Leslie

It was a well produced programme and it showed the heroism of many of the employees in their efforts to subdue the problems, the army lads were put into life threatening positions too when they were clearing debris off the roofs.

We may well be forced into using nuclear power in the future when the gas runs out and if the burning of hydrocarbons is really bringing on global warming
which will eventually finish life on this planet.

I would expect that it should be possible to make nuclear power stations safe enough provided that they are prepared to spend the money on doing it. It surely must be possible to devise a method of dealing with nuclear waste in an effective and safe manner.

The problem with living on granite substructure in the West Country is the Radon gas seeping up which is bad for you.

So much in life is a risk, the thing is to work at minimising it to fit in with the priorities of the future.

Les

hades

To answer the few other questions:

Cornwall, as correctly stated, is radioactive due to a mixture of granite (which is mildly radioactive) with Radon gas (which is much more readioactive) seeping through in places.

There is cosmic radiation everywhere in the universe. On the earth's surface, this is fairly attenuated by the atmosphere (although in 6 months any of you will be getting as much dose from cosmic radiation as I did from 11 years working on nuclear power plants). When you lose many thousands of feet of atmosphere as shielding - e.g. when in an aeroplane - you get more dose from the radiation.

IIRC, Brasil has the highest background radiation of any country in the world, mostly due to its geology I believe.

Suuba - yes, the reactors were shutdown (for their bi-annual service) when we poked the robot arms inside.

hades

In answer to the one I missed, how long does fuel last in the reactor - it depends. On what type of reactor, where in the reactor the fuel is installed (shorter life nearer the centre of the core), what the load factor of the reactor is, and quite a few other things. However, in ballpark terms we're talking years for a fuel element, not days or weeks.

boomer

Firstly, i must say, an excellent docu-drama (even for Vivian)

Also, thanks to Hades for some first-hand info, but...

Tend isn't quite as strong a word as i was hoping for. In the case of something as dangerous as nuclear, i would prefer "ALWAYS"!

which could be 0.00001% fewer - not very reassuring

...and the Sun (in space, not the toilet paper) is (hopefully) going to be very radioactive for many millions of years. Horses for courses!

Maybe not clean-up, but rather brick-up?

...but they don't (yet) have to worry about house prices in Russia

The media probably do know what they are talking about, and selectively choose stuff to sell papers

mb

hades

Tend is the correct word as different reactor designs have different emergency shutdown systems. Magnox reactors ALWAYS have boron ***** and/or dust systems. PWRs (Sizewell 'B' in this country) work differently and have different diverse emergency shutdown systems, which are appropriate for the type of reactor. They ALWAYS have a system, it just isn't always boron *****/dust.

Again, depends on which reactor you're talking about. However, I believe the total temperature co-efficients of reactivity on all UK reactors are negative, and in Chernobyl they weren't. Again, I could go a long way into the physics if you were really interested, but there are bits I'd have to check up on to be certain I'd got all the detail correct if I'm going to do so.

Very true

Clean up is accurate. There are various things that are going to be done to the inside of the sarcophogus, including dealing with the material that contains fuel, before making some structural improvements; I only have first hand knowledge of a small amount of the work going on which I helped prepare a bid for several years ago

I'm not convinced many of them do, but you may be right. Doesn't really matter as what they print is what influences people.