My name is Terry and this is my Blog. I recently read Cormac McCarthy's new book entitled 'the Road', an apocalyptic story of a nameless man and son wandering through the world looking for the good of what was left, the world had obviously been subjected to some mammoth distaster, I suspect nuclear. I also watched a programme some months ago on RTE (Irish National Public Broadcast System) called 'Fall Out', describing the scenario where Sellfield's nuclear reactors exploded leaving the East Coast of Ireland utterly vulnerable to the consequences of radiation poisoning etc. It's been sometime since this subject bothered me and to be honest I know very little other than what I have looked up online. I do feel bothered by it but in an uneducated way. One side paints doom and gloom the other says its all going to be alright. I felt drawn to doing something to further my education, like creating a blog to see what other people think, even if the blog is short lived I would be very interested to know how others feel. I am new to this and feel apprehensive about doing it but if there are those of you who would like to contribute constructively please do!
So my starting question and only question is.
Why should I or we who live on the East Coast of Ireland be fearful of the Sellafield Nuclear reprocessing plant located in Cumbria, west coast of England and What absolute evidence is there for me to be afraid of this place?
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Well, first, there aren't any nuclear reactors at Sellafield and they couldn't explode even if they were still operating. The argument goes that Sellafield discharges technetium-99--it certainly does, and used to discharge much more. However, there are many sources that are bigger; that of course doesn't excuse discharging it, but Sellafield isn't some kind of pollution-belching monster, either.
As a pro-nuclear person, I don't try to reassure people; rather, I try to inform. This is different from the stance of the industry, which seeks to suppress public involvement because they would like to be left alone. For one, we say that there is a big problem with Sellafield: it was not designed to be a reprocessing plant. It was designed and operated, as you probably know, by the military for the purpose of plutonium recovery. Currently, there isn't really any reprocessing going on, either; that implies that the uranium and plutonium products are being manufactured into fuel and reused. The fuel is merely being separated and the separated parts stored, and even if it were reused once (the limit of the 1960s-era systems currently in use in England), that would only increase the fuel efficiency of the existing reactors from 3% to 6%. The same could be done--easier and cheaper--by using the waste from light-water (American-style) reactors in Canadian reactors. Actual reprocessing, done today, would involve a technology developed during the 1980s known as the Integral Fast Reactor--which is completely dry (i.e., no fuel rods dissolved in acid) and wouldn't discharge anything. Either approach would be better than the military-surplus fuel cycle that BNFL is currently stuck with.
I'm glad you're trying to get more information and I'm certainly looking forward to discussing this with you.
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