Disavow Dumping

Received from Stop Hinkley:

Councillors in the Lake District have volunteered as a potential site for a nuclear waste dump. Please sign the petition calling on them to withdraw from the process immediately. http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/no-nuclear-dump-in-the-lake-district

This petition is important as the Lake District is a very under-populated area and they are 

pushing the plan through because there are low numbers of locals complaining.  The Lake 

District is visited by people from all over the country and with this petition we have a voice.  

There is less than a week before the Council’s will decide if it will go ahead.

Nuclear waste storage is key to whether new nuclear waste should be produced, so it is important to the campaign to stop nuclear new build in the whole of the UK.

You can find out more about this from http://www.noend.org.uk/

Nuclear news

The Post says 'Japan's largest industrial electronics maker has signed a £700 million deal to buy the UK's nuclear project Horizon, which will build new reactors at Wylfa, Angelsey, and Oldbury, South Gloucestershire...' (here). They should say is planning to build, subject to conditions being right and obtaining the various proper permissions.

Saying 'will build' is distinctly premature and it's bad journalism (again) from The Post not to give further details eg Hitachi has: not worked out exactly how much it would cost to build six new nuclear power plants in the UK; a government-guaranteed "strike price", or minimum price for nuclear generated power, has not yet been hammered out; it is not clear when the plants would be completed, nor who would operate them; the boiling water nuclear reactor system that Hitachi is keen to install has yet to be granted UK safety approval... http://tinyurl.com/8fn58rn

There are many ways to build energy security - most of which would generate more jobs and more efficiently and more quickly and without increasing the legacy of nuclear waste to future generations.

Nuclear no no

No-one would disagree (would they?) that burying waste from today's nuclear power stations leaves a very big set of social, economic and environmental problems for many generations to come. Since sustainability is about dealing with risks and costs now and not passing problems to future generations it therefore follows that burying nuclear waste is inherently unsustainable. The following question alone demonstrates this: with waste that can be active for thousands of yrs how can it be possible to guarantee that the institutions needed would be stable beyond periods which have so far proved to be whole lifetimes of civilisations?

Despite the logic above the UK plans to build more nuclear power stations (if the huge economic cost obstacles can be overcome) and the '...search for an underground storage site for high-level nuclear waste is likely to go ahead in Cumbria after a poll showed residents are in favour.

In Copeland, the local authority area encapsulating Sellafield [pictured], 68% of people backed entering formal talks with government on hosting the repository.

Across Cumbria as a whole, 53% are in favour and 33% opposed...'
(full report here).

'Safely' closing Oldbury nuclear power station costs £954m

Nearly a billion quid to close the damn thing. Taking decades, during which it produces no power whatsoever. Leaving a legacy of nuclear waste for many, many future generations. It always has been a joke to refer to nuclear as cheap, clean and green - the figures speak for themselves. It would be irrational to build more.

THE cost of decommissioning Oldbury Nuclear Power Station has been set at £954 million, latest figures have shown.

A revised document just published by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) gives the estimated sum for taking the plant out of action and clearing the site once it stops generating electricity.

But it will take about 90 years to achieve the "final end" status.

Oldbury is the oldest operating nuclear power reactor in the world, having started producing power in 1967. It has already exceeded its expected generating life by a couple of years and one of its two reactors will close down for good this summer...

No Need for Nuclear

Been looking over this campaign website: No Need for Nuclear

Extract
This is a campaign to stop the building of new nuclear power stations.
All but one UK nuclear power stations are due to close by 2023. We think this generation of nuclear power should be the last.

Nuclear power is not necessary to meet the UK's electricity demand, it is more expensive than renewable alternatives, and is not carbon-neutral.

Action
This is a big campaign ask, since the new coalition Government has already decided that the UK nuclear industry should be allowed to grow. This means we're going to need all the help we can get in order to convince them otherwise. Please visit our activism pages to find out how you can help.

Green Party | Caroline Lucas MP makes case for nuclear cuts to save essential services

Green Party Caroline Lucas MP makes case for nuclear cuts to save essential services

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP today published a report identifying well over £100 billion of potential savings from nuclear arms projects and subsidies to the nuclear power industry.

