A trio of pro-nuclear letters dominates today’s (May 18) Scotsman letters page, including one from bacteriologist Hugh Pennington, who, as usual, misses the point.
And then there are the horrendous decomissioning costs down the line and the ongoing problem of securely storing spent fuel. In effect this is a Tory UK government lumbering a future Scottish (hopefully Independent) Government with a huge expense. Madness.
Caesium 137 is particularly dangerous. It mainly produces Beta rays in it's first 30 years, this is it's half life. Half life over it then starts emitting gamma rays, this creates soft tissue cancers and leukemia. Hugh Pennington will know this.
Chernobyl did spread radioactive fallout, but this was one event, then over. Sellafield dwarfs the Chernobyl output of 137Cs with it's continuous discharges and accidents.
Tried to paste a table of the 137Cs and 134Cs from Sellafield over the years and Chernobyl, and failed. Here instead is the link to the research letter;
None. Even if it was shut tomorrow, they won't, it's legacy will continue to leach out into the water table from the leaky holding tanks. The power base establishment in the UK has an inability to accept how small it is and it's position in geopolitics.
They are wedded to fissile material, it gives them a seat at the security council table, no codes just a cushioned seat. The hydro electric roll out was stopped well before completion, the electricity was too cheap. We were told that nuclear generated electricity was the future, "It will be so cheap, it won't be worth while send out bills."
Thatcher wanted to privatise, as well as everything else, the nuclear industry. Nobody wanted it, she tried subsides, she removed the costs of waste handling and then decommissioning costs. Still nobody wanted to buy into nuclear.
If the environment and the public were the priority in their decision making then they would have gone down the thorium reactor route, as China is doing.
And then there are the horrendous decomissioning costs down the line and the ongoing problem of securely storing spent fuel. In effect this is a Tory UK government lumbering a future Scottish (hopefully Independent) Government with a huge expense. Madness.
Caesium 137 is particularly dangerous. It mainly produces Beta rays in it's first 30 years, this is it's half life. Half life over it then starts emitting gamma rays, this creates soft tissue cancers and leukemia. Hugh Pennington will know this.
Chernobyl did spread radioactive fallout, but this was one event, then over. Sellafield dwarfs the Chernobyl output of 137Cs with it's continuous discharges and accidents.
Tried to paste a table of the 137Cs and 134Cs from Sellafield over the years and Chernobyl, and failed. Here instead is the link to the research letter;
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240489974_Marine_dispersion_of_Caesium_137_released_from_Sellafield_and_Chernobyl
This is frightening and is happening now. What chance do we have to rid ourselves of Sellafield?
None. Even if it was shut tomorrow, they won't, it's legacy will continue to leach out into the water table from the leaky holding tanks. The power base establishment in the UK has an inability to accept how small it is and it's position in geopolitics.
They are wedded to fissile material, it gives them a seat at the security council table, no codes just a cushioned seat. The hydro electric roll out was stopped well before completion, the electricity was too cheap. We were told that nuclear generated electricity was the future, "It will be so cheap, it won't be worth while send out bills."
Thatcher wanted to privatise, as well as everything else, the nuclear industry. Nobody wanted it, she tried subsides, she removed the costs of waste handling and then decommissioning costs. Still nobody wanted to buy into nuclear.
If the environment and the public were the priority in their decision making then they would have gone down the thorium reactor route, as China is doing.
You seem to have developed an ongoing relationship with him whereby he says your wrong and you know and show he is wrong :)