Nuclear Futures?
So, in the same way that nuclear pasts, presents and futures are forever intertwined, the same could also be said of Nuclear Information Centre future projects.
Information last updated - Thu 24 Oct 2024
Test of Public Support.
Even if a suitable site is identified for a GDF, it must still pass a test of public support before construction can proceed.
Test of Public Support is conceived as a sculptural installation comprising a set of polling booths, one for each of the current GDF Community Partnerships where you are invited to cast your yes or no “vote” (but on what basis?). A “Test of Public Support” is the planned culmination of the first phase of any GDF (Geological Disposal Facility) siting process and the mechanism by which a final decision will be made as to whether or not a GDF will be built within the Community Partnership area boundaries. Assuming any or all the current Community Partnerships get to this stage, any test of public support may not happen for another 25 years or so which also means any community that exists as of now will have been potentially subject to a generational change by the time a test of public support is reached. Another thing that is unclear is what happens if no Community Partnership ever passes a test of public support and a willing community is never found. This is a question I have asked in person to representatives of Nuclear Waste Services but no clear answer was forthcoming. Another way of asking this would be “What are the alternatives if the consent-based approach fails?” Also, what are the parameters that would define consent (or support) in the first place and how are these to be decided?
For information, Nuclear Waste Services official guide on Community Guidance can be found here.
Living on the Edge (Closed circuit loop(s) of Aldermaston).
An experiment in documentation and non-documentation, consisting of a single but continuous walk around the edge of the AWE Aldermaston site, staying as close to the perimeter fence as possible without officially trespassing: on the outside looking in. The concept would be for the walk to be deliberately unanounced and undocumented on my part but to see if it results in any engagement with the MOD police. Whatever happens, this would be followed up by a freedom of information (FOI) request to try and find out to what extent (if any), my presence had been documented from within the site, either via camera or the written word. This project also considers edges and barriers and the interface between public and restricted access areas. What happens when we consciously explore these spaces and why? What human and non-human interractions take place? Nuclear site perimeter fences are usually wire constructions of some kind with a certain seethroughness so to some degree we can also pass beyond the fence with our senses which simultaneously situates us both outside and inside.
Water.
Visits to Faslane (Clyde Naval Base) and Sellafield in 2022 started me thinking more broadly about the importance of water in relation to nuclear activity. Of course, water is essential to all life but in terms of nuclear processes it is heavility relied upon and forms a continuous link between between all areas of the nuclear cycle. From uranium mining to plant cooling systems, steam generation, underwater weapons systems and spent fuel storage ponds. Interestingly, it is only at the very end of the nuclear cycle with the ultimate disposal of highly radioactive waste that water becomes undesirable in terms of the risk it presents to the tramsmission of radio nuclides through ground water. Recent offshore seismic surveying carried out as part of the Mid and South Copeland GDF siting processes are also a source of future research and making.
Number of Days until next Information Release.
A phyisical installation comprising a wall-mounted LED digital display board containing the text “Number of days until next information release” and a non-functioning (blank) digital counter which is intentionally either not powered or simply not working/broken. Its not clear which. Either way the reading is blank so there is no number. We don’t know when the next information release is due, other than it may be coming at some point (or perhaps never). It is also a potentially energy saving device as the board is not required to be powered. Digital information boards are regular fixtures at industrial sites and offices, disseminating much needed empirical data.
Four-a-side or more-a-side nuclear football?
Inclusive and accessible friendly football matches or just informal kick-arounds both within a gallery setting or in external public spaces. Gallery spaces to be marked out as a nominally recognisable football pitch with white lines and goals. The objective is to create a fun way in which to highlight and critically engage with the ongoing consent-based GDF siting process to find a location for the permanent disposal of the UK’s most highly radioactive nuclear waste. NIC information sheets could accompany each “event” or installation. These could even be in the form of large scale wall installations or perhaps travelling billboards/posters on the subject of Geological Disposal. The project could also include informal or more structured round-table discussions or events on the subject, hosted by the Nuclear Information Centre, perhaps inviting representatives from Nuclear Waste Services and other external organisations?
Gallery-based iterations of this project could also include audio elements.
Note: The “pitch” does not have to be a regular rectangle so in theory can be installed within any available gallery space. Also there could be multiple goals, one representing each GDF community partnership.
Remember: The initial approach to Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), who are overseeing the GDF siting process on behalf of the UK Government/Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), can come from a single individual with no requirement to identify a specific site at the outset.