In the report Britain’s first Green MP argues that cancelling the Trident renewal will save over £100 billion, while axing proposed new nuclear power stations will save the UK taxpayer around £8 billion in nuclear waste costs...

The report can be downloaded here: http://bit.ly/b9UnqL

ENERGY Secretary Chris Huhne paved the way for a new power station at Oldbury but shelved plans for a Severn barrage for at least five years.

I'm glad to hear that the severn barrage has been shelved - its very expensive and in fact would destroy beautiful and valuable estuary ecosystems (pictured) and some land on either side too. [Interesting to read in the story below that my MP Dawn Primarolo thinks the barrage is actually a green idea - she's never understood what green action means].


The pro-nuclear stance of the Govt is wrong however because nuclear leaves an extremely expensive and extremely toxic legacy of nuclear waste for future generations. Its very much the wrong technology choice, with the prospect of large delays and cost overruns too.

While we are so very wasteful and inefficient with our energy use how can we justify building any kind of power station?

ENERGY Secretary Chris Huhne paved the way for a new power station at Oldbury but shelved plans for a Severn barrage for at least five years.

Germany's Greens second most popular party - The Irish Times - Thu, Oct 07, 2010

Germany's Greens second most popular party - The Irish Times - Thu, Oct 07, 2010

GERMANY’S GREEN Party has nosed ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD) in an opinion poll for the first time to become the country’s second most popular political party.
Some 30 years after emerging from Germany’s anti-nuclear, environmentalist and pacifist movements, the party has soared to 24 per cent support in the Forsa poll, published this morning in Stern magazine.
The SPD, with whom the Greens shared power for seven years until 2005, has slipped to just 23 per cent.

Nuclear New Build proposals in England and Wales: Have Your Say

Received the information below * from the Environment Agency. I'll be taking part in the consulation process and hope many others do likewise. No more nuclear stations should be built and existing ones phased out. Nuclear and its waste is environmentally, socially and economically unsustainable - we should be going for efficiency and renewables.

*Why are we writing to you?
The UK needs new and replacement energy infrastructure that can provide secure, reliable, low carbon electricity. The 2008 Nuclear White Paper said that nuclear power could play a vital role in this. Power companies are now planning to build new nuclear power stations in England and Wales and two sites potentially suitable are at Hinkley Point and Oldbury . We would like to tell you about our role in this process and highlight an opportunity for you to tell us what you think of the designs and our findings so far.

What is happening?
We regulate the nuclear industry on environmental matters and are currently working with the Health and Safety Executive to make sure that any new nuclear power stations would meet high standards of safety, security, environmental protection and waste management. Together we have implemented a new approach called ‘Generic Design Assessment’ (GDA) and have been assessing two new reactor designs from an early stage, in advance of site specific proposals coming forward. This enables us to identify any problems and influence the design at an early stage, before any major construction begins. We are currently assessing two different reactor designs: Westinghouse’s AP1000™ and the Areva/EDF designed UK EPR™.

What next?
As part of our GDA process, we are conducting a consultation on our findings so far. The consultation recently began on 28 June and will last sixteen weeks, closing on 18 October. We welcome your views. At the close of the consultation we will carefully consider the comments received before we reach a final decision on the acceptability of each of the two designs. We intend to publish the key issues raised during our consultation before the end of the year and to come to a view about the acceptability of the designs in June next year.

If a developer comes forward with proposals for a new nuclear power station at a specific site, they will still need to apply for and obtain all the safety, security, environmental, planning and other permits that are required before development can proceed. When considering any future applications for site specific environmental permits we will take into account all the work we have done on GDA.

How can you get involved?
You can take part by visiting the Environment Agency consultation on-line at:
http://www.consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/portal/ho/nuclear/gdahttps://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/portal
You can call 08708 506 506* and ask for a consultation document, or
send an email to: gda@environment-agency.gov.uk and request the consultation papers.
* Approximate call costs: 8p plus 6p per minute (standard landline). Please note charges will vary across telephone providers.

