[rerevisionist]

Extracted from an online argument. The point is that the author worked on software, and not the hardware aspects of 'nuclear power'. He only talks about simulations. The whole debate, such as it is, about nuclear weapons and power is bedevilled by these people who don't distinguish what they've worked on from the big picture. There's a never-ending stream of people whose fathers worked on the Manhattan Project, or were at a supposed nuclear test, or who visited Lawrence Livermore, or who watched TV programmes on Hiroshima, or who worked in 'decontamination', or for that matter were the first to arrive a Belsen or wherever.

When I commented on the article, I thought it best to point out that amongst the many things I have worked on during my career was the safety critical testing of the plant control software for the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor design as implemented by Nuclear Electric in the UK.

It might just be worth pointing out that when Nuclear Electric ran a test of the primary and secondary control systems against their mainframe simulation of a power station and its interfaces, the primary system - built by an american nuclear power company - utterly failed to spot that we were about to have a SERIOUS system failure whereas the secondary system assembled by my team was screaming for help and already overriding the main system and commanding a site shutdwn.

My "claim to expertise" was a statement that I have spent some years in the industry helping to design, build and test their safety systems.

Have you got that on your CV ?

I also pointed out that I spent a fair while early in my career calibrating the efficiency of water heating solar panels and measuring incident solar radiation throughout all hours of daylight for the Dept of Mechanical Engineering and Energy Studies at Cardiff Uni and at the Centre For Alternative Technology at Machyntlleth and what a bunch of rabid nutters THEY were ....

I therefore, justifiably, claim expertise in the technicalities of BOTH sides of this argument which few mouthpieces in any political party, never mind the one I currently hold a membership card for but probably won't on Monday, have.

And it is people with the expertise that I have that our mainsteam parties need, not just the one I currently belong to.

Now, it is a fact that the previous government, instead of following the french example and pouring money into nuclear to REDUCE our co2 output during operational power generation and REDUCE our dependency upon fossil fuel chose to build a sodding great pipeline across wales in violation of their own published safety standards for avoidance of encroachment of such a hazard upon existing residential areas, thus ENSLAVING this country to the arab nations that supply the LPG that will run in that pipe.

And it is a fact that the cardigan wearing tree huggers who denounce nuclear at every step do so in the firm belief that freezing to death in winter is infintely preferable than utilising the atom.

What this country needs is a PROPER evaluation of the energy producing abilities of ALL tecnnologies and a sensible investment in a mix in order to secure the future of a country free from subservience to whoever's hand holds shut the control valve on the pipeline. [Note: this sentence is absolutely right! - rerev]

And for the record, the nuclear plants in Japan withstood the tsunami. What caused the problems was that some blithering idiot decided the emergency power supplies needed to keep coolant pumping while the reactors closed down could safely be housed in a building little more than a brick shithouse. Had the emergency power plant buildings been of the standard that the main reactor was - like they were in Calder Hall when my father worked there in the days when Benn proclaimed nuclear would provide energy too cheap to meter - there wouldn't BE a japanese nuclear crisis. Think on THAT when deciding which way to direct your bile.

[FirstClassSkeptic]

"an expert is a drip under pressure"

or

"An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until, finally, he knows everything about nothing."