“If the technologists and scientists involved in disposal [of nuclear waste] are so confident in the safety then they should do it in the cities which are demanding the energy,”

© Science Photo Library

When I moved to Ayr in 1984, locals were protesting British Nuclear Fuel’s plans to bury nuclear waste under a hill only 15 miles to the south of the town. The protest worked and the waste is still being dumped at Sellafield in Cumbria. However, Ayr remains on the atmospheric and coastal water flows from it, the most toxic site in Europe, and local shellfish, estuary and beach sediment, bottom feeding fish and animals that feed on them, are more radioactive than EU legislation on consumption would allow.

Scottish Labour, doing what they’re told, are in favour of the new small modular reactors (SMR) which research, from The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), has shown produce even more waste than the older reactors.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2111833119

Where will that waste go? London? Birmingham?

Californians currently protesting a nuclear disposal site in South Bruce, say:

If you have radioactive material going into the environment… it’s going to go into the food, the fish, and some people are going to get cancer. If the technologists and scientists involved in disposal are so confident in the safety then they should do it in the cities which are demanding the energy. https://cknxnewstoday.ca/midwestern/news/2024/10/05/david-suzuki-among-experts-speaking-at-info-session-against-south-bruce-nuclear-project

Just so.

21 thoughts on ““If the technologists and scientists involved in disposal [of nuclear waste] are so confident in the safety then they should do it in the cities which are demanding the energy,””

  1. Ah! The plans to bury waste in the Mullwharchar Hills. Even George Younger, Tory MP for Ayr and future Minister of Defence, actually joined the protest marches in Ayr.

    Anent energy generation – power stations and gas works were originally in the towns and cities that used the energy. Glasgow, for example had electric power stations in places like Pinkston and Dalmarnock and gas works at Provan and Anniesland. This was to reduce transmission costs.

    There were concerns because they used coal and belched out smoke and people were apprehensive about gas explosions and gas leaks – town gas was pretty poisonous. So, larger generating facilities were created out of towns and cities and improved transmission technology delivered the energy over larger distances.

    However, the con trick known as the National Grid resulted in the anomaly that the places where energy is generated are the places which have the highest transmission charges Funny that??????

    Sir Bung-me’s party has set up BRITISH ENERGY to continue asset theft and to make the colonised pay more.

    Alasdair Macdonald.

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  2. So they lied.

    Politics latest: Minister insists ‘we do have money to spend’ – despite £22bn ‘black hole’ in public finance

    Science Secretary Peter Kyle, speaking on Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, was asked about the upcoming budget, which Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver on 30 October.

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  3. About 2 years after you settled in Ayr in the infamous Thatcher era, another infamous disaster occurred in Ukraine, Chernobyl…. Within months, every radioactive issue in Galloway was being blamed on it, even the granite in the hills, nothing to do with Winscale/Sellafield across the Solway – Even when the Not the Nine o’clock News team took the mick with their Weetabix spoof advert, they still blaming Chernobyl…

    Even then Labour were up to their necks in scamming the public over nuclear, so “CHANGE” there is not when they’re pushing SMRs as just rolling off the back of a truck like a standby generator, avoiding any question over why it can’t be switched off….

    The 16th September article ” No case for nuclear power in Scotland, international experts say ” in the National https://www.thenational.scot/news/24587473.no-case-nuclear-power-scotland-international-experts-say/ should have likewise been prominently reported by BBC Scotland (such was it’s potential news-worthiness), but they likewise did ” what they’re told “.

    In a recent discussion elsewhere on electricity being 3 and half times the cost/kWh of gas, one suggestion made was this multiplier had been created to obscure the exorbitant cost of nuclear, which HMG were most anxious to retain for weaponry.

    My guess as to why this has been pushed for Scotland by both Tories and Labour is that they need excuse for a new dumpsite…

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    1. A few years ago I was doing some hobby research into systems of hydrogen production. I was surprised to find that Westminster had laid aside £300m for SMR development grant. At first thinking that this was Steam Methane Reforming and possibly progressive, I was intrigued. It was of course wee consumers of fissile material.

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      1. I was looking at different ways of using systems of pyrolysis in hydrogen production. The system developed by Proton Technologies in Calgary Canada was interesting. The hydrogen, through filters, is extracted from the oil and the carbon is left behind.

