IN APRIL last year over a thousand people gathered at three nucicar sites (Windscale, Cumbria; Sizewell, Suffolk;
and Torness, East Lothian) in support of rallies organised by Friends of the Earth and the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (Scram). On a rainy Sunday afternoon in July, perhaps as many as 3,000 people attended a meeting on the shores of Loch Doon in Ayrshire, to express their opposition to the UK Atomic Energy Authority's (UKAEA) plans to test the suitability of nearby mountain for the disposal of long-lived radioactive waste.
Such events are in sad contrast to the tens of thousands of demonstrators who are protesting with increasing regularity at nuclear sites in Europe, such as Creys-Malville in France, Kalkar In Germany, and eisewhere. There are several reasons why the situation here is so different. ENERGY SOURCES Britain is much more comfortably off as regards energy supply. We have substantial coal reserves, cough for perhaps 200 ycars, as well as the much-heralded breathing-space offered by North Sea Oil. In addition, because we use cnergy much more wastefully than most, there is great scope in energy saving, by methods such as comprehensive building insul. ation. Thus the officially projected • dependence on nuclear power can afford to he less ambition_ least in the short term.
We are not threatened with a very large number of new nuclear stations in the immediate future. Hence, too, ToDy Benn. the Secretary of State for Energy's, ongoing nucicar debate! There is no need to rush into SIULICS expansion in true British Fashion, we have time to pause and think. We have had time for the recently compieled 100-day Public Inquiry into British Nuclear Fuels" Windscale plans, and we will have time for the promised inquiry into the UKAEA's plans to build Britain's first commercial fast breeder reactor. Governments elsewhere, faced the imminent decline in tossi fuel and anxious to maintain and expand their economies in the traditional way, bave no time for the niceties of public debate.
People on the continent also have other important political grievances which find a focus in opposition to nuclear power. To many, subjected to more obvious suppressive measures such ax the restriction of job opportunities - the increasingly desperate insistence of the nuclear establishIDent Chal Ley must build more nuclear power stations looks bke just anorber dangerous aspect of an already socially-destructive political system.
SEILLE and villagers too are faced with the Immediate threat of a nucicar site. With a history of mass protest, these factors combine sometimes violent results.
The fact tbat the control of energy supply rests more visibly in the hands of large OTIVELS corporations, will no real interests Diner than their can. can only exacerbate the already widespread discontent aver the balance of political power. Alternative energy strategies, based on the smallscale, decentralised use of the sun, wind abd waves at least offer the possibility of a society where abe control of cnergy supply and hence our way of life, can pass from privale companies to the people at a community level. That doesn't mean of course that the adoption of renewable energy sources is bound to lead to a better and more equal society — but it would make it casier.
SIR ARNOLD WEINSTOCK With the noticeable bulk of the nuclear industry in this country (UKAEA, BNFL and Electricity Boards) state-owned, position seems superficially different. The commercial interest promoting DUCTED obscured and not easy to specify — there is room for a good expost on the subject. One instance provides an interesting indication.
In August 1972, the National Nuclear Corporation was crested.
during Tabionalisation', as tbe only reactor-building company. Half the shares wear to Sir Arnold Weinstock's General Electnic Comany (GECI which aiso assumed managerial responsibulty. The following Sir Arthur Hawkins, TEL then Chairperson of the Central Electricity Generating Board. following the advice of GEC, announced that they planned to order some 32, 1,300 megawatt Westingbouse Pressurised Water Reactors within the next ten years.
Looking back, the CEGB's plans can be seen for what they really were — a blatant attempt to increase the profits of GEC (tbey would have built all the stations) without any true relerence to social or energy needs. Fortunately an unlikely from the South of Scotland Electricity Board, some trade unions and Frieads of the Earth Forced the CEGB 10 abandon its grandiose plans. Its distinctly grudging магив ошноае іле Drax coal-fired scation in Yorkshire carber this year is in startling enthusiasm.
There is an important difference of attitude towards nuclear power in the labour movement in various countries. the broadly-based alliance Australian trade-unionists and environmentalists has led the campaign against the miniog and export of Australia's extensive uranium reserves. There are two things you can do with uranium -enrich it and put it in atomic bombs, or put it in nuclear power stations. Neither use, they argue, is compatible with a safe and, peaceful world. Uranium ship ments have been the target of trade union hoycotts and increasingly angry protests. The Australian Labour Parly, backed by the unions, is now committed to a refcrendumt on uranium mining. the results of which, it has warned, could cause it not to honour contracts made by the Fraser Liberal Government.
