In the Guardian today:
The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland - a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson
By Professor John Robertson OBA
Keir Starmer will unveil plans for a historic expansion in nuclear power across England and Wales, pledging to use Labour’s large majority to make new sites across the country available for new power stations.
The announcement follows the prime minister’s call for tech companies to work alongside the government to build small modular reactors (SMRs) to power energy intensive AI datacentres across Britain.
Speaking on Wednesday, Starmer vowed to “push past nimbyism” and warned his new rural and suburban MPs that he would “break through” if there was resistance and use his party’s big majority to ensure there could be no dissent.
What’s the evidence for my claim in the headline?
Aren’t these Small Modular Reactors safer? Yes, less likely to melt down but, from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in May 2022:
The new study found that, because of their smaller size, small modular reactors will experience more neutron leakage than conventional reactors. This increased leakage affects the amount and composition of their waste streams.
“The more neutrons that are leaked, the greater the amount of radioactivity created by the activation process of neutrons,” Ewing said. “We found that small modular reactors will generate at least nine times more neutron-activated steel than conventional power plants. These radioactive materials have to be carefully managed prior to disposal, which will be expensive.”
The study also found that the spent nuclear fuel from small modular reactors will be discharged in greater volumes per unit energy extracted and can be far more complex than the spent fuel discharged from existing power plants.
Where will all that extra radioactive material be ‘managed?’
Sellafield just miles from the Scottish border, upwind and upstream from all of Scotland.
What’s wrong with Sellafield?
Two recent reports in the National (links below), by Ayr MP Allan Dorans, have exposed levels of radioactivity in seafood, other wildlife and in river estuary sediment, from the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria, described recently in the Guardian as ‘Europe’s most toxic nuclear site‘. These were far above levels considered safe by the UK after the Chernobyl power station leaks in the Ukraine or the by the EU after the Fukushima power station leaks in Japan.
Allan Dorans in his constituency. Pic: Gordon Terris/Newsquest
The reports did not, however, consider the level of cancer incidence in Scotland compared with other parts of the world. First from Public Health Scotland in 2023:
Cancer incidence in Scotland, age-adjusted rates and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of expected rates,* 2010-2021
The rate, or risk, of new cancers also increased to 644 per 100,000 (an increase of 3.1% compared with 2019) and was higher than expected from the long-term trend.
Imagine these were drug cases. Would our media want to know how they compare with the rest of the world? Just a bit. ‘Drug capital of Europe!!‘
Note: Cancer cases rather than cancer deaths are a better measure of the risk from pollution of the environment. Scotland’s superior NHS is, no doubt, compensating for what follows.
From the World Health Organisation in 2022:
The average level of cancer cases in Europe is only 280 per 100 000 compared with 640 in Scotland. In North America, it’s 364.7 and in Oceania (Australia, NZ), it’s 409. In Asia and Africa, I feel sure, detection rates are even lower due to ‘third-world’ health provision.
Scotland is clearly the cancer capital of the whole world. Why is that not news?
And England, most of it further way from Sellafield and Trident than most Scots are? From the Gov UK site, the rate is 540 per 100 000, also very high globally but significantly lower than in Scotland at 640.
With the most dangerous radioactive plant in Europe at Sellafield in Cumbria, only miles from the border, with the experimental nuclear facility at Dounreay in Caithness, with UK and for some time, US, nuclear submarines and missiles based only 35-40 miles from Glasgow and sailing along the West of Scotland coastline, and with two major power stations at Hunterston and Torness, both within the densely populated central belt, Scotland has been exposed to large-scale and largely unknown risks for 70 years now.
While no government-funded scientists will ever admit to any link between the contamination and cancer cases, the onus is not on us but on them to prove there is none.
And before you say it – Scots smoke more? No they don’t.
15% of Scots smoke. Fewer than in most European countries. See this:
Links and sources:
Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/
The Oliver Brown Award for advancing the cause of Scotland’s self respect, previously awarded to Dr Philippa Whitford, Alex Salmond and Sean Connery: https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116
About Oliver Brown, the first Scottish National Party candidate to save his deposit in a Parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Brow
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Well, Labour did say they wanted GROWTH – but we didn’t expect them to mean growth in cancer cases , did we ?
Labour’s other great slogan was ”CHANGE” ! Well , with more nuclear radiation we will all be changing – it’s called mutation ! Is that what we voted for ?
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Labour, via Keir Starmer, also “pushed past” much of the history of Labour peer Baron Mandleson in nominating and appointing him to be the UK’s new Ambassador to the US.
Now the former Labour party minister Peter Mandelson also known as Labour peer Baron Mandelson is being reported today as having told a Journalist to ” F*** off” when he was asked about his past links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Who will defend this action by him ?
Would those who may seek to defend him on this also seek to defend a SNP politician if they too made such a response to a Journalist , I suspect not.
Indeed for an SNP politician this would be career ending .
It was also not such a big deal for the media or other opposition parties when Lib Dem Alex Cole-Hamilton said “F*** you Maree” to her, as an SNP MSP , at an online Committee meeting, and indeed it was also not career ending for him as being either the leader of the Lib Dems in Scotland or as a Lib Dem MSP.
In fact the only repeated chant for the demand for a resignation is the opposition parties demanding that any SNP SG minister resigns, for what they declare is something that is indefensible and so then they say is 100% a resigning matter, which then comes under the category of pretty much anything and everything it seems, also to be filed under ‘any weak excuse used to harm the SNP’.
I think Baron Mandelson’s language and behaviour pretty much sums up who and what the Labour party are does it not.
Ironically in him using this foul and inappropriate language it also sums up British nationalism , as that which is endorsed and applied by British nationalist political parties like the Labour party as a prime example.
Liz S
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”Eye-popping new cost estimates released for NuScale small modular reactor” from IEEFA 2023 report by David Schlissel analyst with 50 years of experience as an economic and technical consultant on energy and environmental issues……https://ieefa.org/resources/eye-popping-new-cost-estimates-released-nuscale-small-modular-reactor……and a report from 2024 again by David Schlissel..”Small modular reactors are still too expensive, too slow, and too risky”…https://ieefa.org/articles/small-modular-reactors-are-still-too-expensive-too-slow-and-too-risky
JB
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