power was raised, the reactor temperature would rise, causing the boiling rate to rise, resulting in more numerous and larger steam bubbles (voids). In this case, as the voids got larger and more numerous, positive reactivity in the core would rise, causing power to go up automatically. And the cycle would continue until something was done operationally to stop it. In American boiling water reactors (BWRs), this void coefficient is negative in value; pressurized water reactors (PWRs) operate without voids, so this point is moot for this design. Second, since Chernobyl was

designed to produce weapons grade Plutonium, it was also designed to undergo refueling at power. Design wise, this means that the lid on the core was nothing more than a thick and extremely heavy slab of steel with no additional lock down devices to maintain reactor integrity. This was the main design flaw in the accident. When the reactor went to an uncontrolled supercritical condition (known as prompt criticality;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_critical), the pressure inside the vessel rose so quickly and to such a high value that the lid blew off of the reactor. Talk about producing the ultimate void! It was calculated that, for 11 milliseconds, the Chernobyl reactor achieved a power output of 350,000 megawatts thermal, with a maximum design output of 3,200 megawatts thermal, roughly. Third, inadequate following of established safety protocols allowed the first two flaws to show themselves for what they were. The Turbogenerator test called for stable reactor power at about 17-25% and the Turbogenerator operating at full speed. The reactor was to then be scrammed and steam shutoff to the turbine. Delays encountered on the shift briefed to perform the test caused another shift to have to perform it. Additionally, throughout the day and evening, reactor power was allowed to fall too far, allowing for significant Xenon to build in the reactor to the point of preclusion, in which power could not be forced to increase with rod movement. So, they increased coolant flow. All in all, they put the reactor in a very dangerous condition; low power, high flow, most control rods full out. When the experiment began, automatic rod insertion kept reactor power in check. But then a scram was initiated, and due to another design flaw, the rapid insertion of the control rods actually allowed for reaction rates in the core to increase, leading to the overpower condition and the explosion. American reactor designs are much better, and over-engineered. And protocols are strictly followed. Any deviation and the company could get fined, which they dont like.

11.Transport of nuclear waste is hazardous to the public

It has already been mentioned above that low level nuclear waste is transported in HICs, and I guarantee you that, on any given day, if youre traveling on the interstate, and you pass a truck loaded with HICs, the only way you would know is if you catch a glimpse of the radioactive sign on the side of the truck. All trucks are counted for radiation levels prior to leaving a site. Radiation levels outside of the HICs are very low, such that, sitting in a car as you pass one, you would see no detectable rise in radiation levels. And suppose there was a jackknife of one of these transport trucks? HICs are strong enough and durable enough to withstand such accidents.

12.Nuclear power cannot reduce the nations dependence on oil

Short of the development of vehicle size nuclear reactors, such as the one in Doc Browns DeLorian, this may seem more fact than falsehood. However, if we can beef up electrical production to the nations grid with more nuclear plants, it would allow for more construction of electrical powered mass transit. And as the next generation of nuclear reactors completes the developmental phases (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/NuclearFuel-Cycle/Power-Reactors/Advanced-Nuclear-Power-Reactors/#.UW88WbWG2Bk), it may be possible to build nuclear plants for more ocean-going vessels than ever before for costs that are

not exorbitant. How many millions of barrels of oil would be saved if all American ocean-going vessels no longer required diesel fuel?

13.What if there is an American Fukushima event?

The only place I know of that would be susceptible to a Fukushima-type event would be along the San Andreas Fault in California. But, to be completely honest, if you can find anybody with the skill and knowledge to design any building, much less a nuclear power plant, to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake followed by a 35 foot wall of water, please, introduce them to me. The power plant that I worked at is essentially the same design as the plants at the Fukushima site. And, let me tell you, those places are built very sturdy. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has gone through painstaking efforts since the Japanese earthquake to ensure that all nuclear sites in the United States meet more stringent requirements to best protect them from worst case scenario earthquakes based on their geological location. The Japanese earthquake, however, is simply defined as an act of God, something that cannot be predicted nor fully protected against. Now, for Mr. Alec Baldwin. I read several of his posts in the Huffington Post and attempted to watch a video, but I couldnt finish it. Political pundits that are opposed to nuclear power appear to have fed him so much garbage about the government conspiracies of nuclear power that the man is blind. What are the chances, do you think, that Alec Baldwin has ever stepped foot inside a nuclear power plant? What are the chances that he ever spoke to an actual nuclear operator about the operations of a power plant? His major concerns center on radioactive releases from nuclear plants, and the filthy mining process. Hey, Alec, how filthy of a process is it to mine and smelt the iron into steel to build all those buildings in Hollywood where all your movies are filmed? Hey, Alec, if you live so close to a nuclear power plant, why dont you track your radiation exposure and prove to us the seriousness of general background radiation levels surrounding these sites? Hey, Alec, if these plants are headed for such catastrophic failures, then why would the NRC bother to go through a three year process of license renewal if they are only going to fail in the near future? Do a little more research, Alec, then come back and speak to us

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-03-22/opinions/36869026_1_nuclear-power-nuclear-reactorthree-mile-island http://www.new.ans.org/pi/resources/myths/ http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/ http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2012/03/14/2003527728 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/the-misconception-of-nucl_b_118061.html