‘It’s a bribe’: the coastal areas that could become the UK’s nuclear dump
Quite so, it is. We’d like you to take one for the team – in the same way that richer folk have to pay higher taxes to support the poorer, contribute to society and all that – and here’s the compensation we’ll offer for your doing so.
Damn right it’s a bribe – now, how much would suit?
Mablethorpe beach, you say? I could cope with it being Mablethorpe town and leave the beach free for the foolhardy souls who risk their lives on it on account of the danger of being simultaneously frozen and blown away whenever the wind is in the north.
So bribe people properly:
Promises of jobs and investment are doing little to convince a remote Lincolnshire community to agree to hosting the country’s nuclear waste
Nobody’s falling for the vague “investment” scam, or “jobs” that will go to outsiders, but I bet they’d appreciate several thousand pounds of cash paid directly into the bank account of every local household. Probably cheaper than fighting endless nonsense from “campaigners”, too.
Given the theory of radiation hormesis, living near such a dump could actually be beneficial to the residents, and as such they should be competing to get such a free benefit to their health and wellbeing.
So you don’t want coal, and you don’t want gas, and now you don’t want nuclear? Then it looks like wind, solar, or nothing. And on dull calm days, that really will be nothing.
The objection to bribing communities to host radioactive waste / trunk railroads / refugee camps etc is that we can’t afford it. But we could if we had a counter-balancing system of punishing communities that prevent house building / commercial development / power stations etc.
Philip – idk if true bribery has ever been tried. Dragging planning bunfights out for years isn’t a cheap option, but otoh you might be surprised at how cheaply people will sell their “deep concerns” in exchange for some lovely pictures of Her Britannic Majesty. It’d be interesting to find out, anyway. Using the price mechanism to ensmoothen local disputes.
Sign here, please.
‘Dump’
This is a so-called quality newspaper?
Grauniad presumably prefers communities to host bird mincers on behalf of the urban rich so they can drive around in their virtue wagons?
How about free electrical energy to the local community? Now that would be a real sweetener
The figure of 700,000 cubic metres is anything but ‘high level’ nuclear waste, of which there isn’t enough to fill an admittedly large pond in a large building. It has to be low-level waste, which could include a lot of things that aren’t even radioactive at all, such as anything used the wrong side of the barrier between ‘on site’ and ‘off site’ (or whatever it is called) which I remember from a visit to Sellafield was a low wall. It could include (ha ha) covid masks discarded on the wrong side!
Anti-nuclear bollocks.
I’ve stood on top of working reactors. I’d have one in my garden, especially if it gave me cheap leccy.
Well, I live there, and I’m all for it! Excavator Man makes a good point; 99% of this ‘highly radioactive’ stuff is as dangerous as self-raising flour. As for being bribed, bring it on! Ultra-fast broadband will do for a start. I’m sure I can think of something else, given time.
Scatter it on Dungeness beach and see how the illegals like it.
I do agree with you Steve. Money in your pocket’d be a much more effective bribe than promises of jobs and investments.
I must admit I also agree with Excavator Man. 700,000 cubic metres seems a trifle high. Much like the continuing fuss about Chernobyl. While you still wouldn’t want to sleep next to the melted-down fuel, the area around the plant is not a problem, as the flourishing wildlife shows.
Excavator Man / Old Glyn are quite right. Most of the waste from nuclear plants is less radioactive than bananas. I’m yet to see customers sue Tesco for exposing them, or hear of a harvester in the tropics getting sick.
Our fear of nuclear is utterly … er … irrational.
Wouldn’t it be nice if someone were to invent a machine that could measure radioactivity, so that plant workers could triage waste, the inert going to regular bins, the stuff with a few sieverts going to specialised disposal.
For a big enough bribe I wouldn’t object to their using the field behind our garden if the geology proved suitable. Apart from anything else the bribe would presumably be based on the hysterical overestimation of the dangers of radioactivity promoted by … well, say, The Guardian for instance.
Has HMG considered using its “Nudge” unit to persuade the population that radioactivity will protect you from Covid?
@dearieme
Don’t encourage them!
If it’s “highly radioactive” then by definition it won’t be around for very long. If it’s long-lasting, then by definition it’s not highly radiactive.
If something is highly radioactive that is another way of saying it gives off radiation very quickly. Now, class, who can tell us what happens to a bucket of water that emits water very quickly? Class? Class? Yes, very quickly it *stops* emitting water.
On the contrary, if you have a bucket of water, how does it take a very long time to empty that bucket? How much water must come out if it takes ages to empty? Anybody? Beuller?
It’s not a bribe, it’s how a Pigou tax should work.
A generator of a negative externality pays those affected.
It simultaneously incentives the externality generator to minimize it while also getting those affected to be more tolerant of it. Until a new equilibrium everyone is ok with is reached.
@P said
“The objection to bribing communities to host radioactive waste / trunk railroads / refugee camps etc is that we can’t afford it. But we could if we had a counter-balancing system of punishing communities that prevent house building / commercial development / power stations etc.
”
That’d be fixed by a form of Land Value Tax then…. our esteemed host would probably tend to agree.
[dons asbestos suit in readiness for the blowback]
@Excavator man
Indeed, the single most advantageous thing about nuclear is the tiny amount of actual waste produced and the fact that it can be isolated from the environment throughout its whole life cycle. The technology for handling these small amounts of waste has been known for decades.
Lights going out might be the fetish of the anti-humanity children, and I never cease to be amazed at the way they seem to think they can impoverish everybody else yet retain their own pampered, parasitic lifestyles.
Nuclear will be built, fracking will occur and fossil fuels will remain because there really is no alternative. The next few years should be quite interesting
There are communities already living with Radon gas seeping out of the ground under their houses, who are (probably?) at far greater risk than anyone living near to this proposed site…
Good point, Dave. Just dump the stuff in Cornwall and any emissions will anyway be overwhelmed by the local background.
You could dump the stuff on top of Mt Everest, dearieme. After all, the higher up you are, the more radiation you’re getting from cosmic rays. So, as you say, you wouldn’t notice.
I don’t know if it’s true, but I have heard that a nuclear power station could not be built in Cornwall because the background radiation already exceeds the permitted limit.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all that this would be the case. Can’t be scared of nukes if the background levels of radiation are higher than the nuclear plant, can we?
As for the bribes so far in evidence:
Yeah. Get I’d tell ’em to get stuffed as well. That’s Chickenfeed.
How about all residents of the affected area pay no taxes while hosting the site? No VAT, Income Tax, PAYE, Corporation Tax or anything.
You’d have to beat people off with a shitty stick.
Now that’s a bribe.