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.