On 1st
March last week in London at a great nuclear exports jamboree, the so-called “Civil Nuclear Showcase 2017,” the British trade minister Gregg Hands stressed:
• “we will enter into new trade agreements that will
allow our nuclear programme to excel…. The UK will become the leading
international partner of choice in the civil nuclear field – exporting our
expertise right across the nuclear life cycle and right across the world. We will do this by seizing the global
opportunity out there, harnessing the UK’s world leading capability.”
• In the next 13 years, the overseas market for
building new reactors will be worth £930 billion across 30 countries, and
around £250 billion will be spent on decommissioning old ones. In fact by 2030,
the UK will be sizing a potential export market of £240 billion.
• And finally government, and in particular my
Department for International Trade, will double-down on our support to ensure
the UK’s nuclear sector continues to grow.
• He added, incredibly: “The UK is rightly guided by our international
non-proliferation obligations in relation to exporting nuclear-related items.”
(UK
trade promotions minister, Greg Hands’ speech at the Civil Nuclear Showcase
2017,
UK Department for International Trade, www.gov.uk/government/speeches/greg-hands-speech-at-the-civil-nuclear-showcase-2017)
Mr Hands also
asserted :
“Our world
class nuclear supply chain capability is the product of over 60 years of
experience and research.It started with Calder Hall in Cumbria in 1956 – the
world’s first civil nuclear programme. From this strong base, UK industry has
plans for new nuclear reactors amounting to up to 18 gigawatt of new capacity
over the coming years.”
The trouble
with high flown rhetoric is it is based on fake facts.
Calder
Hall nuclear plant was built asa
plutonium production facility to provide
nuclear warhead exlosives for the British atomic bomb programme, with
electricity production as a spin-off.
In fact it was clearly
stated at the time of the plant’s opening, in a remarkable little book entitled
Calder Hall: The Story of Britain’s First Atomic Power Station - written
by Kenneth Jay, and published by the Government’s Atomic Energy Research
Establishment at Harwell to mark Calder’s commissioning in October 1956 – in which
Mr Jay wrote:
“Major plants built for
military purposes such as Calder Hall are being used as prototypes for civil
plants . . . the plant has been designed as a dual-purpose plant to produce
plutonium for military purposes as well as electric power . . . it would be
wrong to pretend that the civil programme has not benefitted from, and is not
to some extent dependent upon, the military programme."
To co-incide with the
jamboree last week to de facto promote nuclear proliferation, the government issued
brochure titled ‘Nuclear in the Northern
Powerhouse’, which includes a section headed ‘Where civil nuclear began
and continues to flourish,’ which reads
in part:
“From the start of
the industrial revolution, to the first artificial splitting of the atom in
1917, to the isolation of graphene in 2004, the North of England has always
been at the forefront of science and technology. And this combination of
pioneering spirit, bold ingenuity and manufacturing know-how is still evident
in the region’s dynamic and growing civil nuclear power sector.
In fact, the world’s very first civil nuclear
programme began in the Northern Powerhouse, marked by the opening of Calder
Hall power station, close to Sellafield in West Cumbria, in 1956.
Nowhere else in the world can boast the civil nuclear history of the Northern
Powerhouse. And the lessons learnt from our pioneering programmes – and
developments since – are what make us both world leaders and the epicentre
of the UK’s expertise. Today, the
Northern Powerhouse is using all this experience and expertise to make nuclear
power safer, more efficient and more purposeful in a fast-changing world.”
(my emphasis)
It thus repeats the
same false fact, describing it as a fact!
Campbell Kier
is the Department for International Trade representative on the Nuclear
Industry Council -described by the Nuclear Industry Association, which co-chairs
the council with energy minister (Jesse Norman) as “the main body to facilitate
co-operation between the nuclear industry and Government. Its overarching role
is to tackle long-term challenges facing the industry and to help realise
future opportunities through strategic decision making.”
I wonder whether
his expert colleagues on the
cheerleading Nuclear Industry Council could start educating him on the false facts on nuclear history
being spread by his department
Calder Hall, opened
by the Queen in 1956
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