Electric vehicles

[Tony Griffiths]

Nuclear power is not the solution to energy needs in my opinion. We talk of climate change and the future for our grandchildren and their grandchildren but little consideration appears to be given to the decommissioning and disposal of the various degrees of radioactive waste. I was involved in a BNFL project in the mid eighties which is now undergoing decommissioning, only thirty-odd years after it was constructed. This equipment in itself was for processing and disposing by vitrification and deep underground burial in the Lake District ( of all places!)of nuclear waste brought to Britain from Japan and other countries. Tonnes of radioactive equipment to be somehow shoved out of the way for millennia, buried deep underground. Surely this is very irresponsible of our generation, an awful legacy to be dealt with. No solution has yet been found. Nuclear power is an incidental byproduct of the race for nuclear weaponry in the first instance. Who remembers Calder Hall, now Sellafield?

Ah, David, but this is hi-class waste - we send our low-class waste to the Far East to be disposed of and they send us their better stuff. Joking aside - it's a very valid point, and no thought was given to designing nuclear power stations so that they can be sealed or otherwise safely decommissioned after use. Actually, I'm wrong; the thought was given, but only in terms of the immediate cost and how to keep it down; i.e. spend as little as possible - short-termism at it's best. One solution proposed was to drop the waste containers on the sea bed along a subduction zone, say off the coast of Japan, and let plate tectonics take care of it. Years ago, in another life, I was discussing this very issue with some students. "Why not put it on a rocket and fire it into the sun?" I asked. Before the words were out of my mouth, hyper-bright Jane shot back, "And what if the rocket blows up on the pad?"