RULES

My boss bought a Geiger counter. He tried it at the job and is registering in the building we work from 40 to 60 uSv/h, and now he is a bit nervous about it because he's been there for ten years and those are very dangerous levels. Due to this, I'd like to tell him examples that show those radioactive levels in order to convince him about the malfunctioning of that Geiger counter.

The majority of U.S. respondents believe nuclear energy is a big part of the solution to climate disruption, according to the sixth consecutive ecoAmerica Climate Perspectives Survey. The annual survey polls preferences and opinions of diverse individuals of various backgrounds and political affiliations about current and future energy choices and their impact on our lives and environment.

The full ecoAmerica report can be found here.

American Attitudes on Nuclear Energy

This year has been incredibly interesting for me through. As a Nuclear Design Projects Engineer I perform Engineering Change Packages / Modifications, but this year it was focused entirely on Physical Security plant changes. In my opinion, it is very niche already, but now I am immensely familiar with 10 CFR 73 Subpart F, Physical Protection Requirements at Fixed Sites, for the evaluation and justification of installing Delay Fencing, Various Items with Delay Features, Delay Enhancements, and evaluating and justifying Physical Barriers present in the field as well as specifying requirements that must be met in order to achieve adequate physical protection of Security Equipment, Cybersecurity Equipment, and supporting power and communications cabling, which includes locks, tamper detection, and monitoring for enclosures and areas based on staffing (continuously manned, unmanned during off hours, etc.).

If any engineers or departments have any questions about how the process with engineering changes / mods related to security enhancements, or want to know more about physical protection of security and cybersecurity equipment, please feel free to reach out. I will answer to the best of my ability, but keep in mind vagueness can sometimes be necessary to mitigate release of proprietary, security-related, or safeguards information.

Absent a substantial shift in macroeconomic conditions, deployment of all capital-intensive low-carbon technologies will be increasingly challenging. Low interest rates, expansionary fiscal policy, and globalized supply chains have been underappreciated factors in the growth of clean technology since the 2008 financial crisis. Tax credits, clean energy standards, and loan guarantees, along with implicit reliance upon low-cost production in China, have been the primary tools that policymakers have used to drive clean tech expansion.

For nuclear energy, the present challenges resulting from rising commodity prices and interest rates are further amplified by the regulatory environment. Simply licensing a new reactor has typically taken well over a decade, which exacerbates financing costs when interest rates rise. And regulatory restrictions deeply constrain supply chain flexibility.

The NuScale Cancellation is a Wake-up Call

I'm currently learning some of the basic material properties that make good moderators, control rods, fuel, etc. including different types of cross-sections.

It's my understanding that a material is a good moderator if it has a high scattering cross-section, a low absorption cross-section and a relatively low mass.

However, reflectors also have high scattering cross-sections, and low absorption. I know that some elements, such as Beryllium can be used as both a moderator or a reflector, but are there any materials that are good for one but not for the other?

For example, I'm pretty sure fast reactors still use reflectors, but why are the reflectors not moderating the neutrons in that case?

I'm an I/C Tech at Fermi NPP, and I like buying small gifts for the members of my surveillance team during the outage. In the past I've bought small flashlights, pocket screwdrivers, pocket knives.

What are some ideas for gifts under $10 that would be useful in a nuclear industrial environment?

https://www.nucnet.org/news/us-defense-logistics-agency-has-not-revoked-plans-to-award-eielson-reactor-contract-11-3-2023

Intersting

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Second-large-Polish-nuclear-plant-gets-approval

As a side note really hope Westinghouse would lose or stop their court decision appeal against KHNP .

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Saskatchewan-government-announces-microreactor-fun

I’ve been thinking about how reprocessed fuel is more expensive to produce than mined uranium fuel. While the process is more expensive, wouldn’t the service fees for dealing with spent fuel make up for the extra cost in reprocessed fuel? Surely, or even just with the odd subsidy, this is a fantastic business opportunity, right? And it’d probably be less expensive for power plants too!

I was reading a post about how “abundant” uranium is in the ground, but at concentrations that aren’t usable, so we “refine” it into a usable concentration. Once we are done with it, could it be “unrefined”? Like do a 99.99/.01 mixture with earth and have it be “returned” to the ground?

I am not familiar with the mining industry in general and even less so with uranium, but when we mine for copper/aluminum we want to use it and recycle it, but with nuclear waste, could we “return” it?

China's first nuclear energy heating project that covers multiple prefecture-level cities, operated by the State Power Investment Corp, was put into operation in East China's Shandong province on Saturday.

The project, which is also the third phase of "Warm Nuclear No 1", a commercial nuclear energy heating project in China, provides green heating to Shandong province's Haiyang and Rushan with a 23-kilometer main transport pipe.

The green energy will be provided by the Haiyang nuclear power plant in Shandong, which has a heating system connected to two traditional nuclear units, making it the first commercial attempt in China to supply heat from traditional nuclear power.

The total heating area of the project will reach 12.5 million square meters this winter, which will keep about 400,000 people warm, it said.

Chinese Long-Distance Nuclear District Heating

I currently work in my local plant at the cafeteria (I do have a clearance). I am also taking a course through BHI for RP tech during outages. I want to move up in the world of nuclear. Right now, deconner/RP sounds like a good next step but I'm keeping my options open for anything after that.

Does anyone have any input? Is this a good idea? A career change can be very overwhelming.

Also- after scrolling through this sub I see people talking about laborers unions. Is this something worth checking into?

Thanks for any input.

I asked Chat GPT the question and I got less than a thousand (roughly 640). I asked Bing Chat and it said it would take 12,000. The one website I found asking this exact question was behind a paywall or something and I couldn't finish reading the rest of the article.

Any help would be appreciated.

What I mean by design is the design of the core itself, not the safety systems all around (control & command etc.). A CANDU core seems to have a few design features that makes it more resilient to a meltdown, mainly

- a lot of "independent" fuel tubes that can be managed individually as opposed to a single pressure vessel in a PWR,

- a big volume of water in the calandria that can act as heat sink if the fuel starts heating after a loss of coolant inside the fuel channel. So it gives more time for the operators to fix the problem. A PWR seems to have a relatively small volume of water inside the primary compared to a CANDU.

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I'm just an enthusiast and not a expert by any means, I just want to know what this sub thinks of this. I find the safety of reactors to be a very interesting topic, and of course I do not imply that PWRs are unsafe.

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A project to produce 100 tonnes a year of clean hydrogen from the operation of the Angra nuclear power plant's two units was detailed at a seminar on sustainable hydrogen production in Brazil.

Nuclear Hydrogen Production Planned for Brazil

Why doesn't Japan offer its nuclear power plant designs for export? Is there any international treaties or agreement that prevents them from doing so? I see they have a really advanced nuclear industry and to me, it looks even more advanced than South Korea's own. They are also independent in their nuclear industries as well.