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The effective containment of
the reactor pressure vessel explosion is clearly
a "measure for averting the risk", and the costs
of that sacrifice can be ascertained. The QUANTUM
of risk is now the total sum value of lives lost
or foreshortened; disabilities and
incapacitations; property denied, livelihoods
lost; a myriad of irreversible consequential
losses. Can we be sure that the undoubted and
generally accepted possibility of explosion of
the Sizewell 'B' reactor pressure vessel is a
risk to which the Health and Safety at Work
Etcetera Act 1974 applies?
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The risk of the Sizewell 'B' reactor
pressure vessel explosion is clearly that same
kind of risk, as was referred to by Lord Justice
Asquith, and quoted above. That risk must include
all of the consequences, and not just the effects
on a single imaginary individual. We are all
exposed to the risk of Sizewell 'B' exploding, no
matter what causes it.
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Privatized nuclear power does not pay any insurance premiums
In the Sizewell 'B' Inquiry Transcript Day
65, page 48, at G, when asked if the CEGB had
included in their cost evaluation of the UKPWR
nuclear power station, any element representing
the contribution anticipated from reactor
accidents, Mr J W Baker replied "No".
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It seems inconceivable that the cost of a
nuclear power station would even be doubled by
the cost of a demonstrably effective explosion
containment. The additional sacrifice seems
trivial in comparison with the quantum of risk
that we have recognized in the other scale pan.
Indeed, for it to be shown that there is a gross
disproportion between them - the risk being
insignificant in relation to the sacrifice - a
huge margin of additional cost yet remains. And
this is not guesswork. In terms of scale, the
accident has happened; and even if the upper
estimate mentioned above is reduced one thousand
fold (and it cannot be that far wrong!) this is
still true. During the Sizewell 'B' public
inquiry, I heard it said by a leading protagonist
that "We cannot possibly accommodate as safe as
reasonably practicable." And so it came to pass.
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