Nuclear station wants an extension to make more cash

Nuclear station wants an extension to make more cash

Oldbury nuclear power station is set to continue operating into next year despite previous plans to shut it down within months, it has emerged.

Officials are requesting a "fairly short" extension to its lifespan, which would generate cash that could be off-set against a £4 billion hole in the national decommissioning budget revealed yesterday by the Government.

Oldbury was due to be decommissioned in 2008 after operating for 41 years but was then given permission to run until this year.

Oldbury nuclear station has already been allowed to operate for longer than originally envisaged and designed for. This report does not tell us how much longer they are now asking for and the reason - financial - is hardly right-headed. One nuclear station operating for a 'fairly short' time is hardly likely to make much of a dent in the £4 billion black hole in the nuclear decommissiong budget. That there is such a large financial hole for such a vital operation is in itself disturbing - and adds weight to arguments against nuclear power.

Nuclear power: in a nutshell guide

This is a great film project (http://www.tennerfilms.com/) . Tenner Films is an interactive film and online project which looks at the human stories and the issues surrounding nuclear power. Thirteen short films to entertain and encourage debate have been made (the example above is my favourite so far). Eight have now been completed - check them and the rest of the project out and give the makers some feedback!

You can feedback on-line or by emailing abby@tennerfilms.com. If you would like to hear more about the project as it develops you can also join an email list. You can also join the Facebook group and follow Tenner films on Twitter!

Please pass details of this project to anyone who you think may be interested.
http://www.tennerfilms.com/

More on nuclear power:

http://vowlesthegreen.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-am-i-against-nuclear-power.html

http://vowlesthegreen.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-hinkley-nuclear-plant-likely-to-be.html

http://vowlesthegreen.blogspot.com/2009/03/nuclear-power-too-slow-to-help-solve.html

New Hinkley nuclear plant: likely to be fraught with economic and technical problems

Our Government have been telling us, yet again, that quite a bit more nuclear power is needed to meet our energy needs. However, an excellent report on last nights Newsnight cast massive doubt over both the economic and the technical aspects of this technology. No British nuclear power station has ever been built on time. The reactor type planned for Hinkley Point, which will be the first of the new reactors to be built, is three years over time and billions over budget on a site in Finland – and construction has been stopped many times due safety errors of which there have been 3000 to date!!

Over confidence about this latest design and construction method from the French construction company Areva was so high that they had agreed a fixed price and a fixed date for completion – but its all ended in extra cost, extra delay, threat and dispute!!

Remember when they said that nuclear electricity would be ‘too cheap to meter’. That technical fix never transpired – and it looks very much like our Government are vastly over-optimistic about nuclear power this time too. Full Newsnight report text below:

By Meirion Jones BBC Newsnight

A Newsnight investigation suggests that UK government plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations to fill the energy gap by 2020 are wildly optimistic.

The British nuclear regulator has told Newsnight that he would not hesitate to halt construction if problems emerged and that no British nuclear power station had ever been built on time.

The first of the new generation of reactors in Britain will be at Hinkley Point in Somerset, and will be a replica of the new Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) reactor currently being built in Finland by the French company, Areva.
The Finnish EPR at Olkiluoto was supposed to be the first "third generation" reactor - safe, affordable, and designed for mass production.

The reactor is three years behind schedule and billions of pounds over budget after more than 3,000 mistakes were made by the builders.

The Finnish nuclear regulator has also halted construction on at least a dozen occasions due to safety concerns.

British regulator, Kevin Allars of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), told Newsnight that he will be every bit as tough as his Finnish equivalent.

Energy promises

Earlier this year, EDF announced that by 2017 Britons would be cooking their Christmas dinners with electricity generated by a new EPR nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, and that come 2020 four reactors would be operating in time to fill any energy gap.

