Monday 14 May 2012

Nuclear Reassurance

Three councils in Cumbria have been consulting on a proposal construct an underground nuclear waste dump for the last four years.  They seem to be quite keen on the idea of acting as host for the UK’s nuclear waste; or rather on the millions of pounds’ worth of ‘sweeteners’ promised by the UK Government.
It was the comments of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s engineering director which caught my eye.  After talking about the need for the facility to keep the waste secure for hundreds of thousands of years, and of having to ensure that the material could be prevented from getting out even if Britain was hit by another ice-age glaciation, he told the Sunday Times that “The upside is that after 2m years, it should be mostly harmless”.
Well, that’s all right, then, isn’t it?

3 comments:

You mean there's more??? said...

It is all right John, could not have put it better myself...

R

G Horton-Jones said...

John
This is worrying
If given the mathematical certainty of the half life of nuclear material then the Nuclear Decommissioning Authorities engineering director should be looking for another job.
There is some difference between hundreds of thousands of years and two million plus
Two things are certain that in both his time spans this island will not look physically as it is today if it is here at all and the costs associated will be of astronomical dimensions

Anonymous said...

There have been four major ice ages in the last 800,000 years. Ironically these glacial periods are named after Ipswich, Anglia, Warwick and Devon, all of which are defined by copious deposits of glacial moraines originating from the rocks of Cumbria. Perhaps the next one will be named the Isotopoian glacial period ?