        Couldn’t help feel that it could have been developed here in Scotland. Proton’s business plan includes Scottish North sea oil fields.

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        1. Pardon my scepticism over the hydrogen hooplah Alan, particularly so when oil and gas industry take over the conversation to extend the life of their own product.

          Hydrogen was cited as a final option where power could not be exported, a problem unique to Scotland due to London ensuring no continental interlinks made landfall there, maintaining England as gatekeeper – The Drax/Norway gazump of the Peterhead/Norway interlink was the most blatant, but it was unintentionally instructive on how quickly a link could be constructed, one year if memory serves correctly.

          Line losses are nowhere near that of using hydrogen as an intermediary (50% power density ?), it is way more efficient to export the power and let the receiver decide what to do with it, without all the complications of transportation at scale – However, that opens a can of worms for London, and it’s all to do with nuclear ambitions and greed –

          • Were the original concept of a europe sharing wind ‘harvesting’ across a vast area to succeed, the ‘ dead calm ‘ argument collapses, and with it UK nuclear ambitions in Scotland.
          • Were power demand to be halved in England by a modicum of insulation, the argument for UK nuclear ambitions in England collapses – That 50% saving is to say the least unambitious.
          • If no more nuclear is built, justification for the pricing stitch-up is unsustainable, and ‘market’ (and Treasury) profits reduce.

          Hydrogen is interesting but I would argue, largely a short term diversion until the penny drops…

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          1. That’s a fair summary of where we are being kept by design. The blocking, by Westminster to any further development of the two deep water ports confirms that.

            I agree with your last statement, I too saw/see hydrogen being a short term solution. Better for the environment than the EV solution though.

            The Proton Tech production efficiencies were impressive, compared to SMR or oil, a ready to use fuel at the wellhead. The wells used are the redundent uneconomical ones, as per the business plan.

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            1. Anything which reduces further damage to the atmosphere should be welcomed – Of one thing I’m certain, there will be a queue of interconnect proposals on day 1 of Scotland’s Indy parliament.

              I looked at a heat pumps when my boiler died in March, but at 3+ times the price, 10 times the wait (it was -6) and various other complications killed the notion. So back on gas, but at less than 20% of the new build consumption, I’ve already done my bit for the planet.

              Scientific advances will continue to be made, but finding out how to drag the UK government into 21st century thinking continues to elude them….

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  4. Dump Trident in the Thames or Devonport. Nuclear a total waste of monies. £13Billion funding decommissioning a year. Increasing all the time. Chernobyl has a dome cover supposed to last for 100 years. Fukushima still releasing nuclear contamination into the sea. Hinkley Point years late and over budget. Another disaster.

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  5. I wonder if any films exist about the protests? I’ll have a look when I have time.
    Here there are some films about the protests about building the Torness nuke power station in East Lothian. I had friends who were there (I was living in NE Eng back then) and appear in the film, sadly no longer with us but it was a while ago!
    Ref/8500 is available to watch. It’s all in copyright so if you go to the website just type in Torness in the search bar at the top.
    https://movingimage.nls.uk/search

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  6. O/T BBC Scotland’s contribution to the BBC News website today, 6 October is a prime example of its public service! Prominent on the main Scotland page is this headline: ‘Scotland’s papers: SNP ‘fake firm’ probe and £1m in LEZ fines’. Here the BBC amplifies the front page messaging of two newspapers..

    Source https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4dgmgll03o

    The front page given most prominence by the BBC is that of the Sunday Mail with its headline: ‘SNP fraud police in fake firm probe’.

    How does this newspaper obtain – and moreover how is it able, with seeming impunity, to reveal – details of an active police investigation?

    On its front page alone there is reference to: (i) communication from a bank; (ii) a ‘fake firm’ and (iii) a £100k transaction. The paper implies these are subjects under investigation.

    Who is furnishing the Sunday Mail with operational detail? Is the provision of such information happening through official channels – or through a leak?

    If the former, is this normal practice? If a leak, is there a police investigation into the source of the leak?