Nuclear Safety is our Overriding Priority.
Carve a scale version of a UK Trident nuclear warhead out of granite.
EDF displays one of these granite carved blocks in public view outside each of their UK sites. Of course, these relate specifically to the civil nuclear industry but given the UK’s civil and military activities have been historically interwoven, what if we were to apply the same message to the UK’s nuclear weapons programme(s)? We are officially informed and would very much hope Defence Nuclear Material (DNM) is being handled safely but what if we think about the safety of nuclear weapons within a broader context? Do concepts of safety become more slippery? How responsible is it to intentionally create and use such weapons of mass destruction as we have seen through the US/Allied bombings of Hiroshima and Nagaski and the subsequent decades of nuclear weapons testing? Only 9 countries globally are known to be nuclear weapons states (NWS). Are we all safer because these 9 countries have nuclear weapons? Does this make these 9 countries somehow more responsible than any other non-nuclear weapons state?
Perhaps use green granite? Green Granite was the codename for the warhead/bomb design used in the UK’s Operation Grapple Pacific Island weapons tesing programme that took place in 1957-8. These were the UK’s last atmospheric weapons tests prior to the international moratorium that came into effect in October 1958. Nevertheless, the legacies of the UK’s nuclear weapons testing programmes still remain.
Elemental Writing.
Text-based laboratory experiments on an atomic level, exploring the textual, sculptural and performative possibilities of working with the periodic table of elements in a way that is strictly rules based yet with vast scope for experimentation and creativity.
Elemental Writing involves forming words, poems or text constructed entirely of chemical element symbols. These could be existing words or made up words or a combination of both which can then be arranged as you like. You can look to bring meaning to your text or you can simply just enjoy the visual nature of the written words or how it sounds when spoken or read.
Additionally, as each element has a corresponding atomic number all text will have an equivalent numeric version which can be deployed or not, like secret nuclear codes perhaps...
Elemental Writing workshop @ The Wilson Art Gallery & Museum, Cheltenham (14 Aug 2024).
Vitrified Nuclear Football.
Vitrify one of my Nuclear Footballs. Designed to bring a physical presence to the debate around the long-term disposal of high-level radioacive waste. We don’t ever get to see vitrified waste even though the process is designed to lock-away the radioactivity within a solid glass matrix and thus nominally safe. However, the cost of producing this work may be prohibitive so perhaps one for the future, if at all.
The NIC Future History Series.
An ongoing series of sculptural publications combining nuclear-related subject matter with physical material properties. Volume one will be a 4-page book on Geological Disposal in the UK. Comprising lead sheet pages it also has alpha and beta radiation shielding properties.
Soft Trident.
This is a life size (in length) “soft” version of a UK/US Trident 2 D-5 missile contructed from a single sheet of hoticultural fleece . At 13.42m long (6.62m circumference), the UK arms each of its Trident missiles with up to 5 x 100 kiloton nuclear warheads, each one represented here by a single knot. The UK currently deploys up to 8 x Trident missiles and 40 warheads at any one time as part of its submarine based “Continuous at sea (nuclear) deterrent”.
In 2016, the UK Parliament voted to renew the Trident system which also includes building 4 x new Dreadnought class nuclear submarines and the development and manufacture of new warheads in time.
Whilst the dimensions of this piece are based on hard, empirical data the softness of this version offers an alternative to the missile’s destructive power. Now rendered militarily useless and floppy it becomes more tactile than tactical. However, the 1:1 scale acts a literal device through which to draw the viewers attention to the physicality of UK’s nuclear ‘deterrent’. On the whole, Trident remains largely hidden from sight and arguably out of mind, shrouded by security and secrecy. Arguably, the immediate post Cold War politcal landscape also created the conditions for nuclear weapons to begin to fade from public consciousness, despite the fact that they have always remained in the hands of all existing nuclear weapons states. However, with the increasing geopolitical tensions of recent years, this trend has been definitively thrown into reverse. By bringing the subject of nucler weapons firmly out into the open, Soft Trident has the potential to stimulate debate and discussion on the subject and also to highlight the UK’s current position as just one of nine nuclear weapons states globally..
A more provocative installation of this piece would be to throw it across the road in front of an apporaching nuclear warhead convoy, police ‘stinger’ operation style.
