Nuclear Facts

Question 1

What is a positron?

Answer 1

The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1 e, a spin of 1/2 (same as electron), and has the same mass as an electron.

Question 2

What is a chemical bond?

Answer 2

A lasting attraction between atoms, ions or molecules that enables the formation of chemical compounds.

Question 3

What is “exothermic?”

Answer 3

A reaction or process accompanied by the release of heat.

Question 4

What is “nucleation?”

Answer 4

That point at which a physical phase change commences.

Question 5

What are the ways that we know to produce nuclear energy?

Answer 5

Fission, fusion and Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions. Only fission has been utilized commercially to date.

Question 6

What are the two types of fuel used for fission?

Answer 6

Solid or Liquid

Question 7

What are the two traditional fuel cycle mechanisms?

Answer 7

Burner and breeder reactions, which achieve criticality.

Question 8

Name some of the types of coolants utilized?

Answer 8

Light water, heavy water, sodium, fluoride salt, lead bismuth, and gas cooled.

Question 9

Describe the new possibility in a fuel cycle

Answer 9

Accelerator-driven subcritical reactors

Question 10

What is fission?

Answer 10

Fission occurs when one atom is split into two smaller fragments, creating an explosion of sorts and resulting in the release of heat energy.

Question 11

What is fusion?

Answer 11

Fusion is the process by which a gas is heated up and separated into its ions and electrons. When the ions get hot enough, they can overcome their mutual repulsion and collide, fusing together. When this happens, they release a lot of energy – about one million times more powerful than a chemical reaction (and 3-4 times more powerful than a fission reaction?)

Question 12

What are some of the challenges of fusion?

Answer 12

Fusion can only happen in 100 million degrees Celsius temperatures. Particles must also remain in close proximity with one another, and the plasma, which is ionized gas that’s created during the fusion process, must be contained or risk drifting away.

Question 13

What are the approaches used in fusion development?

Answer 13

Tokamak, which employs magnets to keep plasma from escaping and cooling off (used by ITER). Others use lasers to rapidly compress hydrogen into frozen pellets that are 1000 times denser than ordinary matter and can achieve a momentary pulse of fusion.

Question 14

What approach does General Fusion take?

Answer 14

General Fusion uses a hybrid of both, though it doesn’t use lasers. It injects plasma, which is surrounded by liquid metal, into a compression chamber where magnets help contain the gas. Then, pistons put pressure on the chamber to compress the plasma to fusion conditions. The now heated liquid metal gets turned into heat, which then gets turned into electricity.

Question 15

Are we building any new nuclear reactors in the U.S.?

Answer 15

Georgia is building two new units, Vogtle Units 3 and 4, which are Westinghouse AP1000s, the first new builds in 3 decades.

Question 16

The Vogtle plant is so uneconomic, it requires U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan guarantees of more than $12 billion to complete, why is this a good idea?

Answer 16

The projects will support 9,000 jobs during construction (and 800 during operation) and the funding is helping the project train a new class of workers and rebuild the nuclear work force, which was weakened during the period when we stopped building.

Question 17

When will the Vogtle units come online?

Answer 17

2021 and 2022 and they’ll have advanced safety systems that automatically shut them down in the event of loss of power.

Question 18

How much power will they provide?

Answer 18

Vogtle Units 3 & 4 are expected to generate more than 17 million megawatt-hours of clean and reliable electricity. That’s enough to power more than 1.6 million average American homes.

The reactors will also prevent up to 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually—the equivalent of removing 1 million cars from the road each year.

Question 19

How many nuclear power plants are there worldwide, how much energy do they provide, and what’s the percentage of world electricity?

Answer 19

Today there are about 450 nuclear power reactors operating in 30 countries plus Taiwan, with a combined capacity of about 400 GWe. In 2017 these provided 2506 billion kWh, over 10% of the world’s electricity. (World Nuclear Association)

Question 20

The 1980s was the period with the most nuclear growth. What was that?

Answer 20

In the 1980s, 218 power reactors started up, an average of one every 17 days. These included 47 in the USA, 42 in France and 18 in Japan. These were fairly large – the average rated power was 923.5 MWe. (World Nuclear Association)

Question 21

How many new nuclear power plants are being built today?

Answer 21

Over 100 power reactors with a total gross capacity of about 120,000 MWe are on order or planned, and over 300 more are proposed. Most reactors currently planned are in the Asian region, with fast-growing economies and rapidly-rising electricity demand. (World Nuclear Association)

Question 22

How many countries have nuclear power plants already and now many are considering adding them?

Answer 22

30 countries plus Taiwan have plants today (total of about 450) and about 30 countries are considering, planning or starting nuclear power programmes, and the UAE, Belarus, Bangladesh and Turkey are all constructing their first nuclear power plants (see World Nuclear Association paper on Emerging Nuclear Energy Countries).

Question 23

Why aren’t more countries building nuclear?

Answer 23

One major issue for many countries is the size of their grid system. Many nuclear power plants are larger than the fossil fuel plants they supplement or replace, and it does not make sense to have any generating unit more than about one-tenth of the capacity of the grid (maybe 15% if there is high reserve capacity). This is so that the plant can be taken offline for refuelling or maintenance, or due to unforeseen events.

Question 24

Why else aren’t more countries building nuclear?

Answer 24

Another issue is that of licensing reactor designs. Emerging countries generally do not have the expertise for this, and must initially rely on design licensing by countries such as the UK, USA, France, Russia and China while they focus on building competence to license the actual operation of plants. State-owned nuclear companies in Russia and China have taken the lead in offering nuclear power plants to emerging countries, usually with finance and fuel services.