The Energy Secretary Ed Miliband this month issued a provisional go-ahead for ten new nuclear power stations, including Hinkley Point. EDF and Areva have until June 2011 to produce a design which will satisfy the British regulators.
But Finland's regulator, Petteri Tiippana says that the current design for the reactor at Olkiluoto is not safe because emergency circuits are not independent of normal control systems:

"If they aren't independent then the failure in the normal systems can cause a failure in the safety systems," he said.

Areva have promised to submit an improved design to the British and Finnish authorities, after which planning permission to build at each of the British sites must be applied for which is likely to take at least another year - taking us to the middle of 2012.

EDF will then have just five years to build the Hinkley Point reactor if we are to be able use its power to cook Christmas dinners in 2017.

Precedents

The last reactor built in Britain, Sizewell B in Suffolk, was completed in 1995 and took some eight years to build.

Five years have passed since Areva began work on the Finnish reactor and it will take at least another three years to finish the job - eight years in total.
Newsnight asked the man in charge of regulating new nuclear stations here, Kevin Allars of the NII, if any nuclear power station had every been delivered on time in the UK.

"No," was his response.

The Finnish regulator, Mr Tiippana, says it is difficult to deliver these projects on schedule because builders are not used to working to the exacting standards required on nuclear construction sites since so few new reactors have been built in recent years.

Mr Tiippana says that if construction workers do not have the right concrete to build the foundations they will use whatever is to hand, if it is awkward to put a radiation sensor where it should be they will be tempted to put it somewhere else, if it is easier to drill holes in the radiation containment vessel they will do it.

All these mistakes occurred in the construction of the Finnish reactor, just a few of the 3,000 errors detected so far. Correcting them has caused months of delays.
"When they encounter a problem on site they usually follow their previous experience" says Mr Tiippana, "this is how we did it on a coal power plant and that just doesn't work on a nuclear construction project".

Areva was so confident about the EPR that they agreed to build the reactor in Finland with a fixed delivery date of May 2009, and for a fixed price.
The earliest the reactor is now expected to come on line is 2012 and it is 3bn euros (£2.71bn) over budget.

Areva have threatened to abandon the reactor partially built unless they are given more cash.

Building nuclear power stations to order may not prove to be as easy as Ed Miliband might think.

Seeing Green: never more relevant than now!!

'The dilemma is simply stated: for every year we delay making a move in the right direction, the consequences become proportionately more serious. Developed and Third World countries alike must seek to map out a different course for themselves, renouncing the maximisation of production and consumption based on non-renewable resources, moving towards a sustainable society based on renewables and the elimination of waste. The challenge is to meet the inner demands of basic human needs without violating the outer limits of the planet's wealth. The old system is bankrupt, and it is only the wisdom of ecology that will show us how to create a new economic order.'

So said Jonathon Porritt in his book Seeing Green (page 143) 25 yrs ago. This work informed and inspired me then and it still does now (I've obviously been looking through it again!). The truth of his words are surely clearer than ever, with the current economic system bankrupt and ecological principles still a long way from being practiced coherently and routinely. Great to see all the immensely valuable work Jonathon has done though, not least as Chair of the Government's Sustainable Development Commission. He recently endorsed the Green Party's European election candidates in the region (lead by Cllr Ricky Knight), speaking at the launch in Bristol.

See Jonathon Porritt's blog here.

Nuclear power: too slow to help solve climate change

The Post yesterday reported that, 'Farmland immediately north of Oldbury nuclear power station in South Gloucestershire has been identified as the most likely location for a possible new atomic energy plant. But people who visited a three-day exhibition staged by energy company Eon were told construction of the UK's next generation of nuclear sites – if given the go-ahead – was unlikely to start for another four years...'

I've previously posted my views on nuclear power and so would here focus in on the issue of time. The story above says that construction of new nuclear power stations is unlikely to start for four years. This is a considerable delay - we need to be building our energy security and cutting our carbon emissions now and so there are many technologies more appropriate than nuclear!! Sustainable Development Commission evidence, not disputed by the Government, shows that building ten new nuclear reactors can cut carbon emissions by a measly 4% and only after 2025! Doubling existing UK nuclear capacity produces an 8% cut by 2035. This is very little and very late in the day!!