    Does anyone – do I – have the energy to research and report on mainstream media coverage of Branchform since the beginning? The information is available to be evaluated, with effort. From memory, my strong suspicion is that today’s Sunday Mail ‘reveal’ is not the first time the mainstream media has provided details of this investigation that imply leaks from – or at best highly privileged access to – Police Scotland, or to whoever else is involved in the conduct of the Branchform investigation!

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  7. O/T I noted earlier in this thread that BBC Scotland’s contribution to the BBC News website on 6 October is a prime example of its public service! Prominent on the main Scotland page is this headline: ‘Scotland’s papers: SNP ‘fake firm’ probe and £1m in LEZ fines’. Here the BBC amplifies the front page messaging of two newspapers..

    This comment relates to ‘LEZ fines’, the subject featuring on the front page of the Sunday Post. The Sunday Post’s front page has this headline: ‘Motorists handed LEZ fines worth £1m a month – data reveals staggering penalty milestone.’ ’Staggering’? What a motivation to get some perspective. I don’t have time at present to write a full blog post on this but hopefully what follows is useful and may encourage further assessment.

    On July 18 2024 the vehicle fleet management company, Wessex Fleet published this: ‘UK COUNCILS HAVE RAKED IN £941 MILLION FROM LOW-EMISSION ZONES – How much have councils earned from LEZs? We’ve got the answers.’ Its analysis is based on responses to Freedom of Information requests to local authorities.

    Source https://www.wessexfleet.co.uk/blog/2024/07/18/uk-councils-have-raked-in-941-million-from-low-emission-zones/ 

    Firstly, the Sunday Post refers to ‘Scotland’s controversial Low Emission Zones’. For context, the Wessex Fleet report opens with this: ‘With the UK’s aim to reduce air pollution across the nation, many local authorities have implemented low-emission zones (LEZ) in a bid to tackle the use of older, more polluting vehicles. There are 15 low-emission zones across the UK, and four zones under consideration.’ (my emphasis) 

    The Wessex Fleet report also states: ‘We’ve uncovered some staggering figures by calculating the average earnings from LEZ charges alongside the total fines.’’ So more ‘staggering’! But as the comparative statistics presented in the report make clear, apparently not as a result of the sums involved in Scotland!

    From an analysis of the revenues gained by the UK cities with low emission zones, Wessex Fleet’s research finds that: ‘.. the cities that have garnered the least revenue from clean air zones and penalty charges include Glasgow’   It reports that in its first nine months, Glasgow had revenue of £867,755, averaging just £96,417 per month, from issuing penalties. (Not sure how The Sunday Post gets to the order of magnitude figure it quotes in its headline., even with zones in four cities.)

    As Wessex Fleet’s research explains, England’s cities with LEZs or equivalent gain revenue from two sources: (i) from charges imposed on those who wish to access the LEZ; plus (ii) penalties on those who enter the zone without paying the fee. By contrast, Glasgow and the more recently established LEZs in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dundee gain revenue ONLY through penalties on vehicles that don’t meet the LEZ’s emission standards.

    The public service provided by the BBC – amplifying a Sunday Post front page that doesn’t explain this distinction and makes no mention of the (factual) comparative UK-wide statistics that are available – fails in its duty properly to inform its users – who of course may also be voters.

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  10. “Small modular reactors won’t achieve economies of manufacturing scale, won’t be faster to construct, forego efficiency of vertical scaling, won’t be cheaper, aren’t suitable for remote or brownfield coal sites, still face very large security costs, will still be costly and slow to decommission, and still require liability insurance caps. They don’t solve any of the problems that they purport to while intentionally choosing to be less efficient than they could be. They’ve existed since the 1950s and they aren’t any better now than they were then.”..https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/18/the-nuclear-fallacy-why-small-modular-reactors-cant-compete-with-renewable-energy/

    JB

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    1. It’s a sales pitch to rescue nuclear from an increasingly hostile public – Even the State of a Secretary for Scotland I believe referred to them as ‘micro’ plants, almost as if they can go by DHL….

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  11. “If the technologists and scientists involved in disposal are so confident in the safety then they should do it in the cities which are demanding the energy.“

    Or, better yet, in the places they, the producers and the politicians who support it live.

    They could call it ‘the Clean Air Where You Are…’

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  12. The London clay area is one of the best areas in the UK for burying nuclear waste.

    Clay is inert, stable, non-porous and self sealing, what more could you ask?

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