Dr. Robert Peter Gale Speaks Regarding The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Facility

Published Update on Monday April 4  2011
 Dr. Robert Peter Gale spent years working in Chernobyl 

and is now in Japan to advise the Prime Minister's Office Directly on safety.

Pay Special Attention Between 1.30 - 2.30Minute Period

HERE'S AN EDUCATED INSIGHT INTO Dr Robert Dale

Uranium - The Future Is Still Nuclear

Published on Sunday March 27 2011

TWO weeks after the biggest nuclear crisis in a generation and a leading item on ABC radio news is that three workers have been taken to hospital in Japan for radiation treatment. Meanwhile, the toll from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami (killed or missing) is more than 27,000.

You might say that setting the radiation statistics at the still-dangerous Fukushima nuclear station against the wider disaster toll in Japan is meaningless … the story is far from over.

But what would be meaningful? Let's pit the reported radiation casualties in Japan against other casualty lists in alternative forms of energy. For instance, the number killed in coal mines: in China alone, the official estimate of fatalities inside the national mining industry is more than 2000 a year.

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Yes, the future of nuclear energy is under immediate review but a number of indicators suggest that the review may turn in a surprising direction. The simplest indicator of what the market thinks will happen is uranium prices (that is ''spot'' prices, which represent about a fifth of all uranium traded). 

In the days after the Fukushima crisis, the spot price fell 20 per cent, but it has since rebounded 13 per cent to settle back at about $US60 a pound, suggesting business as usual in the broader uranium market.

At the same time, uranium stocks have generally mirrored the underlying change in the uranium spot market.

Extract Resources, a mid-sized ''pure'' play, which fell from $10.50 to $6.50 in the days after the Fukushima explosions, on Friday had climbed back to $8.47.

Australia is a global centre of uranium production. At the moment it has only three mines producing a combined volume of about 8000 tonnes a year, but the official forecasts from government agency ABARES is that this output will roughly double within four years.

Much of this expanded production may come from Western Australia where BHP has substantial deposits. There has been political objection to uranium production in WA but last week the state Labor Party announced it would review its anti-nuclear stance, with a report due to be released in June.

Clearly there is a sense - tentative still - that nuclear power and the uranium industry is not going to be hit as hard as many thought even a fortnight ago.

There may be more stringent regulation (hopefully); there may be a change to the nuclear engineering process (a greater use of thorium, a metal promoted by some in science as cleaner and much more powerful). But already it seems clear that uranium as a feasible alternative to coal, gas and hydro power remains miles ahead of its wind, wave and solar rivals.

Moreover, this conclusion will be bolstered if more leading voices in the environmental movement respond to the Japanese tragedy in the same way as George Monbiot of London's Guardian newspaper.

Just as Adelaide-based geologist and climate sceptic Ian Plimer is public enemy No. 1 of environmentalists, Monbiot is the self-styled conscience of global environmentalism.

Yet, after watching the Japanese reactors survive an earthquake, this is what Monbiot is now saying: ''Yes I loathe the liars who run the nuclear industry … but there are no ideal solutions. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to nuclear power.''

The inconvenient truth here is that Japan's nuclear power stations have not so far devastated the nuclear energy sector nor the uranium mining sector that provides its raw material … and the chances they will are receding by the day.

Solid Nuclear Fuel Rod Overview

Published on Friday March 25 2011

This gives one a pretty good under standing of the 

Life Cycle of a Nuclear Fuel Rod

A typical solid nuclear fuel rod includes a zirconium alloy tube or “cladding” encasing a single column of uranium fuel pellets. The cladding tube is smaller in diameter than your index finger, and is about 12 feet long. 

The uranium pellets are each about the size of the tip or your pinky finger, with the energy equivalent of 17000 cubic feet of natural gas, 1780 pounds of coal or 3.5 barrels of oil.

The pellets are stacked in the tube with allowance for pellet expansion during fission and heating of the uranium. Once the uranium pellets are loaded into the cladding tube, zirconium end caps are welded in place to form a complete loaded fuel “rod.”