Soft Trident could be hung individually or also as a series of 8 (as per my Ghost Trident). A hanging system would need to be devised. Possibly involving some sort of noose system as if to imagine the public execution of Trident having been judged guilty of potential state-sanctioned mass destruction.
A Multi-Barrier Approach.
Temporary Heras (or equivalent) fencing structures: exploring concepts and configurations of physical,sensory and metaphorical barriers within a nuclear context.
The Toxic Archive.
The Toxic Archive is a NIC exhibit exploring speculative entanglements between radioactive waste and museum collections. Fusing fact and fiction, the archive time travels back and forth, creating part engineered, part haphazard encounters with real and imagined objects whilst simultaneously raising questions around curatorial selectiveness and cultural heritage.
Bentonite Burial Charms (Half-life Afterlife).
Small handmade charms (or grave goods) made out of bentonite clay, designed to accompany buried radioactive waste inside a future Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) as we send it onto its half-life afterlife.
Bentonite clay will be used as a backfill material surrounding deposited radioactive waste packages inside a GDF and forms one of the engineered barriers as part of a wider, multi-barrier approach.
These charms may take any form and are designed to be made by human hands but with the intention they will never be seen and subsumed back into the earth as non-visible markers or our human-generated radioactive waste. However, they can also function as objects to stimulate conversation around the management and care for the nuclear waste we have generated in pursuit of energy, power, threat and violence and how it will ultimately outlive us all. Another important facet of this project is that I have little experience of working with clay so it will also be an experimental exercise in working with and learning from others.
These could be presented in a variety of ways, One idea could include mapping out the floor as a schematic GDF with the charms spaced out and placed at regular intervals to echo the locations of the deposited future waste packages. Perhaps visitors/audience could place their own markers in the designated spaces?
What is a GDF? or perhaps an alternative title: At One with the Waste.
A physical archive of human generated nuclear activities?
A burial chamber but one in which radioactive waste is buried “alive”?
An future archaeological site but one we hope no one will ever unearth?
A radioactive mycelium? (a series of tunnels and vaults spreading out underground interspersed with containers of radioactive material that may disperse their radionuclides back up to the surface in time). The best possible solution for our radioactive waste problem?
Technical questions.
Where is the excavated rock stored during the “construction” process?
What then happens with this “spoil”?
Does it become a commodity or is the intention to re-introduce it back into the host rock at the end? How much and what type of bentonite will be required as buffer material? How much copper and steel will be required to package the waste before internment? Where will these materials be sourced from?
The siting process. We are officially told geological disposal is the internationally agreed, best possible solution to the radioactive waste “problem”. The UK Government is now seeking to implement a GDF through Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), a subsidiary of the government owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
To what extent is the GDF siting process truly based on volunteerism and consent?
How is the process initiated?
What is a community?
What are the parameters of the ultimate test of public suppport that will define consent? Can consent be passed from one generation to another? The current GDF process is now almost 6 years and only 4 community partnerships have formed with nearly 3 years since the most recent (Theddlethorpe). Are there any more in the pipeline?
Exploring the Process.
***Nuclear Information Centre Press release - 21 January 2024***
Since 2018 a government led process, administered by Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) has been underway in England and Wales to find a “suitable site and willing community” to host a Geological Disposal Facility or GDF for the permanent containment of the UK’s most hazardous, high-activity radioactive waste.
The current GDF siting process follows a consent-based model, similar to those followed by Finland and Sweden and can be initiated by a group or even a single individual who may suggest a potential site or area for consideration.
Behind the scenes activities and talks then take place over an undefined timescale between the interested party, the local authority and NWS (the developer) which may or may not lead to opening the process up to wider public engagement. If this happens, a working group must be formed and geographical parameters agreed. The initial working group may then go on to form a Community Partnership at which point government funding of up to £1 million per year becomes available for the local area.
To date, four Community Partnerships have formed (Mid Copeland, South Copeland and Allerdale in West Cumbria and Theddlethorpe in East Lincolnshire) although Allerdale was withdrawn by NWS in October 2023 citing unfavourable geology.
It is NWS policy not to reveal details of any ongoing initial discussions so we don’t know which, if any other areas are currently engaged in talks but what if the Cheltenham and Gloucester area was put forward as a possible host region with Gloucestershire Airport suggested as a potential site?
Discuss…
Update: In January 2024, a new GDF Working Group officially formed in South Holderness, on the east coast. However, this proved to be short-lived. In February 2024, the local council voted 44-1 to withdraw from the siting process with immediate effect.
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