SITE UNDER DEVELOPMENT AT 2nd October 2005/ 00:25
A response by a retired nuclear safety consultant, Rodney Fordham, to the invitation by the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Inquiry Calls for Evidence in 'ISSUES FOR SCOTLAND'S ENERGY SUPPLY'
Societal risk is a central factor in addressing the costs and benefits of energy supply. This note opens with a qualitative discussion of a limited sub-set of the technicalities of the safety of reactor pressure vessels against disruptive explosion. This is followed by an evidenced discussion of the societal risk and the degree of control provided by the government in the nuclear power context. The theme follows the proposition that Society needs to be protected from the risk of explosion of the reactor pressure vessel of the Sizewell 'B' nuclear power station. The societal risk from Sizewell 'B' is not properly controlled. At the present time nuclear power is being either developed or is under active consideration for development more or less throughout the world. The pressurized water reactor system is the front runner of all of the nuclear power systems under consideration, and so the Royal Society of Edinburgh is likely to be confronted with proposals in that area. This note glimpses how the societal risk of nuclear power might fare under English Law.
This document is not a review of the risks of nuclear power. It deals only with the risk of explosion during normal operation of the reactor pressure vessel of the Sizewell 'B' nuclear power station pressurized water reactor, caused by a defect or defects which may possibly occur in just one part of the slightly ductile steel fabric of that vessel. The following topics, all of which are additional possibilities, are not dealt with: failure whilst pressurized at low steel temperatures; reactor explosions; attack by molten reactor fuel; excessive operational pressure; water hammer; nearby explosions; deliberate sabotage; projectile impacts; aircraft impacts; earthquakes or subsidence; storm; or alterations to construction or operation; stress corrosion cracking; large scale corrosion by ignored leakage in service, although in some cases examples are mentioned.
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?a law library?
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Whilst this meeting, and others, were happening,
the Davis Besse reactor pressure vessel was steadily corroding
away.....
address
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26. United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority; AN ASSESSMENT OF THE INTEGRITY OF PWR PRESSURE VESSELS; Second Report by a Study Group under the Chairmanship of Dr. W.Marshall, C.B.E., F.R.S. March 1982; Volume 2; paragraph 299, page 143. Available on application from Kew Public Record Office, (Sizewell Public Inquiry Papers).
END