<
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jul/20/the-day-it-goes-wrong-we-wont-know-about-it-life-next-door-to-a-nuclear-power-station>
"Rain or shine, Christiane Lamiraud, 63, likes to swim in the Channel from the
beach near her home in the village of Saint-Martin-en-Campagne, north-east of
Dieppe. From the water, it is hard to miss the Penly nuclear power station just
700 metres up the coast at the foot of the chalk cliffs, sucking in seawater to
cool its two reactors, then pumping it back out to sea a few degrees warmer.
But ignore it she does. Reports of incidents do not deter the teacher from her
daily swim. “Questions are quickly stifled here. Where there is a nuclear
industry, it’s a non-subject. It is hidden behind the cliff and we don’t talk
about it,” she says.
Like many villages and towns in close proximity to France’s nuclear plants, St
Martin-en-Campagne in the Petit-Caux district is close enough that it could be
evacuated in case of an accident. But most residents prefer not to dwell on
that, says villager Pierre Pouliquen, 45. “There is a real need for clean
energy. The problems of nuclear power aren’t hidden, but we don’t even think
about them. Even when we go to the beach, we don’t look at the power station.”
France’s enthusiastic relationship with nuclear power – it has the most plants
out of any European country – and people’s ambivalent attitudes to life in the
shadow of the plants themselves are the subject of a project by British
photographer Ed Alcock. He spent six months capturing the lives of people
living within 5km of five nuclear power stations in France, for an exhibition
sponsored by the country’s culture ministry.
Alcock, who moved to France in his 20s, was struck by what he saw as people’s
“head-in-the-sand” attitudes towards nuclear power, which marked a contrast to
his experience growing up in Norwich in the dying days of the cold war. He
remembers being sent home from school and hiding inside to escape radiation
from the 1986 Chornobyl disaster. “We spent 24 hours sitting in the house with
the doors and windows closed hoping nuclear particles weren’t coming down the
chimney,” Alcock says. “Growing up, nuclear was the thing that kept me awake at
night. I used to go to bed wondering if we’d be here in the morning."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
