Re: Water
Not necessarily the construction companies, but the governments and regulation bodies who set the rules, certainly.
There is a running joke in the nuclear industry that the ONR, NDA, UKAEA, IAEA and AWE are 2/3 staffed by CND fifth-columnists. (and I say the CND is staffed by oil industry fifth-columnists.)
With the rules that come out of those regulators, it's easy to see why people say that: The ONR refuses to set a safe limit on radiation emissions from nuclear plants, knowing full well that physics means that gamma rays can't be completely 100% shielded by any depth of concrete - it sets a wishy-washy principle known as "ALARA" (As Low As Reasonably Achievable") which creates a ratchet-effect of stacking safety factor on top of safety factor, only ending when the project is at the edge of feasibility. (they specifically exclude cost as a factor in deciding whether something is reasonably achievable or not)
They also use a completely daft model (the so-called Linear No-Threshold model) for estimating harm caused by radioactive release to the environment. It assumes that any radioactive material spread over the earth, however diluted it is, is just as likely to kill someone as if it were in concentrated form. That's complete nonsense - all the scientific research says that radiation is only dangerous above a certain threshold (as with sunburn), and below that, DNA in cells is able to repair itself. There's even some evidence to say that this process of DNA repair is beneficial to health. After all, life has always had low doses of radiation in the background.. Modern chemicals and nanoparticulates not so much, but no such extreme regulation applies to other industries which pollute the environment on a horrendous scale. (see this book by two pro-nuclear greenpeace activists: https://climategamble.net/)
As a result, you have utterly daft situations whereby the nuclear operators end up spending billions and making their emissions way below background levels just for someone to come along and suggest a new and very expensive way of reducing them even further, and they are legally obliged to delay their project while they report on whether it is reasonable for them to implement it. Meanwhile the fossil fuel industry emits more radioactive material (though trace amounts of Radon in the billions of tonnes of Oil, Gas and Coal that they burn through each year) than the entire history of Nuclear Fission. Accidents and bombs included!
I used to work for UKAEA at Culham - they once declared a major incident after someone brought in a gas lamp mantle - it was far more radioactive than any of the sources they were allowed to use.. Their sensors would register a spike if you went too close with a bag of Brazil nuts.
According to the dosimiter badges, the staff on site who receive the highest ionising radiation doses are those who work on the security gate, because they catch more cosmic rays than those inside the building.. If you accidentally bring your dosimiter badge with you when you go on a long-haul flight, it will be picked up by Health Physics and you may not be allowed on site because you have exceeded your radiation dose.. Cabin crew receive thousands of times higher doses than nuclear workers are permitted to take. It's utter madness. That is why nuclear is so expensive, the regulations are stacked against it.
That's also one of several reasons why it's so much cheaper and quicker to implement in China...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