The Sustainable Development Commission go on to indicate five major disadvantages of nuclear power, disadvantages they say outweigh the benefits:

1. Long-term waste - no long term solutions are yet available, let alone acceptable to the general public; it is impossible to guarantee safety over the long-term disposal of waste.

2. Cost - the economics of nuclear new-build are highly uncertain. There is little, if any, justification for public subsidy, but if estimated costs escalate, there's a clear risk that the taxpayer will be have to pick up the tab.

3. Inflexibility - nuclear would lock the UK into a centralised distribution system for the next 50 years, at exactly the time when opportunities for microgeneration and local distribution network are stronger than ever.

4. Undermining energy efficiency - a new nuclear programme would give out the wrong signal to consumers and businesses, implying that a major technological fix is all that's required, weakening the urgent action needed on energy efficiency.

5. International security - if the UK brings forward a new nuclear power programme, we cannot deny other countries the same technology (under the terms of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). With lower safety standards, they run higher risks of accidents, radiation exposure, proliferation and terrorist attacks.

Christmas with a lower impact

Even in this time of recession its likely that during Christmas billions of pounds will be spent on food, drink and presents in the UK. Waste levels rise by 20% at this time and include food, energy, wrapping paper, cards and of course Christmas trees. We can enjoy ourselves without abandoning green concerns however with a little prioritisation and organisation. The following wont transform us into a sustainable society of course but whilst campaigning for the required leadership, policies, institutions and decision-making processes continues, they are positive steps I think are worth taking now on cards, decorations, trees, wrapping presents, chocolate and turkey...!!

Billions of Christmas cards are sent every year, many not made of recycled card and many thrown out rather than recycled. You could send an e-card instead or watch out for cards made from recycled material or make your own cards from previous ones! Bristol is well set up for recycling card, so its easy for us to use this system.

Old colour newspapers and magazines can be used to make decorations like paper chains. Paint, glitter, card from boxes or old Christmas cards, glue and a bit of wool or string can be used to make tree decorations. These activities will keep kids happy and occupied doing a creative task that really involves them in Christmas. Far better this than buying sparkly decorations made in a far away sweat shop by child labour then flown thousands of miles across the globe.

Millions of Christmas trees are bought, often to be thrown out, each year. There is enough tree waste to fill the Albert Hall more than three times! The best thing you can do if you have a tree is buy one with roots - it can be planted out and used year on year. If you choose a tree without roots make sure you use the local schemes for turning used ones into mulch for parks and gardens.

You may not think of all that sticky-tape securing wrapping paper as plastic but it is. It wont rot and is single-use. String and wool are both more biodegradable and reusable and so are much the better option for securing wrapping paper. String/wool does not mess up the paper it secures and leaves it in a state where it, with a little care, can be retained and reused – close to ten thousand tonnes of paper is used to wrap UK presents every year. If you have paper that cant be reused put it out for recycling in your black box!

Hundreds of millions is spent on chocolate for Christmas. If you buy fair trade chocolate you will be supporting cocoa farmers, their families and communities much more. They get a fair price for their cocoa beans. Rights, pay and working conditions are much better under fair trade.

Ten million or more turkeys are eaten during the festive season in the UK. Millions of these birds are reared intensively in huge windowless buildings containing crowds of thousands. Selectively bred and anti-biotic treated for maximum growth these birds cannot express natural behaviours and cannot mate without human intervention. I’m just not hungry for this kind of food at all and its ecological footprint is very high. If you don’t want to avoid turkey at Christmas altogether its worth paying more for one reared to much higher animal welfare standards.


More information/ideas: http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=2024

Brown doesn't want to retreat from his 'green agenda' - but he doesn't have a proper green agenda to speak of!!

Gordon Brown says he does not want to retreat from his 'green agenda' (reported here). If he had a real and proper green agenda the Labour Government would have done a great deal more to wean us off oil and we would then not be so badly affected by the high price. However, his frequent green talk is not matched by the kind of investment and policies we need on energy efficiency, public transport, green energy and support for local economies.

