March 2025
Nuclear Tomorrow - March 2025
Nuclear Tomorrow is a newsletter that is issued monthly to identify pr ess reports on developments in the field of nuclear energy. Topics are selected for their relevance to
the impact of nuclear energy on global warming. The newsletter is written for members of the general public who are concerned with policy related to these issues. Postings are categorized as dealing with Technology (T), Policy (P), and/or Construction (C). In some cases registration or a fee is required to access an article. Hyperlinks are provided to connect newsletter posts to the referenced publication.The newsletter is intended to expand on topics included in the book, “Nuclear Energy: Boom, Bust, and Emerging Renaissance,” to be published in 2025 by Oxford University Press. The author of the book and of this newsletter is Edward A. Friedman, Emeritus Professor of Technology Management at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA. The book is available for pre publication purchase via the Oxford University Website. The following link is for the paperback edition. There is also a hardcover edition and an email version will be forthcoming.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/nuclear-energy-9780198925781?lang=en&cc=gb#
1.
How Trump is targeting wind and solar energy - and delighting big oil (P)
Ravenswood Power Station, Queens NY - oil and gas fueled
One of the first acts of the Trump administration’s department of interior was to temporarily suspend all renewable energy development programs. Trump has called wind energy “disgusting” and has characterized solar energy as “ridiculous.”
Funding for oil, gas, and nuclear programs remain intact. The implementation of these priorities will ultimately depend upon actions by Congress where the Republican majority represents states that profit from support for renewables. For example, the four leading locations for wind energy generation are the politically conservative states of Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas.
2. Trump just assaulted the independence of the nuclear regulator. What could go wrong? (P)
Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), warns that President Trump's recent Executive Order threatens the independence of regulatory agencies by giving the Office of Management and Budget oversight of their regulatory processes. The order requires these agencies—including the Federal Elections Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the NRC—to have their obligations reviewed "for consistency with the President's policies and priorities."
Macfarlane argues that regulatory independence is crucial for safety and effective governance. She draws parallels to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, where an investigation found that "collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO" contributed to the catastrophe. This accident cost an estimated $200 billion, led to the evacuation of 160,000 people, and resulted in the shutdown of all 54 Japanese nuclear reactors.
Following Fukushima, the U.S. nuclear industry spent over $47 billion on safety upgrades required by the independent NRC. Macfarlane worries that under Trump's order, the NRC may face pressure to relax requirements for new technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs), whose proponents want approval without the rigorous safety testing required of traditional reactors.
She concludes that compromising the NRC's independence puts Americans at risk and could potentially jeopardize the entire nuclear industry if a major accident occurs. Since its creation in 1975, the NRC's mission has been to ensure the safety and security of nuclear facilities to protect people and the environment—a mission now threatened by political interference.
3. How Fukushima’s radioactive fallout in Tokyo was concealed from the public (P)
New March 18, 2011 Satellite Image of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Site in Japan
DigitalGlobe has released a new satellite image of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site in Japan taken at 10:20AM local time on March 18, 2011. The most significant difference in the new image is the lack of any visible steam above the damaged reactor building for unit 3. In both the March 16 and March 17 images, steam can be seen venting out of the top of the building.
Steam can still be seen venting out of a hole on the side of the unit 2 reactor building where workers removed a panel.
Bullletin of Atomic Scientists
This article’s author was Francois Diaz-Maurin, published January 13, 2025. The article is quite long. Readers are alerted that this summary deals with its essential features but oversimplifies the complexity of the historical events. Perhaps understated is that these events deal with a coverup of a public hazard and an aspect of radiation hazard that is not fully understood.
The article details French radiochemist Satoshi Utsunomiya's discovery of previously unknown cesium-rich microparticles (CsMPs) on air filters collected in Tokyo following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. These highly radioactive, water-insoluble particles, measuring just a few microns in diameter, were found on samples collected on March 15, 2011, when a radioactive plume reached Tokyo, 240 kilometers from Fukushima.
After receiving filter samples from Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute (TIRI) through colleague Toshihiko Ohnuki, Satoshi's research revealed that up to 90% of cesium radioactivity detected in Tokyo came from these microparticles, contradicting previous assumptions about radiation exposure.
