turgid's Journal: UK Gets New Nuclear Power

At last, the UK government has made a rational and positive decision and given the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power stations to be built.

The decision should have been made 15 years ago, of course, and the electricity supply industry would be in a better state today and we wouldn't be reliant on Russian gas.

Unfortunately, before global warming became a political issue, it would have been career suicide for any politician to announce new nuclear power plants. Together with the privatisation of the electricity supply industry and the deregulation of the market 10 years ago, the proce of electricity plummeted, making the older nuclear stations uneconomical to run. My old power station (Bradwell, in Essex) was such a victim.

Ignorance among the general public and the irrational scare-mongering of self-styled "expert" environmentalists created very hostile feelings towards civillian nuclear power. The accidents at Windscale, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl we constantly wheeled out, along side the nuclear waste "problem" to make arguments against nuclear power.

Nuclear reactor design and nuclear safety are very large, complex subjects and it's very difficult to explain to the average member of the public (who probably only studied science up to the age of 14 if at all) that different reactor designs behave differently due to the laws of physics, i.e. Chernobyl couldn't happen in Britain since we don't have any RBMK reactors. Three Mile Island could, nowadays, though since we have Sizewell B - but it has a containment building. Windscale couldn't happen again since it was a problem caused by the design and operation of those two specific reactors. All of our reactors have passive safety features which can not be disabled (unlike Chernobyl) and we have ways and means of ensuring that they are shut down properly (and permanently) in the case of a serious accident - which has never happend,

Dounrey is another favourite whipping-boy of the environmentalists. The problems there are political, i.e. it was badly run. There were a couple of fast reactors there. They worked. A friend of mine was there standing on the pile cap when one was running. That's right, we could use our nuclear waste (plutonium that everyone is so needlessly scared of) for generating more electricity, and getting rid of the plutonium into the bargain. The French had a much more sophisticated reactor of this kind.

And everyone hates Sellafield. But it's been there are long as there was plutonium to be made in Britain for the Cold War nuclear weapons programme, and subsequently became the place for reprocessing and disposal/storage of nuclear waste. Of course, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth would have you believe that the Irish Sea is a highly-contaminated nuclear graveyard as a consequence. If you actually go and take measurements (proper unbiased scientific observations that are independently testable) you will find that they are lying through their teeth as usual.

Terrorism, eh? Well, we managed with the threat of IRA terrorism all these years without incident.

We made new nuclear fuel for the conventional reactors out of depleted uranium and plutonium. It was called MOX and it worked, it was safe, it used up plutonium and it was clean, however "environmentalists" and the media put an end to it.

So, the price of electricity plummeted for a couple of years, the industry went into decline and all the expertise was retired, the nuclear engineering university course closed up, young people like me jumped ship into Software Engineering, and that was that. Electricity is now the most expensive it's ever been and demand is far outstripping supply.

Ten years later, the idiot politicians (but I repeat myself) and "environmentalists" have finally realised that we need reliable base-load electricity that doesn't emit millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and the only way to get it is nuclear.

Who will build and operate the new nuclear power stations? The French, of course. EDF is going to be the first to build four new power stations in England. Scotland, in its inimitable arrogant luddite way, will not be having any more nuclear power stations. They're going to cover the island of Lewis in wind turbines and burn peat to keep warm.

Germany decided last decade to close down its nuclear power industry. Germany now imports a lot of electricity from France. France gets over 70% of its electricity from nuclear power and has the most advanced nuclear science and industry in the world. The UK imports 2GW (gigawatts) of electricity from France via a cable under the English Channel.

Once again, can't-do won't-do Britain fails to plan for the future, sweeps things under the carpet, and says "I'm sure it'll be alright."

If you want to get something done, don't even think about it in the UK. I work for an American company. We make very good high-tech things and make a good living.

Still, mustn't grumble, eh? We're British after all.