Question 25

How are the generations defined?

Answer 25

Reactor designs are frequently classified into four generations. The first commercial nuclear reactors built in the late 1950s and 1960s are classified as Generation-I systems. Generation-II systems include commercial reactors that were built from 1970 to 1990. Generation-III reactors are commercial designs that incorporate evolutionary improvements over Generation-II systems. Generation-IV is the classification used to describe a set of advanced reactor designs that use non-water coolants and are under development today.

Question 26

Are there any 4th generation reactors in use already?

Answer 26

Yes, prototype Generation-IV systems are currently being explored by the governments of several countries, including China, which has deployed high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs); Russia and India both of which have deployed sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) (per MITei study).

Question 27

What are the key 4th generation reactors being explored?

Answer 27

In 2002 the Gen IV International Forum (GIF) nations (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Switzerland, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States of America) proposed a long term research and development program to investigate 6 promising new reactor designs.

The six design concepts are:

1 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (GFR)
2 Very-High-Temperature Reactor (VHTR)
3 Supercritical-Water-Cooled Reactor (SCWR)
4 Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR)
5 Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor (LFR)
6 Molten Salt Reactor (MSR)

Question 28

How many nuclear reactors are in operation today?

Answer 28

449.  The US has 97 (down from 100);
France has 58
China has 46, plus 5 in Taiwan (51)
Japan has 37
Russia has 36
S. Korea has 25
India 22
Canada 19
Ukraine 15
UK also 15
Sweden 8
Belgium 7
Germany 7

Question 29

How much clean power do these reactors produce?

Answer 29

Each reactor is in or about 1 Gigawatt or 1000 MW, so the global total is about 400,000 MW. The US gets nearly 100,000 MW from its plants (a full 25% of the global total); France gets 63,000 MW, China 43,000 MW and Japan 36,000.

Question 30

What are ways that nuclear technology is used in other industries?

Answer 30

Irradiation, which is a $5 Billion market.

Radioisotope composition: determine what something ate from the contents of key isotopes, even thousands of years later.

Cancer treatments with miniscule radioactive isotopes (such as OranoMed), which uses waste thorium from mining.

Radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) use radiation to make electricity for long-range space probes

All blood for transfusions is irradiated at high rates to prevent Transfusion Associated-Graft Versus Host Disease, rare but 90% fatal. Mind blowing that T lymphocytes (the cause) are deactivated by radiation & the rest of the blood is healthy/intact. (https://www.aabb.org/regulatory-and-advocacy/regulatory-affairs/regulatory-for-blood/irradiation)

Question 31

Describe the irradiation market.

Answer 31

Radiation Sterilization is a popular and safe method for terminal sterilization of medical products, which is environmentally safe (only by-product is ozone gas). There are two main radiation processes: steam and X-ray. There are more than 200 large scale gamma irradiators in operation worldwise. (www.iia.com). https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/radiation-sterilization

Question 32

Radiation facts

Answer 32

More energy in the U and Th residue in coal ash, than in the energy released in burning the coal.
The longer the half-life, the less radioactive.
Geothermal energy in California’s Imperial Valley produces 200x the VOLUME of radioactive waste /kWh vs nuclear.
U and TH do not give off dose radiation: rather it is their decay daughters formed over billions of years that decay.
Cherenkov radiation, blue glow in cooling pools from active reactors.
Radon seeps out of the ground everywhere, which is the second most common cause of lung cancer, after cigarettes.

Question 33

Surprising radiation facts

Answer 33

Background radiation in St. Peter’s Square, Rome, is about 0.3µSv/h, which is about the same as Chernobyl.
The Taiwanese apartment with radioactive contamination: People were healthier, lived longer, & had lower cancer rates, due to Cobalt-60 exposure.
Ramsar, Iran, has up to 260 mSv/yr, which is 100 x the typical background, with no significant differences found.
Radiation threat is MUCH smaller than regulation limits suggest.
Radioactive decay is essential for maintaining the Earth’s molten core.
Average radiation treatment is 100REM to a localized spot. 100 REM to whole body would cause radiation sickness. Three Mile Islane accident released .003 REM.
Fukushima meltdown exposure was in the same order of magnitude as the highest medical examination exporsure.
You would not be harmed swalling new nuclear fuel, because your body cannot absorb the Uranium Oxide and the radiation it emits cannot penetrate the mucus membranes of your digestive tract.

Question 34

What is the evidence that the LNT theory should be disregarded?

Answer 34

A different approach can be derived from the observed health effects of the serendipitous contamination of 1700 apartments in Taiwan with cobalt-60 (T1/2 = 5.3 y). This experience indicates that chronic exposure of the whole body to low-dose-rate radiation, even accumulated to a high annual dose, may be beneficial to human health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2477708/

Question 35

Unfair radiation facts

Answer 35

The smallest amount of lifetime radiation comes from nuclear, most comes from medical treatments, radon, cosmic rays, building materials.

You’re less exposed to #radiation working in a NPP or aircraft carrier than taking flights or eating normal foods. Or just breathing air.
Coal mining/burning has released and spread more harmful radioisotopes than ALL nuclear power & lethal weapons use combined! Yet no outrage?

Fission porducts are contantly being produced in the oceans. Fukusima’s fission products are = to several hours worth of natural releases.

Geothermal radiation releases are several hundreds times per unit of electricity.

In terms of deaths per gigawatts of electricty produced, nuclear is lowest.

More people have been to space than have died directly due to nuclear accidents at power plants by 10 to 1