The UK’s stated intention to leave the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) – revealed last month in explanatory notes to the government’s bill authorising Brexit – understandably raised a few eyebrows. And with 543 readers responding to our poll on the topic it’s clearly an emotive issue for many in the engineering community.
The treaty – which was signed in 1957 – establishes a common market in nuclear goods, services, capital and people within the EU and includes co-operation agreements with countries including Canada, Japan and the USA. It facilitates UK participation in long-term research and development (R&D) projects, and also provides a framework for international nuclear safeguard compliance.
Numerous experts have warned that leaving the treaty could have a range of negative impacts for the UK: from putting its nuclear new build plans into limbo once again, to undermining the UK’s world-leading position in the development of fusion energy.
We asked readers which of these impacts they were most worried about, or whether they felt the UK had the expertise to go it alone.
70 per cent of our respondents felt that the decision would be in some way negative for the industry, with 50 per cent of those who voted singling out its impact on fusion research as the biggest area of concern.
This was reflected in a number of the comments we received. Peter Thomas, for instance, described the decision as “Another example of short termism, the curse of long term projects.”
The next largest response group, 18 per cent of those who voted, selected the one optimistic option on offer, and felt that the UK has the strength to go it alone. However, those commenting on the poll were not so convinced. Nick Cole suggested that whilst we might have the technical know-how we don’t have the “financial imagination and political support”, whilst Ian Bennett describes this notion as a “Brexicidal fantasy.”
The next largest group, 15 per cent of respondents, were concerned that the decision could impact nuclear new build plans, whilst 12 per cent selected “none of the above”. The smallest proportion of those voting (5 per cent) felt that safety concerns were the biggest issue.
yea gods, the fox is in charge of the hen house – what blithering idiot made that decision?
Think Brian Cox about sums it up
“Terrifically stupid ….. myopically parochial idiocy.”
Unfortunately we now have idiots governing us, from Downing Street to the Whitehouse, sense reasoning and logic no longer has a place in politics, just sound bites and grunts of the Neanderthals now in power.
PS. Apologies to any real Neanderthal that might still walk amongst us, I’m sure you are a lot more intelligent than those in Downing street and the Whitehouse!
If we ever needed any proof that Brexit is mainly ideological, this is it.
Well as we all live in a post industrial nuclear free society this should not cause a problem, should it?
Must agree with the post industrial part, thanks to the Thatcher woman (Ipswich alone had five large engineering companys, some with world-wide exports). All went under her Queen of Misrule reign, but not sure whether above remark is sardonic or not
As ever, trying to put into mere words (laws?) simply just does not match the reality: and neither do those that ‘trade-in’ and exist to manipulate such have any understanding of what they are unleashing: tipping point? Yes, indeed.
Where is the evidence that the UK can ‘go it alone’? Yet another corollary of Brexicidal fantasy.
I’m sure that, as with many other issues, when the dust has settled and everybody involved starts talking common sense, compromises that lead to those inside the EU and Britain being able to carry on collaborating to their mutual benefit will emerge. In the end, business and economics will win, not politics.
1. At the rate events are unfolding, will the dust ever settle?
2. If (not when) it does, do you really believe everybody involved will start talking common sense?
IMHO the “UK industry has the expertise to go it alone” option should have been “All of the above”, and I would have selected it. As it is, I can’t pick just any one of these radio buttons.
The article fails to explain the decision to leave was there a valid reason or is this bean counters making short term cash savings, like not paying the rent so we can party more?
Further proof yet again that there are no politicians in Government with an engineering or physics background.
We have the technical and imaginative expertise to go it alone, but we do not have the financial imagination and political support which is absoluetly essential. Bean counters rule negatively in our country.
As an engineer by profession and a scientist by conviction, I don’t believe that nuclear fusion can be a practical way to generate power, until some technological ‘miracle’ eventually takes place .
Since we are not able to replicate those temperatures and pressures which enable nuclear fusion inside the sun, I believe that the JET fusion programme is just an expensive pipe dream.
Until we are able to achieve reliable and cost-effective renewable energy generation, let us in the UK invest in better, cleaner nuclear fission reactors, and in better ways of dealing with the disposal and storage of nuclear waste.
Pragmatism should always take precedence over just wishing and hoping.
Most ITER participants are not Euratom members – China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the USA, although how long the last of these will stick around is anyone’s guess. But the USA has never been a committed participant in international ventures. (Anyone remember Spacelab.) Everything has to be done on its terms. Fission is more an issue when Euratom is concerned.
Unbelieveable, There has been much talk of post brexit trade deals and here we have one that they want to withdraw from?! Heaven preserve us from Politicians and bean counters. Another example of short termism, the curse of long term projects and research. I’ve just listened to a Radio 4 article on it which said that this falls under EU jurisdiction despite the fact that the EU as it is now did not exist, are they really sure that this is correct? Especially as the agreement reaches well beyond the EU anyway
From what I have read in the Financial Times the decision to leave Euratom was based on the fact that the European Court of Justice (the ECJ) has ultimate control over Euratom policies, and the ECJ is in turn controlled by the EU. This state of affairs proved unacceptable to the UK Government.
I never understood the term “Inselaffen” used by some Germans. But I’m getting there.
The possible use of fusion, practical or not, cannot be underestimated. Even as it seems, it is the most difficult road as far as R&D is concerned, it would be foolish to block or hinder the work currently being done. A way must be found to keep the co-operation going for this vital investigative process, even if in the end it proves futile, not to try would shame our future.
I could be wrong but my understanding is that the convoluted nature of the EU treaties makes it impossible to stay in Euratom once we have withdrawn from the EU. It was not always so but I fear that this is now the de facto end point (unless something different is negotiated post article 50 being triggered).
Time to dispel some myths about nuclear fusion reactors.
Myth 1: Fusion reactors burn the same fuel as the Sun. Wrong – the sun burns proteum (H-1) but reactors (and bombs) use a mixture of deuterium(H-2) and tritium(H-3).
Myth 2: Fusion reactors run on seawater. Wrong – tritium has to be made from lithium.
Myth 3: Fusion reactors would mean we could shut down our fission reactors. Wrong – we would still need fission reactors to turn lithium into tritium.
Myth 4: Fusion reactors generate no nuclear waste. Wrong again – as well as the fission reactors above, the containment vessel is highly irradiated and so poses problems at decommissioning.
So, I’m with Norm here. Why waste more money on a technology that has delivered nothing for 40 years, when we have ever-improving solar cells, plus wind and wave generators, using the fusion power from the sun?
Myth 1 … nuclear weapons use very little tritium, the primary reaction is D-D
Myth 2 – correct
Myth 3 – Fission .. tritium. The fast neutrons from the D-T reaction, carry some 80% of the energy out of the reaction vessel. This would likely be captured by a Lithium blanket, generating heat and breeding more tritium for the reaction.
Myth 4- valid to a point, however the amount of radioactive material and its half-life is likely orders of magnitude less than generated via fission.