RE: Request for suggestion

[Ulric.Schwela@Alfred-H-Knight.co.uk]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Kent, Michael  D [SMTP:Michael.D.Kent@xcelenergy.com]
> To:	Multiple recipients of list
> 
> > I have been in the nuclear business since 1965 and I have watched the
> rise
> > and fall of popularity of nuclear power.  I don't like to pedict doom
> and gloom, but unless there is a national policy endorsing nuclear power
> and a
> > limit to utility liability combined with a strong profit motive I don't
> predict a change in opinion.
> > 
> 	I entered Nuclear Power in 1985, a relatively short time compared to
> a lot of people on this server.  When I was first going through training
> some people were questioning the viability of the future of nuclear power.
> 
> A trainer at the sight posted an article from a newspaper.  In short the
> article stated "When the average joe can no longer afford to heat his
> home, cool his beer, and watch Sunday football, nuclear power will make a
> comeback."
> 
> 	I still believe this is true.  Eventually, barring some miraculous
> discovery or breakthrough, when electric prices become so outrageous, the
> public's wallet will shut their ear's to the anti nuke rhetoric and want
> cheap reliable energy.  That is where nuclear power will come back in.
> 
> 	Maybe I'm naive, but hey, it gets me through the day.
> 
> 	Michael D. Kent
> 
	-----End Original Message-----


Just my tuppence worth...

I think Michael is more cynical than naïve, if anything - so that makes two
of us!  And at 6 months as an RPS, I must be a mere sprog in radsafer terms.
Also as an ex-member of Greenpeace I have spent time supporting anti-nukes
and anti-chemical industry, but then I ended up studying chemistry and being
trained as an RPS - that dispelled a few myths and opened a few windows!  So
in a few years I have gone from anti-nuke to pro-nuke.  I still support
environmental issues (part of RPS duties), but it has to be from an
objective point of view, not the blinkered militantism of the likes of
Greenpeace.

I may still be finding my feet with what is bad radiation and what is OK (or
dare I say good), but I certainly have no qualms now about living 10 miles
downwind of two nuclear reactors (Heysham 1&2, England).  Sounds a much
healthier proposition than living 10 miles downwind of a coal power plant!
But that doesn't mean Joe Bloggs in Heysham is worried about it - perhaps
because radiation is not "in" with the tabloids at the moment, so nobody
thinks about it and nobody worries.  People may joke about me being the
employee who glows in the dark and the Irish Sea being dead because of
Sellafield and Heysham, but it's not a topical subject.

The jokes do however show the underlying ignorance about radiation, the how,
why and wherefore.  To me just about any problem in the world boils down to
lack of education of some form or another.  Without going into a myriad of
controversial subjects, radiation is as has already been said a matter of
education.  It was for me too.  The concept of "trust" has been bandied
about, that to me is all very fine and well but is only a short-cut, a cloak
even, to compensate for ignorance (and I mean ignorance in the nicest
possible way here - as Christ Tarrant says on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire:
"you either know the answer or you don't").

Following on from that I agree with who said that the current generation is
a lost cause - yes, but simply because they are over a certain age, where
learning about and understanding radiation would be too difficult and
complicated a task for the majority.  It is pointless to dumb down such
education, because then you "sink" to the level of PR and you educate nobody
in the long run.  There has to be a minimum level of complexity, which can
of course be aided by simple simili (I like the one about radiation likened
to an electric fire - useful for demonstrating activity, the inverse square
law and for shielding principles).

Such basics will give the best "results" with a younger generation, the
question is (as someone else mentioned) who is going to go out and teach
them?  Most school teachers know no better or are not confident enough to
debunk the anti-nuke spin, or at least to stimulate proper thought on the
subject - unfortunately all the most knowledgeable radiation teachers such
as you senior radsafers are, quite rightly, all dedicated to your radsafe
careers!

So what do you do?  Where do we go from here?


Best regards

Ulric Schwela, RPS
-- 
Assistant Technical Manager
Alfred H Knight International Limited
Eccleston Grange, Prescot Road, St. Helens, Merseyside  WA10 3BQ, England.
Tel: +44-1744-733757, Fax: -762819
http://www.alfred-h-knight.co.uk/

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