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man in the street - are but a small consideration. Plutonium will soon be used
to power nuclear Stations throughout the country. We are entering a new era .
. . '
'Fair enough.' Coyle lit one of his own cigarettes. 'But now let's get on to
this business of nuclear waste. That's what I want to know about.'
'Of course.' The other smiled with an air of contained patience. 'The spent
nuclear fuel will be dealt with in our own plant here - which will be
constructed surprisingly quickly, as you will learn. From it we shall produce
uranium, which will also be invaluable. Let us consider our present atomic
power stations, where the spent radioactive fuel is stored in tanks under
water. This spent fuel is transported to a reprocessing plant to be broken
down. We obtain our vital plutonium, but we now have a highly radioactive
plutonium waste which will be dangerous for thousands of years to come. Our
new plant here will deal safely with this substance, known as oxide. Oxide is
an extremely dangerous material, but the risks here will be minimal,
nonexistent in fact. Our nuclear laundry, for want of a better term, will be
the first in the world to operate on a fully commercial scale, and the fuel
can be stored almost indefinitely.'
'If it's as safe as all that, why don't these other countries reprocess it
themselves, instead of paying us to do their dirty work for them?'
'Simply because they do not have the technology and the resources which we
have in this very place. The Japanese are well aware of the perils. We can
combat these dangers, and it would be a sad day for our economy if they
decided to do it for themselves. Indeed, Windscale will be obsolete once this
place is operating fully. There they have been reprocessing Japanese waste
since 1969, on a very limited scale compared to that which we shall be capable
of. In all, they have dealt with something like a thousand tons of old fuel
from foreign countries, half as much again as has been reprocessed from solely
British power stations.
'We can double, even treble, that amount in half the time. Look at their
antiquated system. The fuel containers arrive on a single-track railway! The
first reprocessed nuclear fuel is stored in ponds eighteen feet deep. These
ponds are now filled to overflowing. Now that does represent a hazard. The
longer the fuel remains there, the greater the difficulty of reprocessing, and
the greater the danger.
'Improved reprocessing facilities are needed. We shall provide them here, a
completely different reprocessing plant to deal with the more radioactive
oxide fuel. It is a well-known fact that Windscale's pilot oxide plant ran
into trouble. We have learnt from their mistakes. There were reports of an
accident there in 1973, which resulted in the plant being shut down. In 1976
the contaminated area was still sealed off. I am confident that I know what,
went wrong. In effect, the plant broke down, but the dangers were greatly
exaggerated by the media. It was an old military plant which had been
renovated - case of putting a highly radiated fuel into something totally
inadequate for the purpose. I am more than confident that our new plant will
be adequate.
Take American Nuclear Fuel Services as another example of failure. The West
Valley Reprocessing Plant was never able to operate on a commercial scale. It
lost money instead of making it. It, too, was closed down in 1972, because it
was too radioactive to work in. The cost of closing down the plant and
clearing up the remaining waste is already running into millions of dollars,
good money thrown after bad. All the waste had to be solidified before it
could be removed, at a cost of 540 million dollars. The burial ground for the
solidified waste had to be made one hundred per cent safe, at an estimated
cost of a further billion dollars.
'Waste products at Windscale, too, present a major problem. Fortunately
British Nuclear Fuels have learnt how to cope with oxide reprocessing,
something which no other country in the world has so far achieved. That
reprocessing system will be transferred here, but on a scale of greater
magnitude. More reprocessing means more nuclear waste, and this waste will
remain radioactive for something like a quarter of a million years. Lorries
leave Windscale daily, carrying sealed containers of low-level nuclear waste.
This stuff is not highly dangerous - just dangerous. Mostly these containers
are filled with gloves, clothing, etc., which have been in contact with
contamination, and are transported to Britain's "burial ground". It's a
somewhat haphazard operation, the lorries not being escorted en route, but
simply checked at their destination. In time this burial ground will become a
forgotten tract of derelict ground, the low-level waste buried deep beneath
it. Perhaps, foolishly, houses will be built upon it.
'Windscale also deposits low-level liquid waste into the sea, something like
five hundred thousand litres every day. Of course, radioactive levels are kept
strictly within the permitted limits, but the risk is still there. A few miles
south lies the Ravenglass Estuary, and this waste is being washed back by the
currents on the sea-bed. The plutonium is being picked up by fish, and that
plutonium will still retain its radioactivity in a quarter of a million years'
time. Bear this in mind, Coyle, next time you eat fish and chips! Mankind's
food is being polluted at a time when not enough is known about plutonium
waste. Therefore, how can the level of radioactivity which goes into the Irish
Sea be contained, especially when even more waste is still being deposited
into it? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]