LETTER TO SANTA

Use No 35

Letter to Santa

Radiation Free Lakeland have been given a letter from a brave whistleblower: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

The Letter is addressed to Santa and says:

"Dear Santa,

We have been working VERY hard all year to convince Cumbrian Councillors that 'Managing Radioactive Wastes Safely' means mining a BIG hole to dump nuclear wastes in.

As you know, Santa, we need to SOLVE the nuclear waste problem in order to build more nuclear plants.

We have made sure that all the usual movers and shakers in Cumbria are ON MESSAGE OR SILENT.

Please, Santa, keep the GEOLOGICAL DUMP on track.

yours sincerely,
Charles Hendry on behalf of H.M. Govnt"

Ever expanding vicious cycle / infinite loop

Dumping Democracy

http://www.worldscibooks.com/environsci/7895.html


Use No 31

DUMPING DEMOCRACY

Extract from the excellent, myth busting book:
Contesting the future of nuclear power
Benjamin K Sovacool, World Scientific, 2011.

"In one of its most intractable problems, that of nuclear waste, the
industry has outright manipulated data and limited true public participation
to get its way. Some studies of consumer attitudes and public
opinions have shown that public groups will support nuclear power
expansion if assurances of safe waste disposal are provided, but will not
if the waste problem is not resolved.(113) Thus, nuclear power proponents - trade
groups, vendors, and utilities - have shifted from a technical
discourse, which is full of uncertainty, to a public discourse of inclusive
and respectful public consultation about siting as well as criterions of
acceptability and safety. Yet, one study of such efforts in Canada found
that they do not involve true consultation or participation, whereby
citizens have the chance to influence eventual decisions, and are instead
public relations exercises used to reinvent the industry.(114) Nuclear
groups employ public consultation sessions to (1) demonstrate consent
and approval when they do get it, or (2) construct the public as having
fragmented values and opinions that will never be overcome when they
do not get it, telling regulators they should ultimately defer to the
nuclear industry. This situation does not bode well for democracy, the
study concluded, as the public is co-opted either way. Public consultation
is converted from a means to inform public policy into an end
justifying nuclear expansion".

113 See Frans Berkhout, Radioactive Waste: Politics and Technology (London:
Routledge, 1991); A. Blowers, D. Lowry, and B. Solomon, The International
Politics of Nuclear Waste (New.York: Macmillan, 1991); A. Blowers, "Nuclear
Waste and Landscapes of Risk;' Landscapes Research 24(3) (1999),
pp. 241-264; and Peter Stoett, "Toward Renewed Legitimacy? Nuclear Power,
Global Warming, and Security:' Global Environmental Politics 3(1) (2003),
pp.99-116.

114 Darrin Durant, "Buying Globally, Acting Locally: Control and Co-Option
in Nuclear Waste Management," Science and Public Policy 34(7)
(August, 2007), pp. 515-528.

This extract has been published on 101 Uses.. with the kind permission of Professor Benjamin K Sovacool

RADIOACTIVE SPRINGS

Use No 8.

Radioactive Springs in Cumbria?

Prof David Smythe who worked for Nirex - now the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has said:
"Just stand with your back to the sea, anywhere on the coastal plain, looking inland at the mountains of the national park. Imagine the rain falling on these mountains, percolating – however slowly and imperceptibly – through fissures and cracks in these slates and lavas, down towards the sea, over centuries and aeons. These same Lake District rocks are found below your feet, under the sedimentary layers of the coastal plain, constituting what we call geologically the ‘basement’. But the very large hydraulic head of underground water near the coast, thanks to the height of the mountains inland, means that some of this water can percolate back upwards to the surface on its progress to the sea. It is this natural flow pattern that rules out the coastal region from ever being a candidate site; it does not conform to internationally agreed standards for such a repository. In the long term, nature cannot be defied by engineering".

So, West Cumbria has already been proven, with £400M of the best scientific evidence, to be completely unsuitable for a deep nuclear dump.

But this is the 'wrong' answer for a government which wants to press ahead with dangerous new nuclear build and needs somewhere to dump the waste.

more info:

http://www.davidsmythe.org/nuclear/nuclear.htm