Who knew "North Ayrshire" was Scottish for "Chernobyl"

Does anyone else think re-opening this reactor might be a bad idea

Old reactor :heavy_check_mark:
Pushed beyond its designated lifetime :heavy_check_mark:
Closed for safety violations multiple times :heavy_check_mark:
Graphite core is full of cracks :heavy_check_mark:
Given permission to double allowable number of cracks :heavy_check_mark:

And just as a bonus:

In February 1997 there was concern that contaminated carbon dioxide gas from the plant had got into three road tankers and then entered the food chain via soft drinks and beers

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I concur. It’s a super bad plan.

Here’s a great documentary about the world’s first reactor meltdown, also a graphite core, which was in the North of England at Windscale. It was opened by the Queen in the guise of clean energy for the people, but was in fact secretly used to force the UK’s entry into the USA’s ‘nuclear weapons club’ by producing the plutonium for the first British Atomic and Hydrogen bombs. Short cuts imposed by the government, to meet a perceived deadline, led to the world’s first meltdown.

It’s pretty terrifying.

“Cool” spoiler : Last line in the film regarding the government of the day : “What a shower of bastards”

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If anyone was wondering - AGR-type reactors use CO2 as coolant.
Delivered in the same road tankers as the CO2 used for other purposes.

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Watching this was a times quite like watching one of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass serials from the 1950ies.

ETA (damn the max-two-posts-in-a-row rule):

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