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A good time to thank Sir John Cockcroft? Japan goes nuclear again.


Chris Wilson

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I am (just) old enough to remember the incident, Sellafield nuclear power station, then called Windscale, in Cumbria, suffered a serious reactor fire. With Japan resuming the production of electricity from nuclear power it reminded me of the incident, and that it was a fitting time to thank God Sir John Cockcroft insisted, and persisted in creating his "follies" on top of the reactor chimneys.

 

 

What the hell am I on about? I think all those that say nuclear power is totally safe should read the short history, say a prayer of thanks that due to his diligence most of the population of north west England wasn't killed, and the land left unusable for many many years, and think on that we humans are very far from infallible. It is reckoned the chimneys should be dismantled and the remaining radioactive material safely disposed of in this year, 2015, but I think it's behind schedule. The Professor deserves ongoing recognition for saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people with his "follies".

 

http://www.sellafieldsites.com/2013/09/iconic-windscale-chimney-opened-for-first-time-in-17-years-as-clean-up-work-leaps-forward/

 

I will raise a pint to him tonight, not that I need much of an excuse to do such things.... ;)

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Was inside a nuclear power plant on Sunday there. Pretty eerie.

 

It's owned by EDF (Hunterston) and 80% of its profit goes to France.

 

The main fear they have is a co2 leak from the reactor as it's gas cooled (it happened at the site before, but the managed to handle it)

 

I was surprised at the level of response training the staff have at the place, and they have spent £200 million increasing their flood defence, which apparently is what caused the fail safe systems at Fukushima to pack in, all the buildings that are designed to kick in in an emergency and for example, pump in nitrogen, were flooded so nothing worked as all the computer systems were fried.

 

Interesting place right enough but I was glad to leave!

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One of my major client's Senior design/development Engineers has recently gone to work for Sellafield/Windscale, the bloke is off his f**king trolley.

Once he did us a test video for us of him doing 'drop tests' on 300 bar SCBA cylinders in a nearby playground as his companies H&S wouldn't allow the test on site !!! :D

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One of my major client's Senior design/development Engineers has recently gone to work for Sellafield/Windscale, the bloke is off his f**king trolley.

Once he did us a test video for us of him doing 'drop tests' on 300 bar SCBA cylinders in a nearby playground as his companies H&S wouldn't allow the test on site !!! :D

 

My sort of bloke!

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A little boast about Sellafield/Windscale that I have; my grandad commissioned the place. He was in charge of allowing the place to open for business so to speak, but at the time it was more so that it could produce elements for our nuclear weapons program with electricity for the public as a by-product.

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