Author: Martyn

Information Needed – Decommissioning The Railway Waste Flasks

Being an effective campaigner and activist means reading a lot of background reports upon a very wide range of issues.

Yet when it comes down to developing that work it is another matter, as one can be very hard pressed to find the info one needs.

At present I’m looking for any information about how long the flasks in which nukiller waste are transported upon our railways have been in use.

More importantly – I want to find out anything about how they are decommissioned, or might be decommission in the future.

All ideas and references about this would be most welcome.

Working on.

From time to time I stop and think that there has been so much to do of late, that most of my time has been spent in reading about, or working upon various issues. That includes a lot of networking, commenting various issues, and passing on information to others.

Thus there has been little time to pen anything new.

That’s always the problem with multi issue campaigning.

Well that’s the way it goes.

So to save some time I’ll just list a few of the issue I’ve been looking at, or working upon over the last few months.

The AP 1000 reactor.

Capenhurst.

The danger of Pavement parking.

Moorside.

The Pitchford Inquiry.

Prisoners for Peace.

Though that’s just a starter list.

At present I am in the middle of some work which relates to DRS & the transport of nuklller waste on the railways.

The good thing is that I should be able to pen a little more over the next month or so.

Renting Just Like SMRs

Rent to Buy

Mention housing to anyone who lives in Britain, and you will get to hear a very worrying list of anecdotal stories.

All of which show that everything to do with buying, selling, and renting housing is a legal or financial mess.

Not only a mess, but a very controversial one at that.

Take for example: –

Rent to Buy, which is refereed to as Buy to Rent, and gives no housing security to tenants If the landlord defaults on their mortgage.

Then there are landlords who complain about bad tenants,and tenants who complain about bad landlords. Both of which [ may ] have some very good reasons for doing so.

As I say – It’s a mess.

Now enter the Developers

Of course much of this mess comes down to how housing is regarded as a way in which to make a quick profit, rather than a source of long term housing, or long term income.

It all comes down to making a profit by any means, rather than looking at what might be achieved in the long term.

That’s why there are so many houses being built, or which have been built, in the middle of high risk flood plains.

Then comes all of the flooding which will result from Rising tides.

As with Housing the same with the Nukiller industry.

Many of the existing reactors are by the coast, and will be effected by rising tides within the next 20 to 30 years.

Yet the nukiller industry keep playing down this danger, as with everything else they do.

A modular exercise.

The current fashion is for the nukiller industry to talk about how all our problems will be solved by the construction of Small Modular Reactors.

Yet these Small Modular Reactors are like those flats which are being sold by developers way before the foundation work is done.

They are sold on the illustrations of what these flats might look like, but no one has any idea of the quality of the materials used, or just what the standard of construction work might be.

Then when they all go wrong, those who buy them as an investment will cry out that ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’.

Meanwhile – The tenants get to suffer within these badly constructed slums of the future, and pay for the privilege of doing so.

While we the tax payers will be expected to pay for the long term clean up costs.

Sounds familiar ?

If I Was A Poet

If I was a poet, then this is what I would write: –

I did try to tell you, to warn you, to tell you, but you were shopping at the time.

I did try to tell you, to warn you, to tell you, but you were partying at the time.

Now I keep trying to tell you,

to warn you, to tell you,

but fear it might be too late.

 

Books to Keep – Books to Ditch.

One of the reasons why I have not been writing that much of late is because I’ve been doing a major spring cleaning, buying new furniture and replacing a lot of my bookshelves.

As with all such projects it takes a while to get it all completed.

Three questions.

I’ve also been going through all of my books, resorting, and weeding out the ones which I can no longer use.

In order to simplify this process I asked myself three questions, and If I got the following answers, then out they went.

Are they related to my key interest? No.

Will I ever get around to reading them again? No.

Can I get hold of them should I ever want them again? Yes.

Some of them I’m giving to fellow activists who can use then.

Some I’m giving to a specialist library.

While the rest of them I’m donating to my local radical bookshop as a way of supporting the work it does.

If I was still living in London they would of gone to Housmans bookshop.

Sorted.

Having almost completed this whole process I’m now better able to find all of the references which are needed for my campaigning work, and for anything else which I might use in my writings over the coming years.

I’ve been putting all of my books together by subject and Authors, & my CDs by type, composer, band, or singer.

The same kind of thing has been done with my DVDs.