The cladding, pellets and even an individual virgin rod are not hazardous to handle alone, however, multiple loaded rods in close proximity will begin a spontaneous fission reaction. The rods are thus maintained in a non-critical, i.e., a non-fissioning, state during storage or transport by either substantial separation between rods or by control rods or other moderators suitable to absorb neutrons in a more compact rod arrangement.

The fuel rods are then arranged in “bundles” or “fuel rod assemblies”, e.g., 14×14 or 17×17 arrays, which are then inserted into the core with a number of control rods being retractable from the bundle to initiate fission and insertable into the bundle to stop fission. Many rod bundles are oriented vertically in the reactor core with a substantial flow of water passing upward through the bundles to convey the fission reaction heat to a steam turbine for generation of electricity.

The zirconium cladding serves to hermetically isolate the uranium pellets and accumulated fission byproducts from exposure to the water flow in the core or cooling tank or to the atmosphere.

The thin-walled cladding is transparent to radiation but is naturally affected by the high heat stresses and heat loading in the core. The rods are preemptively retired after a finite core cycle, 18 months to several years, to maintain cladding integrity even though only a small fraction of the uranium is “spent.” This finite core cycle is also limited by accumulation of fission byproducts, particularly nuetron absorbers, inside the fuel rod.

A retired or spent nuclear fuel (“SNF”) rod is placed in a water cooling tank for an initial cool-down period during which the more highly radioactive (shorter half-life) isotopes rapidly decay. During this period, the rapid decay still generates substantial decay radiation and heat, albeit only a small fraction of the fission radiation and heat that is generated during reactor operation. After this initial cool-down period, the slower decay of the remaining longer-half-life isotopes generates a moderate amount of decay radiation and heat, which is readily absorbed by a concrete “dry cask” during long-term storage.

A typical nuclear plant can have hundreds of active fuel rod bundles in each core, thousands of SNF rods in short-term cool-down tanks and fuel from tens of thousands of SNF rods in long-term dry cask storage. The cooling tanks at the compromised Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant collectively house around 11,000 SNF rods with a portion of those housed in the cooling tanks above reactors 1-4.

Water in the cool-down tanks acts as a neutron moderator, radiation shield and coolant, so long as the water level around the rods in the tank is maintained. If the SNF rods are left exposed and uncooled long enough, rapid oxidation (often called “burning”) and extreme heat stress can eventually compromise the cladding, expose the uranium, generate hydrogen, and release fission byproducts. Unmoderated and uncooled SNF rods can produce sufficient radiation and heat that even brief close proximity worker exposure is unacceptable. Should the cooling tank levels drop too low for too long, it could be challenging to restore the cooling tank water levels from a safe distance.

Hopefully, the cooling tank water levels at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will be restored and the situation stabilized soon.

Australia Weighs Nuclear Push After Japan Crisis

Published on Tuesday March 22 2011

Those conditions could add even more complexity, and potentially costs, to bilateral nuclear safeguards agreements focused previously on the spread of nuclear weapons.

"Australians will note also that the Fukushima disaster is prompting India to review its own nuclear safety. Following the crisis in Japan, and in the glare of the Indian media, the intended expansion of India's nuclear footprint may well slow or even stall," Medcalf said.

Australia has 22 bilateral nuclear safeguard agreements, which allow exports to 39 countries.

In recent years, Canberra has signed agreements with Russiaand China, and has already sent its first shipments of uranium into China, where uranium consumption is projected to grow by 44 percent to        18,000 tonnes by 2016.

At a uranium conference in South Australia state, Australian Uranium Association chief executive Michael Angwin said the economic factors driving countries to nuclear power use were unchanged by the Japan emergency.

             "Countries turn to nuclear energy because they wish to improve their energy security and expand their electricity generating capacity in a way that does not increase their carbon emissions. That remains the case," Angwin said.

Australia's uranium exports in the year to July 1, 2011 are forecast at 8,700 tonnes, up 21 percent on the previous year, with production set to expand an average 15 percent per year to July 2016 as several new mines set to start production.