In France, workers at the Cap-la-Hague Reprocessing Plant (the French Windscale) are very critical of the Commissariat De L. Energie Atomique and its safety standarda. The CFDT union confederation has made month study of the plant and i calling for it to be shut down while necessary improvements are made. It has also come out against th reprocessing of foreign spent fuel the central source of controversy al Windscale lo Britain the majority of established trade unions has not set seen through the industry's argument that muclear means more jobs. In fact, If one is looking to create job opportunities, nocicar power is perhaps the most stupid and expensive method of so doing. On average it costs about 450,000 to create one industry, compared with E100,000 in advanced petro-chemical Jodustries, £20,000 in conventional mass production, and f4,000 in small-scale nology. Indeed, it has been strongly argued that to invest beavily in nucicar development, given its very high capitalintensity. would bleed other more socially desirable sectors, such as health and welfare, and thus actuany cause bacogupymici LUCAS AEROSPACE However, some initiatives associled with the Environment and Resources Association (SERA, Street, London WIV 3DG), are breaking new ground, The now famous Lucas Acrospace Combine Shop Stewards Committee, realising the limited future of many of the high-technology. detence-connected projects. on which they were working, and impelied by fear of redundancy, in 1975 produced a 'Corporate Plan', which they prescoted to tbe management as their view of how Lucas Aerospace shoule diversify.
In the plan, out of a total of 150 proposals, they recommended further work on abour 40, in the areas of oceanics. telechiric machines, transport systems, braking systems, alternative enerly sources and medical equipment, Such technologies would, the combine believed, be compatible with their existing skills and plant, and be more socially USCEL. They LUVE achieved some successes the management at the Burnley plant have agreed to produce prolotype heat-pumps — but tbere is still a long way to go. In some ways, it is beginning to insist not just on the right to work, but for the right to work on socially useful products. In so doing they are explicitly aware of the implications "We believe that scientists, engineers and workers in Lose industries have profound responsibilicy to challenge the underlying assumptions of largeright to use their skill and ability in the interest of the community at large. In saying that, me recognise that this is a fundamental challenceto many ofthe economic and ideological assumptions of our society. ('Lucas, An Alternative Plan IWC Pamphlet No 54)
Many of the ШВіОЛ leaders involved in the Lucas Combine wanted to object at the Windscale Inquiry, but were unable to, as they bad to toe the line of their national union.
After a while one gets the feeling there is something in about the nuclear dehate in Britain thal scare arom cocones -feeling that we must be alright, because we're British — American reactors mighi be unsafe, but ours are British-designed and built, and our industry is fully controlled by democratic processes ete m Hence anti-nuclear arguments have tend to concentrate on Ponies and be Ene comple social argument against the 'plutonium economy based on last breeder reactors, to the detriment, perhaps, of the more readily understandable, but less casily scientifically quantifiable risks of socidents and leakage of radioactive materials.
A contributory factor is the very poor access to information in Britain. We have an Official Secrets Act and no Froodom of Information Act. The Nuclear lostallations Inspectorate, the independent government reeulatory body. have only just begun to let the public sec tbe results of some of their studies. If American evidence is anything to po by, the more tise publie knows about safety, the more it worries.
But unquestioning confidence in the British Nuclear Industry is beginning to be croded, especially in Scotland. The South of Scotland Electricity Board roused the ire of the Orcadians last year, when they persuaded some landowners to agree to uranium prospecting. What the landowners didn't realise is that the contract they had signed also gave the SSEB an option to mine the uranium Protest on the island rose to a crescendo with ao unprecedented demonstration involving several hundred people OUTSIDE Council offices. As a result the Orkney blands Council refused permission for the SSEB even to set foot on their land.
At the other end of Scotland, the UKAEA's plans to test-drill in the Galloway bills as part of a research programme to locate a site for the long term (Le. bail' a stillion years or sol disposal of nuclear waste have met with widespread loca and national opposition. Because of the industry's initial caginess over the plans and the deep and inevitable fear caused by the awesome nature of tbe waste problem, the atlitude of objectors has hardened. The more people knew, the less they liked. It has now come to the point where the UKAEA and their representatives are simply not trusted and it is difficult to see how they are eve puing to be allowed to proceed. Contingency plans in the event of the industry mowing in are known to exist.
In the last resort public feeling about nuclear power will be t crucial factor. And the signs are that this feeling becomes not casily definable in conventional con serrationist lens, 11 runs much deeper. People do not want mere high teebobology and the alienation which it implies, - tbey especially don't want a technology tbat is unavoidably wedded to humanity's most fearsome weapon. It is the signal for tbe movement towards a new ant saner society. it in past time the movernent gained mass support in this country:
By ROB EDWARDS, chairperson of SCRAM *Thestrength of pubic opposition to maclear power is going to be shown or tied forthcoming events Friends of the Earth are orgunising to oppose the Windscale expension piars, and the Scotish Campaign to Resist the Aromic Menace 1s orgonising o moss demonstration next nuciear power station Torness Point, East Loshian, miles east of Edinburgh, on the weekend of 6-7 May 1978 Both protests need support und help Contac: Friends of the Earrh, Poland Street, London WIV3DG, 01-434 1684: SCRAM, 2 Aieslie Ploce, Edinbargh 3, 081-225 7752.
----- pull-quotes -----
against nuclear sites in Britain