When Satoshi's paper was accepted by Scientific Reports in 2017, it triggered a years-long controversy. TIRI filed complaints about sample ownership, leading to investigations of both scientists. Although they were cleared of misconduct, the journal ultimately rejected the paper in 2019, forcing the researchers to publish their findings on arXiv instead.
The article suggests the controversy may have been politically motivated to prevent public relations issues ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The implications of these findings are significant: unlike previously understood forms of radioactive cesium, these microparticles don't dissolve easily, potentially staying in the human body for months if inhaled, posing unique health risks that remain understudied.
Despite obstacles to his research, Satoshi continued studying CsMPs and received the Geochemical Society's Clair C. Patterson Award in 2024 for his contributions. The article concludes that these microparticles could be produced in any nuclear accident where molten core-concrete interaction occurs, highlighting the need for further research into their health impacts.
4.
Nuclear Power’s Revival is Here. What Do You Do With All the Radioactive Waste? (P)
Note: In addition to summarizing this article from the Wall Street Journal, the author Nuclear Tomorrow has added material that explains the terms used and the references contained in that article.
This article in the Wall Street Journal from March 5, 2025 reviews the nature of nuclear waste and some of the issues relating to its management. The context for this article is the recent interest in the United States on reopening dormant nuclear power plants and in building new plants, especially small modular units. The question that arises with the prospect of expanding energy production through the use of nuclear reactors is “How to manage the radioactive waste?”
This question has received serious attention in the United States for many years. In1978 Yucca Mountain in Nevada was identified by the Department of Energy as a long term storage site. This led to $15 billion being spent on research and development until the effort was abandoned in 2009 due to political opposition that was led by Senator Reid of Nevada.
The U.S. Department of Energy has published a useful reference document concerning spent nuclear fuel entitled, “5 Fast Facts about Spent Nuclear Fuel,” October 3, 2022:
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel
It is important to realize that nuclear fuel rods consist of ceramic pellets of low-enriched uranium oxide stacked vertically and encased in metallic cladding. These fuel rods are bundled together into tall fuel assemblies. In 2024, the United States generated about 2,000 metric tons (4.4 million pounds) of spent fuel assemblies. While this appears to be a large number it can be stored in a container with dimensions 164 feet X 82 feet X 3 feet.
In fact all of the nuclear waste generated in the United States since the 1950’s could be held in a container the size of a football field with a height of 30 feet.
The Department of Energy report also notes that in the history of reactor use in the United States there have been no fatalities at reactors or in the transport of spent nuclear fuel.
Of great significance and rarely noted in public discourse is the fact that spent nuclear fuel can be recycled and used in advanced nuclear reactor designs. Such reactors are currently being developed and their eventual use will allow stored nuclear waste to be reprocessed and eliminated as an environmental hazard.
In the absence of a national repository, the article notes that storage of waste has been implemented at individual reactor sites resulting in storage in 39 states using spent fuel pools and dry casks. The cooling pools are typically 30 feet square and 40 feet deep with concrete walls and stainless steel liners. The cooling water is infused with boron to absorb neutrons to minimize the possibility of fission taking place in the pool. Typically spent fuel rods remain in cooling pools for about 5-10 years.
The spent fuel rods are transferred to dry storage casks that are typically 20 feet high and10 feet in diameter. They are made of stainless steel and concrete and can accommodate about 25 pressurized water reactor fuel assemblies and about 70 boiling water reactor fuel assemblies. The radiation levels at the surface of a dry cask are regulated not to exceed 10-20 millisieverts per hour and fall to less than 0.1 millisieverts per hour at a distance of 1-2 meters from the cask surface. At these rates workers could spend around 100 hours per year at the surface.
The Wall Street Journal article points out that legislation in 1982, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, establishes the Department of Energy as the responsible entity for the disposal of nuclear waste and mandates that its failure to comply requires that it pay damages to nuclear utilities. Since 1998 the Department of Energy has paid utilities $11.1 billion in damages and continues to pay at the current rate of $800 million per year.
Nuclear Tomorrow Author’s Note: While many alarm bells are sounded about the production of nuclear waste, the current system of local storage in pools and casks and financing through payments from the Department of Energy appears to be sustainable for the foreseeable future.
5.
