BBC Inside Science Nuclear Waste Podcast Kicks Off With a Big Fat Lie - Fact Check!?

Listen to BBC Inside Science Here

When a member of Radiation Free Lakeland's facebook group shared the BBC podcast above I inwardly groaned.

Reporting from the BBC which holds the newly "green" nuclear industry to account has been in short supply and this was no exception despite the promising headline.

The podcast kicked off with some big fat lies about nuclear being low carbon (radioactive carbon it produces in spades) and stating that "Sizewell C will produce 7% of the UKs energy needs." "Inside Science" is the arbiter of truth for many people including Cumbrian politicians who have repeated these lies. Sizewell C would only produce 2% of the UKs energy needs - an amount that could easily be saved by insulating houses. What the podcast presenter should have said was that Sizewell C may produce up to 7% of the UK's ELECTRICITY - rather different from ENERGY and a big fat lie that the nuclear industry likes to promote.

Professor Claire Corkhill did reveal some home- truths about nuclear such as reprocessing produces a net result of more hazardous waste and that low level waste does not equate to low hazard "it is still hazardous." When the interviewer asked Professor Corkhill if digging a big hole for nuclear waste was expensive the reply was that 'its the right thing to do and it means that future generations won't have the expense.' This is the mantra that the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management like to promote as a truism. It is the wrong thing to do and denies future generations the ability to protect themselves from nuclear waste. Professor Corkhill was appointed to the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management ( CoRWM) in January 2020. Mark Kirkbride the CEO of West Cumbria Mining was appointed to CoRWM in November 2019 and has been putting together costings for the digging of a big hole or two. The total cost of decommissioning is around £132 Billion and counting. The eyewatering amounts of money are the very least of the bottomless Bill that this and future generations will be picking up from the nuclear experiment in any event.