Letter published in the Western Daily Press, Western Morning News, Bridgwater Mercury and West Somerset Free Press.
Dear Editor
In response to your Hinkley article around all the jobs created at Hinkley C, yes of course it is good that the nuclear industry is training people to understand the nuclear sites and may be later the nuclear process.
Nuclear, due to its very, very long-term footprint has to be understood for thousands of years to come when the radioactive waste will need managing at high costs and high risk on this Hinkley location. Trying to attract young people into a subject that is very antiquated in its science has been something that government and business will have to invest in forever.
Nuclear power for electricity is made by the last century science of steam driving turbines to condense to hot water. Two thirds of the energy produced from the reactors is thrown out in the form of hot water to be discharged into the Severn Estuary, hardly a ‘low-carbon energy’ if looked at in real terms!
What hasn’t been mentioned with all this bigging up the Hinkley site is that it will be the big Sellafield waste dump of the south, as after B station waste has been transferred to Sellafield no more nuclear waste will move from Somerset. Radioactive waste will remain on the North Somerset coast forever. How does that fit with the predicted sea level rise, extreme coastal events and Somerset’s regular flooding events?
Jo Smoldon, Bridgwater