A new bill in the Montana legislature represents a major breakthrough in the management of nuclear waste. Montana House Bill No. 623 (P)
On March 7, 2025 the Montana Legislature enacted a bill that allows the onsite storage of nuclear waste at nuclear reactor power plants. This is an example of the local waste storage strategy discussed in the number 4 entry of this edition of Nuclear Tomorrow from the Wall Street Journal.
6.
Major Global Companies Pledge Historic Support to Triple Nuclear Energy (P)
In 2023, at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) more than 20 countries launched a Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy by 2050. On March 12, 2025, a cross-industry group of large energy users signed a pledge to support that Declaration. This was the first major endorsement of that initiative by non-governmental players.Included in this group were corporations pursuing AI (Amazon, Google and Meta) as well as other large energy users (Occidental, Allseas and OSGE). This action was facilitated by
the World Nuclear Association.
7.
A summary of nuclear reactors in the world in 2025 from the March 2025 issue of Nuclear News published by the American Nuclear Association (P)
Percentages of electrical energy production from nuclear power for various countries:
France: ~70% of electricity production comes from nuclear power, making it the country with the highest nuclear share globally
United States: ~20% of electricity generation comes from nuclear power
Russia: ~20% of electricity production comes from nuclear
China: ~5% of electricity generation, though they have been rapidly expanding their nuclear capacity
Japan: ~7-10% of electricity (reduced significantly after the Fukushima disaster)
United Kingdom: ~15-17% of electricity generation
Germany: ~6% (declining as Germany has been phasing out nuclear power)
South Korea: ~25-30% of electricity production
Canada: ~15% of electricity generation
Sweden: ~30-35% of electricity production
Ukraine: ~55% of electricity generation
Belgium: ~50% of electricity generation
Spain: ~20-22% of electricity generation
India: ~3% of electricity generation (but with plans for significant expansion)
These figures represent the share of electricity production specifically, not total energy production (which would include transportation, heating, etc.), where nuclear's share would be smaller.
8.
18 N-plants planned to generate 13,800 MW: Govt data (in India) ( C )
With the world’s largest population and some of the world’s most serious sites of air pollution, India desperately needs to have massive development of carbon free energy. Currently India’s nuclear share of electricity production is a mere 3%. As of 2024 fossil fuels accounted for two-thirds of the country's total power generation. On average, a nuclear reactor produces about 1,000 MW of electrical power. Currently, the total nuclear power plant
output in India is about 8000 MW with an additional 13,800 MW capacity being built or planned. An ambitious plan to generate 500,000 MW of carbon free energy by 2030 is stalled.
Investors are not stepping up to subscribe to this initiative.
Given that India is now the world’s fifth biggest economy, having overtaken the United Kingdom, and by 2030 is expected to become the third largest economy ahead of Germany and Japan, their dismal progress in creating a carbon free environment is , indeed disappointing.
9.
World Bank May Drop Ban on Funding Nuclear Power, President Says. (P)
After many years of an institutional policy of not funding nuclear energy development, the President of the World Bank Corporation, Ajay Banga announced that that board will consider changing that policy. This topic will be discussed at a forthcoming Bank meeting in Washington on April 21-26, 2025. This is a further sign that the stigma that has been associated with nuclear energy has dissipated. A change in World Bank policy in support of nuclear energy would have a significant impact on development of this carbon free energy source.
10.
Nation’s First Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Could Come to Michigan in 2030 ( C )
Adding to the growing number of Small Modular Nuclear Reactor initiatives that are becoming operational in China and Russia and are on the horizon in the United States and elsewhere is a project in Michigan being undertaken by Holtec International in partnership with Hyundai Engineering and Construction. Holtec plans to build two 300 megawatt reactors becoming operational in 2030. They are in competition with Terrapower’s Natrium project in Wyoming to implement the first operational SMR in the United States. The Holtec design incorporates advanced passive cooling
of pressurized light water systems. The cooling takes place under the influence of gravity which does not require use of external energy.
11.
Washington allocates $900M to accelerate compact nuclear reactors (P)
The U.S. Department of Energy has allocated $900M to finance the construction of third-generation small modular reactors to rapidly expand national power capacity. Applicants must demonstrate their ability to bring projects online by the early 2030s. The funding requires the formation of consortiums that include a U.S. electric utility, an SMR technology vendor, and engineering, procurement and construction contractor (EPC), and end users.