Our Prime Minister's thoughts on nuclear power provide another good example. Yesterday Gordon Brown strongly advocated more ambitious nuclear plans, with some building in new locations as well as replacing nuclear stations on existing sites (see here). The day before however the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said that the costs of cleaning up the dangerous radioactive mess from existing nuclear sites has soared to £73 billion (see here for more) !! Doesn't make more nuclear sound like good economics or good ecology does it - we know that the government and our money is the ultimate insurance when things go badly wrong and get dirty and dangerous with this so-called 'clean' power source.

Arguing that nuclear power is somehow green has always been ridiculous - the case against it is very strong indeed.

Why am I against nuclear power??

So, Gordon Brown's Labour Government have given the final go ahead for more nuclear power. Apparently '... Britain must build new nuclear plants to help meet its climate change goals and to avoid overdependence on imported energy amid dwindling North Sea oil and gas supplies.' (Guardian). Both these main points are easily contradicted, making the government's decision a very bad one.

For a start the uranium oxide from which nuclear fuel for power stations is made comes from abroad. 'In 2005, seventeen countries produced concentrated uranium oxides, with Canada (27.9% of world production) and Australia (22.8%) being the largest producers and Kazakhstan (10.5%), Russia (8.0%), Namibia (7.5%), Niger (7.4%), Uzbekistan (5.5%), the United States (2.5%), Ukraine (1.9%) and China (1.7%) also producing significant amounts.' (wikipedia) which means we would be dependent on imports from other countries for our nuclear fuel - so much for reducing energy imports.

As for more nuclear power to help fight climate change, in short its very slow and ineffective, with the Government's own advisors at the Sustainable Development Commission producing figures to show that even 10 new reactors would cut the UK's carbon emissions by only about 4% some time after 2025. This low figure makes great deal of sense because it takes quite some time to approve, build and get nuclear stations into full operation. In the meantime there is a high carbon cost in construction and also in the whole nuclear fuel cycle (in particular mining the ore, transporting it thousands of miles across the world and then manufacturing the fuel...). Plus of course the nuclear electricity generated cant directly replace most of the fossil fuel used eg in gas central heating systems and petrol/diesel from oil used in cars. So much for fighting climate change. And there are many more arguments against nuclear power and for much better energy options.

It is several times cheaper to save energy through efficiency and conservation than it is to generate it by any means. This is also the most rapid and effective way to cut carbon emissions, fight climate change, and reduce our dependence on imported fuels. Even though the Government claims to be green (who doesn't make this claim these days!) they are still thinking in terms of generating more and more energy - yet a sustainable society requires the establishment of a low energy culture. Government needs to be determined to help shape this future but currently is still stuck in the past.

There has always been a lot of talk from Gordon Brown about an enterprise economy, built by entrepreneurs. But is nuclear technology the kind that can be tinkered with, adapted and developed by small and medium-sized businesses and individuals? Self-evidently its not. Yet energy efficiency, energy conservation and renewable energy technologies are amenable and are rapidly developing - the future is clearly with these and we should be ensuring billions are invested in them.

Nuclear power does not fit well with the basic engineering criterion of economy of means, that is doing tasks with the minimum of energy supplied in the most effective way. In short, why go to the trouble of splitting the atom to boil a kettle of water?? In any case for how long will the source of the atoms split in the nuclear fuel be economically available? Goldsmith et al, in their 1990 book 5000 Days to Save the Planet say ' As more uranium ore is mined and the quality of the ore falls, so the energy cost goes up. A mass nuclear power program would exhaust high quality ores so quickly that, within a generation, the uranium being mined would provide no more energy for each tonne of rock than would mined coal.'.

Everyone acknowledges the very high capital costs of nuclear power (and nobody yet knows for sure what decommissioning costs will finally be). Several billion is needed to build each station. This is a very large drain on resources that we should be investing in renewable energy generation methods, which as the only sustainable option we must develop at some point anyway. There's no time like the present to do this.