Though in some cases I’ve put both books by specific Authors together with the DVD films of their works.

e.g. Those of J.R.R. Tolkien, H.G.Wells and Jules Verne.

A Great Advantage.

So now to take advantage of it all – – – – – – –

Generational Realities.

I get really tired of the argument about pensioners deserving better, as they were soldiers during World War Two.

Well for my generation of pensioners it was a case of working to stop wars. Be it in Vietnam, Biafra, & later on in the Falklands.

I am tired of those references by the young to rich pensioners, even though the state pension is so low that many pensioners have to survive on Housing benefit. 10% of all pensioners live below the poverty line.

I am tired of the young moaning about a later retirement age, even though they will be joining the work force many years after my generation did so.

I am tired on the many moans about student loans, when most of my and earlier generations were just not able to go to university. That was something which was well out of the reach of anyone who came from the working class.

Neither did we have the luxury of a gap year.

In contract almost all of the adult education courses have now been cut, and so our only option is self education. That’s something we have been engaged upon most of our lives.

I am tired of hearing moans about young people not being able to afford to buy a house to live in. Exactly the same applies to my generation. 

They also have to remember just how bad some of the housing conditions were during an earlier age.

Though the real scandal is that there are very few places being built to facilitate independent living for older citizens. That’s the real housing crisis which we now need to address.

This might seem like me moaning, but we all have very different issues to face.

 

What We Need Right Now – Campaigning Workaholics.

With just so few anti-nukilller power activists and groups there is always a very large amount of campaigning work which needs to be done.

Here is an account of just one aspect of this work, and why we need more people campaigning right now.

Field Notes from the”Delegated Decision” to Sweep Ever More Nuclear Waste Under the West Coast at Drigg

On the 15th of July the County’s Development Control and Regulatory Committee took the “delegated decision” to approve a plan on behalf of Cumbria  to stack shipping containers of nuclear wastes ever higher and then to cap them and walk away.

Now for the follow up campaigning work, for which we will need much more help in the coming months, years, and decades.

Activism & Information Work.

Activist and Information worker.

The best library & Information worker share many of the same skills as good political activist.

For in order to do a little you have to know a lot.

Activism & Information work.

I never wanted to become a specialist or expert on any subject.

All I ever wanted to do was be a good all rounder,

and have a good working knowledge about just what does on in the work.

It took me a while to do it, but now I know and can chat about almost everything except for Celebs, current pop stars, various aspects of sport and what was or will be shown on television.

That’s the joy of all that !

Study and conclusions.

So I read a lot about various issues, which are political, economic, scientific, sociological, geological, and always highly technical in nature.

You just can’t work on these issues without doing so. Continue reading Activism & Information Work.

As Was Or As Predicted.

The way in which the nukiller power industry views any potential future ‘accidents’ or potential natural disasters, is based upon some very short term thinking.

Much of what forms such risk assessments is based upon the Historical Record.

Yet people have short memories, or think ‘it will never happen here’.

That would seem to be the line which is taken by the nukiller power industry.

Yet consider the following historical events.

– The East Midlands earthquake – 1185

– The Dover Straits earthquake – 1580

– The Great English earthquake – 1884

– The Swansea earthquake – 1906

&

– The Dogger Bank earthquake – 1931

For the nukiller industry it comes down to some very shaky thinking.

Flooding

Now consider the risk of flooding & rising tides at the Sizewell, Dungeness, Hinkley, and Heysham reactor sites. This is going to be a major problem to deal with over the next few years,

So lets go back to the Historical record, and the risk of Flooding on Romney Marsh.

400 BC the Dungeness area was under the sea.

It could well happen again.

Yet the Nukiller industry continues to take very short term view of such dangers, even thought the waste they produce will last thousands of years.

Sellafield

The thinking about what might happen to nukiller reactors is scary enough, but the prospects of what might happen to all of the radioactive waste make for a much more frightening scenario.

Here is just one industry report which illustrates what might happen at at sellafield, and how they plan to deal with it.

The Final Report to ONR on the application of the ENSREG Stress Tests to the Sellafield Site.

In this report there is a lot written about the various safeguards which have been, or will be put in place, but just look at the condition of the plant right now: –

Leaked Sellafield photos reveal “massive radioactive release” threat

Not Good !

Though the reality of what might happen can be seen by looking a the flood map for the area.

I might well be accused on banging on & on & on & on & on about these issues, but there are a very good set of reasons for doing so.