How sate are UK atom tests"

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The UK Atomic Energy Authority recently published its annual report, describing a series of experiments which are intended to demonstrate the safety of the fast reactor-the key to British capitalism's strategy for cheap energy.

The pro-nuclear lobby will be greatly encouraged by these results when they press for the building of the commercial demonstration model of the fast breeder.

The series of experiments reported by the UKAEA is quite alarming, testing various forms of breakdown at the Dounreay research establishment.

It is claimed, for example, that UKAEA has demonstrated that it is possible for the liquid sodium coolant to come into contact with the nuclear fuel without the violent reaction which many scientists expected.

UKAEA also state that in overheating tests, the system does not run away into ever accelerating activity, but automatically slows itself down as the temperature rises.

The final series of tests are supposed to show that the reactor can stand up to a compiete failure of the coolant pump system.

But even the UKAEA admits that this test has only been tried at a fraction of the normal output level of the prototype fast reactor.

Obviously these experiments will have to be studied in much greater detail before making a policy on fast reactors, but there are important questions to be asked about the safety of the experiments themselves.

What the UKAEA failed to report is just how much damage would result from a failure of any of these tests, and how they go about calculating the odds between the commercial benefits of a successful outcome and the horrifying risks of a failure.

We are not told who has the power to authorise these tests and on what basis of information they do so.

We are not told either, about what safety precautions were taken to protect the population in the event of a disastrous "experimental" failure.

Many workers will consider that the secret practice of conducting these tests is a further consequence of rising fuel prices, pushing the Government ever faster into a nuclear development programme.

The major risks associated with these types of tests call for a policy of workers' control over the whole nuclear industry and its safety aspects in particular.

The crucial decisions must be placed in the hands of elected bodies of workers and sympathetic scientists, with full, unimpeded, access to all relevant: information, both financial and scientific.

Only on this basis can the working class allow nuclear projects to proceed.

Newham Council has voted to support a petition to Parlia. ment opposing the use of rail lines and sidings through Stratford, East London, for the transport of spent nuclear fuel.

The waste fuel is en route from power stations in various parts of Southern England to Windscale for treatment. When focal residents o became concerned, councittors began to investigate the question of powers to control nuclear traffic.

It emorged eventually that,. despite a confusing mass of regulations and safety standards. neither British Rail nor the. nuclear energy authorities were:, under any obligation to consult. Or oven inform the council about the transport of nuclear wastel Crucial decisions affecting the lives of possibly thousands of people are being made with no referenco or responsibility to any democratically elected. bboy.

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D'Yon THINK BERT'S ALL RIGHT IN THERE?