We dont assess our technological options properly. Nuclear does not come out well if technical capabilities and limitations, total cost-effectiveness, socio-economic effects such as efficiency of job creation and the ability to keep safe and accurate records of nuclear waste disposal for thousands of yrs, and environmental impacts are all fairly considered. Yet this would not be where assessment of the technology should end, since we should progressively widen the domain of issues to be considered, introducing more factors and interactions - like the ripple effect of throwing a stone into a still lake. Nuclear certainly does not fit in with building a sustainable society (though all the big political parties claim to be green these days) because no-one disputes that it leaves ongoing problems for future generations (and of course the uranium fuel is finite and depletable - it will run down in supply and run out at some point).

Plutonium, with a natural occurence on the planet of virtually zero, is lethal (highly toxic as well as radioactive). An evenly distributed 500 kg could kill the Earth's human population approx 90 times (at one microgram per person). Yet when I visited Sellafield, the site of the UK's first nuclear station and where nuclear waste is reprocessed, some yrs ago, the tour guide said that approx 500kg of plutonium had been emitted to the Irish Sea over the sites lifetime. There are huge nuclear waste handling, storage and disposal problems and there is no scientific consensus on the best way to do it, for existing waste let alone the extra produced from more nuclear stations. In a report of the House of Commons Select Committee on the Environment on radioactive waste Sir Hugh Rossi said 'With waste that can be active for thousands of yrs, guaranteeing that the institutions would be stable beyond periods which have so far proved to be whole lifetimes of civilisations would be impossible.'

There are also a whole range of safety and security issues for nuclear stations: learning lessons from major accidents like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Windscale; attempting to predict and 'eliminate' (!) human error in the design, construction, operation and decommissioning; establishing 'safe' (!) levels of radioactivity; 'safely' transporting nuclear waste by road and rail (eg as happens frequently through Bristol) for 'safe' disposal for thousands of yrs; planning what it is best to do in the event of a serious incident/accident; whether we can effectively prevent terrorist attacks eg by flying planes into stations, driving cars/lorries loaded to be bombs etc... .

Then there are the major ethical issues involved in reprocessing some nuclear waste and providing material for the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction....

Community benefit and the common good - from nuclear waste??

The terms ‘community benefit’ and ‘common good’ are in my view ideas inherently incompatible with nuclear waste. Yet both these terms have recently been used in connection with it! A report before West Somerset councillors describes a proposal, from the Magnox Electric firm, to set up a nuclear waste disposal facility near the Hinkley A nuclear station to help with decommissioning, along with a ‘community benefits fund’ to ‘compensate’ residents living nearby.

Is this the beginning of a number of such proposals around the country as old nuclear stations have to be decommissioned? This is the kind of territory that having an ongoing nuclear power program gets you into (including trainloads of nuclear waste flasks through Bristol every two/three weeks).

The Bristol Evening Post (‘Nuclear waste dump spurs cash handouts’, Sep 10) quotes the report as saying,

‘The establishment of a permanent disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste means that a continuing element of risk will continue for the foreseeable future and , as such communities should derive a benefit.’

First, this is an admission of the dangers of even low-level radioactivity!

Second, I certainly wouldn’t feel I’d benefited from having nuclear waste disposed of near me because ‘compensation’ was paid into community development projects.

The report also refers to the ‘substantial financial contribution to a common good fund’. Apparently its ok to sacrifice the common good of public safety provided cash is offered!

Not surprisingly the Stop Hinkley organisation does not like the fund idea, and does not want to see this idea used around the country. Spokesman Jim Duffy referred to the offer of cash as a ‘sweetener’ and ‘pay-off ’ which would be ‘spread very thinly in the community’ and could set a precedent – they are spot on. The idea of trading safety for cash like this should be seen as unethical.

Stop Hinkley’s views and work. The Bridgewater Mercury report on this issue.

Guardian report on how green groups are poised to withdraw from the government’s nuclear power consultation process because the facts are being distorted.

The influence of the nuclear lobby is high so perhaps, whether people generally want it or not, we will get both the nuclear dump plus 'compensation' and a new set of nuclear stations built (each of which will at some point need its waste disposed of).