Keir Starmer’s new nuclear reactors will be less dirty – but not clean
Keir Starmer’s new nuclear reactors will be less dirty – but not clean.
The prime minister has announced a relaxation of planning rules to make it easier to build small nuclear power stations – small modular reactors, or SMRs – in England and Wales, saying it will create thousands of highly-skilled jobs and boost the country’s plan to have clean, secure and affordable energy.
There’s just one problem – it isn’t clean.
Nuclear power stations create nuclear waste, that is expected to remain radioactive for around 10,000 years. The government’s way of dealing with that is to drop it down holes it drills deep into the ground and hope it won’t do any harm there. It’s all a bit too much like wishful thinking for This Writer’s liking.
The SMRs that Starmer is supporting are expected to be more efficient than the larger station the UK has used to generate 15 per cent of the nation’s power – but they will still create nuclear waste, and the government will still have to dispose of it, which means taking it out of the reactors to a designated dumping-ground.
And these stations could be built almost anywhere, under his plans.
This Writer can only hope this does not turn into the plot of the 2005 Doctor Who episode Boom Town, in which the villain of the week plans to build a nuclear power station in the centre of Cardiff, with the intention of causing a nuclear explosion there.
One would not expect anybody to be stupid enough to suggest building even a small reactor anywhere near a centre of population – but with the quality of politicians currently running the UK government, you never can tell.
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What if a plane crashes into it?
The amount of waste per MWh of electricity generated by wind and solar is 1000 times greater than the minuscule waste generated by nuclear power plants.
Wind and solar waste, containing masses of toxic molecules, will lie around on or near the surface forever and never become safer.
Nuclear waste, for which, currently, every scrap is accounted, will be safely buried thousands of metres below any groundwater, etc., in the safest form of geology that will obviate any manner of escape
It will gradually decay (fade away) to the safety of the ground beneath out feet –> other than the ground where wind, solar and any other waste is buried from the essential processes that support our lifestyles.