Nuclear power might very well be the most misunderstood source of energy used to generate electricity. Fear generated from incidents in Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, paired with the frightening fact that the concept of using nuclear fission to create electricity originated from the Manhattan Project, has given many people the image that nuclear power is not a pathway to finding a more sustainable form of generating electricity, but a channel that can only lead to destruction. While there is danger inherent in the use of nuclear power, there is some level of danger in almost all industries, something that is regulated by legislation and standardized practices.
In the 1970s, nuclear energy was rapidly growing and was projected to account for over 50 percent of the electrical energy needed in the United States by the Twenty-First Century. Unfortunately, the Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster put a significant damper on this in 1979, and was followed by the even more-extreme Chernobyl Disaster seven years later. Despite this, nuclear power plants have not been wiped off the face of the Earth, and the United States remains as the world’s greatest producer of nuclear power, having it account for 19 percent of the nation’s total electrical output.
The usage of nuclear energy to generate electricity is a legacy of the Manhattan Project, just as is the entire United States Department of Energy. However, the accidents that caused the death of workers were not caused by an inherent destructive nature of nuclear technology; they came from the mismanagement of the workers and failures in the faulty equipment in the plant.
The events at Three Mile Island in 1979 occurred from either a mechanical or an electrical failure that prevented the main feedwater pumps from sending water to the steam generators to remove heat from the nuclear core, causing a shutdown of the turbine generator and later the reactor. The plant’s staff was unable to recognize the issue as it happened, leading to the disaster. In the next decade, the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactors became an irradiated wasteland following the poorly conceived and executed testing of the reactor at low power, in which hot fuel particles reacted with water and caused a steam explosion. Much more recently, a major earthquake and the responding tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Japanese nuclear reactors that were not suited for handling natural disasters, causing the Fukushima accident.
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| Three Mile Island, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania |
Legislation quickly followed the nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island by the United States government, and the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations was established to promote excellence in training, plant management, and operations, often by detailed examinations and evaluations of the power plants. This approach to solve issues through the proper training of personnel directly addressed the inability of the plant’s operators at Three Mile Island to understand the reactor’s condition. In addition, the United States established the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to formulate policies and regulations governing nuclear reactors and materials safety. Today, the work of these two organizations, in addition to the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), maintains a high level of safety and stability in the 104 nuclear reactors in the United States.
Standards also help to maintain safety for both the workers and the equipment at nuclear power plants. Different guidelines encompass specifications for the variety of materials and systems that keep nuclear reactors functioning to prevent future accidents. ANSI has undergone a joint initiative with the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) called the Nuclear Energy Standards Coordination Collaborative (NESCC) to identify and respond to the current needs of the nuclear industry.
Examples of nuclear energy standards include:
ISO 12749-3:2015 – Nuclear energy, nuclear technologies, and radiological protection – Vocabulary – Part 3: Nuclear fuel cycle
CSA N289.5-2012 (R2017) – Seismic instrumentation requirements for nuclear power plants and nuclear facilities (guidelines that can help prevent disasters like Fukushima)
CSA N288.7-15 (2020) – Groundwater protection programs at Class I nuclear facilities and uranium mines and mills
CSA N288.2-2019 – Guidelines for calculating the radiological consequences to the public of a release of airborne radioactive material for nuclear reactor accidents
CSA N287.3-2014 – Design requirements for concrete containment structures for nuclear power plants
CSA N1600-2021 – General requirements for nuclear emergency management programs
However, while giving the nuclear energy strict regulations and guidelines in managing nuclear power plants helps to make the generation of power safe for personnel and the public accessing the electricity generated, there is still the issue of managing nuclear waste. It takes varying amounts of time for the different radioactive waste components to disintegrate; strontium-90 and cesium-137 have half-lives of about thirty years, and plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. This makes it necessary to properly store this material. Unfortunately, this is challenging no matter what, since the plutonium waste taken from power plants now will exist until the year 50,000 AD.
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| Radioactive waste, marked in accordance to ISO 21482:2007 – Ionizing Radiation Warning – Supplementary Symbol |
Standards address guidelines for the proper methods of testing and managing radioactive waste resulting from nuclear power generation, in addition to guidelines for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities and the resulting waste. Some of these standards include:
ASTM C1720-21- Standard Test Method for Determining Liquidus Temperature of Immobilized Waste Glasses and Simulated Waste Glasses
ASTM C1109-10(2015) – Standard Practice for Analysis of Aqueous Leachates from Nuclear Waste Materials Using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy
IEC/TR 62235 ED. 1.0 B:2005 – Nuclear facilities – Instrumentation and control systems important to safety – Systems of interim storage and final repository of nuclear fuel and waste
ISO 21238:2007 – Nuclear energy – Nuclear fuel technology – Scaling factor method to determine the radioactivity of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste packages generated at nuclear power plants
ASTM C1144-89(2011) – Standard Test Method for Splitting Tensile Strength for Brittle Nuclear Waste Forms
ASTM E2421-15(2021) – Standard Guide for Preparing Waste Management Plans for Decommissioning Nuclear Facilities
Nuclear plant accidents have been disastrous, but they are in no way representative of the entire industry. If nuclear power plants are properly managed and operated, they can provide immense benefits to society. While nuclear is technically not a “clean” source of energy, it only emits any kind of greenhouse gas during the construction and demolition of the power plant. According to NASA’s Institute for Space Studies, nuclear power avoids 76,000 deaths annually from toxic air pollution. Additionally, at present consumption levels, the planet’s accessible uranium resources could keep nuclear reactors running for more than two hundred years.
