When Science Loses To Emotion : Hinckley Point Nuclear Plant Sediment Is Coming To Cardiff

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I have always thought of myself as a man who accepts what science tells me. That science is there to provide the facts whatever your gut instinct tells you otherwise. Scientists have the qualifications, they have the knowledge that I do not. My interests was in books or watching sporting physical activity than Physics.

Yet when it comes to the sediment from the Hinckley Point Nuclear Plant in Somerset coming to Cardiff Bay science suddenly loses to emotion. I become the person who will scream in protest despite what science tells me otherwise. Whether it is right or wrong does not matter. It's what you think inside that wins.

Hinckley Point is the site of a new nuclear power plant. Replacing the old one that is being disused. The sediment and mud from the disused plant that it's replacing is going to be disposed of a mile outside Cardiff Bay.

Now Science in the form of Natural Resources Wales who have done tests tells us not to worry. Perfectly acceptable results they will say. Now move along please.

Of course they may be right, no they are probably right....but...

Emotion tells me....no nags into me...something different.

What (emotion will ask me) if science is wrong? Or, as has been suggested, the tests are inadequate?

Then you would have the situation that radioactive waste has been dumped on Wales in the same way that criminals are being dumped on Port Talbot if the proposed super prison is built. This is the impression that's being given. Rubbish that Westminster does not want England to handle? Toss it over the Severn Bridge?

If the science is wrong/inadequate then you will have this dumped mud endangering the coastline not just of Cardiff but also nearby Barry Island and Porthcawl.

And what if the science is really wrong? What if there's a possibility that it endangers not just the environment but the lives of people as well? This is being dumped not in an isolated spot where there lives one man, his dog and a flock of sheep but near the capital city of Wales, Along  the coastline there are places such as the aforementioned Barry Island and Porthcawl where people come for breaks or days out by the sea.

Emotion tells me that this isn't right.

And if you tell me that I should just accept the science and shut up. I'd ask you this. Would you take the sediment where you live?

Bet you'd get emotional then.

Until the next time.