I have noticed that UK discussion on the threat from nuclear power in the wake of the Japanese crisis concentrates on reactor design. I have yet to see discussion of the combination of environmental threat combining with nuclear risk creating a UK crisis.
But it could, very easily. I have always found it bizarre, for example, tat the UK has two nuclear power stations at Sizewell. Sizewell is next to Dunwich - once a major East Anglian town, now lost under the sea due to coastal erosion and sea surges.
Sea surges are predictable in the UK. The last was in 2007. The last major one was in 1953. The impact then was above 5 metres in places.
Is Sizewell able to take that impact? I don't know. But candidly - I doubt it, and always have. Canute failed. I don't see how modern nuclear engineers can succeed in stopping the sea either.
This is not just an issue for Japan.
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Nuclear power plants next to the sea is no doubt a very Fifties idea based on the water requirements.
As is building them next to one of the world’s biggest subduction fault lines – particularly when you have islands pointing in the opposite direction.
Unless there are very good reasons for either of those then future nuclear plants need to be sited with considerably more care.
And if we get on and fund the necessary science then hopefully they can be fusion reactors – which is really the only way to supply the human race with sufficient power.
Re: the Japanese catastrophe, I heard the first cuckoo of spring on BBC breakfast, dropping Japan’s 200% deficit into the discussion, and how it might pose a difficulty for reconstruction.
Robert Peston:
“The greater financial risk for Japan is probably in its bond market, because Japan famously has the largest national debt relative to its economic output of any of the major developed economies together with a large and unsustainable fiscal deficit”
Using their logic they can’t afford to rebuild, so the japanese will just have to live under tarpaulins until the deficit is gone.
All this is true — but what bemuses me is that, 70 years after the Blitz (and only 10 after “9/11”), the proponents of nuclear power never ask: What would happen if Britain came under serious attack? The designers of the Ruhr dams in the early 1900s never imagined that someone would blow them up, but we did. And we’ve built our nuclear plants on the coast, where they would be hardest to defend… I find our complacency amazing.
RE:Fusion
Integral Fast Reactors seem a bit more feasible in the near term and a lot better use of depleted uranium than is currently the case.
[b]Neil Wilson:[/b] The reactors were designed to survive a Magnitude 7 quake, and took a Magnitude 9 (on a logarithmic scale) unscathed, so the it’s not as if they were dropped down unthinkingly and unpreparedly. The problems were caused by a couple of the external generators for running cooling when the reactors were off taking damage from the tsunami. There was a bit of an oversight there, but even then 7/10 of the backup generators survived unharmed.
@Huw Spanner
I do not find our complacency amazing – often ‘experts’ never seem to consider the commonsense approach to policy. There is no doubt now that the British public will find the concept of nuclear power stations unacceptable. There is also a long-term problem with oil fired power (Middle East availability etc)and gas prices are likely to rise because Japan’s nuclear power capacity has been damaged. We could therefore be facing a real energy emergency in the not too distant future. The Green Economy must be adopted and soon!!
@Teresa Harding
In that case we need to drastically alter our lifestyle and cut the world population so that our energy consumption is 30% of current. I don’t think that’s possible. Something has to give and it won’t be pretty.
What would happen if Britain came under serious attack?
You mean if someone acted like we have (under one or other ‘coalitions’) for the last 20 years?
I closed another thread on nuclear power and now I’m closing this one too
I made the point as I think they have economic relevance
People seem to want to debate micro nuclear issues – and I don’t