Ignorance of the facts shouldn't lead to criticism.

Monday March 04, 2002 14:03

by Sellafield Employee - Keep Sellafield Open

Sellafield is safe

Comments recently posted show how ignorant people are of the nuclear industry. Sellafield is safe, Enviromentalists twist the truth for their own means and don't always speak the entire truth. Information released by these groups is often selective and very misleading. The majority of events listed by enviromental groups are minor issues which they are capable of understanding due to their clouded judgement.

Comments recently posted show how ignorant people are of the nuclear industry - they couldn't be more wrong about activities carried out at Sellafield. BNFL run a very safe business which I, and my colleagues are proud to work for. BNFL does NOT expose its workers and all the people of Cumbria to danger every day of the year. ALL industry has some element of risk, and if controlled correctly, that industry can be extremely safe. Due to the nature of its business, BNFL has to adhere to the most stringent safety measures in the UK. In fact BNFL goes beyond the measures recommended. A recent example of this excellent safety record was the award of 24 RoSPA safety awards.

Accusing BNFL and the British Government of blackmail is a very serious accusation which is totally wrong and cannot be backed up with facts. So think with your head and not your clouded heart before opening your mouth.

The people of Cumbria do not entirely rely on BNFL. Cumbria is a very beautiful county which, if marketed correctly could benefit from a huge tourist industry. If people are unhappy working at Sellafield there are ALWAYS alternatives. We are not forced to work here. We choose to do so of our own free will. If something was amiss, we would be the first to contest the company - why do you think the deep repository plan fell through? It was because the people of Cumbria were unhappy with the proposed plans. We are NOT fools.

When 'greens' campaign for a cleaner environment, they use SELECTIVE INFORMATION which is used in a deliberate attempt to misinform and mislead the public. It is inappropriate, misleading and wrong.

Greens have stated that soil collected from a riverbed near Sellafield is polluted to such an extent that according to European regulations it should be classified as radioactive waste.

It is inappropriate and misleading to apply the very strict rules that apply to the disposal of radioactive material from a licensed laboratory to the radioactivity from natural sources found in the environment.

Greens also claim that pollution around Sellafield even exceeds the contamination found in the forbidden zone around Chernobyl. This again is deliberately misleading. The areas referred to are within the immediate vicinity of Chernobyl where the activity concentrations in the soil are very low simply because the radioactive plume did not pass over them.

Anti-nuclear groups use every weapon at their disposal - including terrible terrorist events. Irish attempts to close Sellafield due to the tragic September 11th happenings in the USA are terror tactics that WILL fail. So when you say that you are not a terrorist, step back and take a good damn look at yourself. There are absolutely no grounds whatsoever to call for the closure of Sellafield. In the beginning it was radioactivity around the Irish coast, now it’s the threat of terrorist action - make your minds up!

Greens complain about global warming, and I agree - something should be done about the situation. But do you want the countries of the world to revert back to times past with thousands of windmills? The growing economy of the world just would be able to cope, the resulting effect would be hundreds of power cuts. Is this the new world that you crave for? GET REAL.

Nuclear energy is one of the cleanest, and cheapest products utilised to produce electricity. Virtually no CO2 emissions are released into the atmosphere. If nuclear power production ceased, gas and coal powered plants would become our electricity producers - contributing up to 55 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year in the United Kingdom alone.

One tonne of fuel from a modern nuclear power station provides as much energy as at least 100,000 barrels of oil. Without reprocessing, a lot of this valuable energy would be lost.

The simple facts are these: Sellafield and the environment around it are safe and levels of radioactivity in the area present no significant increase in hazard to the local population, or to anyone else.

At Sellafield, nuclear fuel is reprocessed - a form of recycling (don't greens advocate more recycling?). Following the process ONLY 3% of the fuel reprocessed is waste. Nuclear waste produced in the UK contributes to ONLY 0.02% of the entire waste produced in the UK each year. Each type of nuclear waste is treated according to how radioactive it is.

High level waste is converted into glass blocks for easy, long-term storage. Intermediate level waste is encapsulated into concrete and stored safely above ground - it will stay there until the plans for a deep store repository is accepted by the public. High and Intermediate waste account for 99.9% of the radioactive waste. The final 0.001% of waste is low level. This is either stored in vaults at Drigg, or discharged to Sea - in accordance with international law. Low-level liquid waste is mainly water that has been used for cooling used fuel. After the water has been treated to lower its radioactivity, it can safely be put back into the environment. Over £600 million has recently been invested on a new low-level liquid treatment plant to reduce these discharges even more.

Over the past 10 years BNFL have invested £2 billion on new processing plants and equipment to help reduce the amount of waste. Since 1988, the amount of waste produced at Sellafield has been cut by 30% a YEAR. This trend WILL continue into the future.

Oh, by the way - Sellafield is Safe !

Ps. How many so-called protesters were paid to attend the demonstrations at Sellafield??
This is a well known, and widely used tactic by campaigners who cannot drum up enough support.